1. Historical Background

The history of the old metropolis of the Province of Pontos Polemoniakos in the Ottoman period is an extreme example of how the ecclesiastical administration in Asia Minor was disorganised because of the Islamic conquest and the subsequent decline in Christian population. Furthermore, it is an extreme example of the attempt of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to reorganise the diocese by means of amalgamations and concessions of provinces. Until the 17^th century this attempt was followed by inconsistencies and occasional inability to activate ecclesiastical authorities. As a result, in some cases there was geographical inconsistency as regards the jurisdiction of the dioceses, maintained until the 20^th century. In the case of the diocese of Neocaesarea this is obvious when it comes to the area of jurisdiction, which comprised two different regions far from each other, one in Pontus and another in Paphlagonia, with the diocese of Amaseia between them.

The city and district of Neokaisareia (Nikşar) were uninterruptedly under Islamic power already from the 12^th century. The progressive decline in Christian Orthodox population (in an area where the Orthodox lived together with the Armenians) and the various problems occasionally posed by Muslim rulers made the active operation of the diocese problematic, not to say impossible, as it happened in the neighbouring dioceses of Pontus and, generally, the entire Asia Minor. This is also obvious in the incorporation of the province of Neocaesarea into the province of Amaseia in 1371,¹as evidenced in a taktikonof the time, where the diocese of Neocaesarea appears to be inactive and “its territory is held” by the metropolitan of Oungria and Plagenon.²

The incorporation of the Orthodox Church into the Ottoman institutional system after the Fall of Constantinople signals the attempts towards the reorganisation of the ecclesiastical authorities in Asia Minor. There was the intention to keep the diocese of Neocaesarea active, according to the taktikon of the Early Ottoman period (numbered 21 in Darrouzès' publication).³ However, the hypothesis of the activation of the diocese before the 17^th century is perplexed because of a series of events proving the opposite. In the berats of 1483 and 1525 including the diocesan sees, no reference is made to Neocaesarea, while a synodal resolution of 1610 mentions the election of the metropolitan of Neocaesarea in a “diocesan throne vacant for years”.⁴ Zachariadou supposes an early connection between the dioceses of Neocaesarea and Gangra to justify the absence of Neocaesarea from both berats and the inconsistency of the taktikon. She also assumes that Gangra, appearing in both berats as the see of a metropolitan, was the see of the metropolitan of Neocaesarea, thus establishing a tradition of connection between the two provinces, which was finalised when the two provinces were amalgamated in 1630. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that although in the taktikon of the Early Ottoman period Neocaesarea was in the 15^th position, in the immediately previous taktikon this position had been occupied by the diocese of Gangra, while Neocaesarea had been in the 18^th position.⁵ However, this hypothesis seems to be less probable given the evidence of 1610 about the long vacant diocesan throne of Neocaesarea and the references from the late 15^th and the early 17^th century to the metropolitans of Gangra: Dorotheos (1467), Pachomios (1499), Parthenios (1604-1610) and Daniel (1622-1630).⁶
Things seem to clear up if we assume that the taktikon of the Early Ottoman period is not dated from the late 15^th or the 16^th century but from the 17^th and, especially, from the middle of the century, which is consistent with its content. On the basis of the last hypothesis, the diocese of Neocaesarea remained inactive until 1610, while the diocese of Gangra was generally active and there was no correlation between the two dioceses. The period before 1610 is particularly dark as regards the existence of the diocese of Neocaesarea, while most of the evidence tends to support that there was no such diocese.

A definite and safe point in time to consider the start of the diocese’s history in recent years is the year 1610. The frequent references to metropolitans of Neocaesarea in the 17^th century and the fact that we sometimes can date their terms of office⁷ show that the 17^th century must have been a period when the diocese was uninterruptedly active, a fact that continued until 1923. This period provides interesting information about the economic operation of ecclesiastical institutions on the occasion of the succession of metropolitans. Metropolitan Benediktos was to resign in 1623 and his prospective successor Metrophanes had to pay the Patriarch the amount of 25,000 akçe; the same amount had to be paid by him to the outgoing metropolitan (apparently in return for the bestowal of the throne). The change would take place as soon as the outgoing metropolitan had fulfilled a previous commitment on collecting money from ziteies.⁸

