Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Μ. Ασία ΙΔΡΥΜΑ ΜΕΙΖΟΝΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΥ
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Diocese of Laodicea (Ottoman period)

Συγγραφή : Moustakas Konstantinos (22/7/2002)
Μετάφραση : Sioris Georgios , Velentzas Georgios

Για παραπομπή: Moustakas Konstantinos, "Diocese of Laodicea (Ottoman period)",
Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Μ. Ασία
URL: <http://www.ehw.gr/l.aspx?id=9013>

Λαοδικείας Μητρόπολις (Οθωμανική περίοδος) (4/4/2008 v.1) Diocese of Laodicea