When the metropolitan of Gangra acceded to the throne of Neocaesarea in 1630 the two dioceses were de facto amalgamated.⁹ The next metropolitans had the title of Gangra and Neocaesarea, although later Gangra never appeared in the diocesan title again. On the contrary, the diocesan title was renamed Neocaesarea and Ineon after the patriarchal exarchy was ceded to the province of Neocaesarea. The amalgamation of the dioceses of Neocaesarea and Gangra may have taken place for economic reasons so that the viability of at least one province could be safeguarded, since the number of Christians, especially in the province of Gangra, must have been very small. In this way, the diocese of Neocaesarea became one of the largest provinces divided into two parts far from each other, in Pontus and Paphlagonia, with the province of Amaseia between them. The size of the province continued to change because of the annexation or concession of patriarchal exarchies.

The patriarchal exarchy of Ineon was at first given to the diocese of Neocaesarea in 1680 before it was finally ceded to the same diocese in 1684. In April 1680 Patriarch Iakovos incorporated the exarchyof Ineon into the diocese of Neocaesarea, an act later ratified by Dionysios IV of Constantinople and Parthenios IV of Constantinople. It seems that the claim over Ineon and the dispute about the character of its ecclesiastical regime were particularly serious. Within three years (1681-1684) Iakovos granted Ineon to the diocese of Neocaesarea, which was ratified by Dionysios IV. However, the same Patriarch made it an exarchy again in 1684 and ceded it to two Patriarchate officers, Rallis and Andronikos. The regime of exarchywas abolished again by Parthenios IV in July of the same year and the exarchywas incorporated once again into the diocese of Neocaesarea.¹⁰ Whether the exarchy of Ineon referred to Inepolis (İnebolu) of Paphlagonia or Oinoi (Ünye) of Pontus, since both districts were later believed to be parts of the province of Neocaesarea, has not been clarified. However, it must have been Oinoi, since it is known that the metropolitan of Amaseia had illegally annexed the exarchyof Ineon to his province in 1616.¹¹ On the basis of this information, it is rather impossible that Ineon is Inepolis, which was far from the province of Amaseia; what is more, the province of the then active diocese of Gangra was between them. On the other hand, the district of Oinoi bordered the province of Amaseia.

Another patriarchal exarchy in the wider area of Pontus ceded to the diocese of Neocaesarea was formed by the so-called "villages of Meletios" in the district of Karahisar. According to the relative resolution of Patriarch Sophronios II of Constantinople issued in April 1775, the “exarchian villages of Sepil Karahisari and the quarters of Hapsamana as well as the so-called villages of Meletios” were ceded to the diocese of Neocaesarea in order to economically relieve its metropolitan.¹² It becomes clear that economic difficulties led the Patriarchate to cede some exarchies in order to support the diocese of Neocaesarea. The provision had its practical side as well. In this way, the metropolitans would be able to meet their annual economic obligations to the Patriarchate. It is also clear that the concession of exarchies contributed to the demographic growth of the diocese, for they were residential units with Christian Orthodox populations.

The territory of the diocese of Neocaesarea was finalised in the mid-19^th century. It was then that the district of Karahisar at first became a bishopric dependent on the metropolitan of Neocaesarea; it was the bishopric of Nicopolis and Colonea, evidenced from 1855. However, this new ecclesiastical authority was detached from the diocese of Neocaesarea and promoted to a diocese between 1887 and 1907.¹³ The detachment of the diocese of Nicopolis reflects the general tendency in the area of Pontus towards the partition of the previous ecclesiastical provinces and the formation of new ones, which was the case in the entire Asia Minor at the time. The reasons for this development were the continuous increase in the Christian Orthodox population and the changes in the Ottoman system of provincial administration, that is, the institutionalised appointment of the ecclesiastical heads as senior representatives of the Christian population. The higher the ecclesiastical authority representing local communities in provincial councils (at mutasarrıflık or even kaymakamlık level) was, the more effective their representation was considered.¹⁴ Given the differences between the boundaries of the ecclesiastical provinces and those of the Ottoman provincial administration, problems arose with the representation of several communities increasingly asking for partition. In a province as large as Neocaesarea it is absolutely natural that similar problems would arise. However, it is odd that the request for partition of the province was not expressed in the part of Paphlagonia but in the core of Pontus, which was very close to the see of the metropolitan of Neocaesarea in Kotyora (Urdu). Apart from the general parameters set by the political framework of the time, behind the request for the formation of a special ecclesiastical authority in Karahisar may have been the migrants from the districts of Trebizond and Chaldia, gathered in the district of Karahisar in the 19^th century and significantly increasing its Christian population. It is probable that a sense of particularism and distinct identity, as well as their avoiding to adapt to the existing community networks played a significant role.

2. Geography and Demographic Situation

The map of the diocese of Neocaesarea can be safely described only for the recent period of the 19^th and the early 20^th century. In general, the boundaries of the province, as they have been recently known and before the diocese of Nicopolis and Colonea was detached, should rather respond to the territory of the province in the second half of the 18^th century, after the former patriarchal exarchies had been incorporated (Ineon in 1684, Karahisar in 1775). The province of Neocaesarea was formed in 1610 and included the district of Nikşar as well as the wider area of western Pontus, where it bordered the province of Amaseia. To the east the province bordered the diocese of Trebizond, which in the first decades of the 17^th century still exercised its jurisdiction over the region of Karahisar (Colonea).¹⁵ The establishment of the archbishopric of Chaldia in the mid-17^th century interrupted the territorial continuity between the province of Trebizond and the region of Karahisar, thus finishing the subordination of the latter to the metropolitan of Trebizond. In the 18^th century the region of Karahisar was a patriarchal exarchy until it was ceded to the diocese of Neocaesarea in 1775.¹⁶ On coastal Pontus the geographical jurisdiction of the diocese of Neocaesarea had extended already from 1684, when the exarchy of Ineon, identified with the district of Oinoi, had been finally incorporated.

However, the great territorial expansion of the province took place a few years after it was reorganised, in 1630, when the amalgamation with the province of Gangra brought the greatest part of Paphlagonia under its jurisdiction. From then on, the province of Neocaesarea comprised two separate parts, the part of Pontus and the Paphlagonian part - without territorial continuity, since the province of Amaseia was between them - thus making the province of Neocaesarea the largest province of the entire Asia Minor together with that of Ephesus (taking into account the special case of the diocese of Chaldia with its scattered communities of miners all over Asia Minor).

In summary, in the early 20^th century the part of the province of Neocaesarea in Pontus comprised the districts of Kotyora, Oinoi, Nikşar, Tokat and Sevasteia (Sivas), which the Ottoman provincial administration identified with the largest part of the vilayet of Sivas and a large part of the vilayet of Trebizond. The province of Amaseia, which included the rest of the western Pontus, was the westernmost part of the province of Neocaesarea in Pontus and actually formed a quite small pocket, comprising the districts of Samsun, Bafra, Zile, Amaseia and Merzifon, which interrupted the territorial continuity of the province of Amaseia. The Paphlagonian part of the province of Neocaesarea comprised the largest part of the wider geographical region and, in particular, the districts of Sinop, Kastamonu, Tosia, Gangra, Safranbolu and Inepolis (İnebolu), while the western boundary with the province of Chalkedon was between Zonguldak and Amastris (Amasra).

However, the number of Christian Orthodox in the province was not proportionate to the vastness of the territory. In districts like Sevasteia the presence of the Christian Orthodox population was very weak (unlike the strong Armenian presence), while in the Paphlagonian districts there was sporadic presence as well. The 110 communities of Greek Orthodox recorded in the entire province are rather few in comparison with other provinces of much smaller size.¹⁷ The Greek Orthodox population inhabited mainly the coastal zone from Kotyora to Oinoi and the mainland.

As for the overall Greek Orthodox population of the province, information comes from the statistics of the Athens-based Club “Anatoli” of Asia Minor Greeks, which estimates it at 77,907 people around 1912 and, at any rate, before persecutions started. This shows the disproportion between the size and the number of Christian population in the province as compared with other dioceses (in the much smaller dioceses of Amaseia and Trebizond the same records report 173,683 and 94,348 Christians respectively).¹⁸ The vastness of the province could probably be attributed to the incorporation of regions with comparatively small Christian Orthodox populations. Furthermore, the Pontic part of the diocese was included in the districts of Asia Minor, where persecutions against the Christian population in the periods 1915-1918 and 1920-1922 were particularly fierce, thus the proportionally weak number of Christians in the province was probably drastically reduced until the exchange of populations in 1923.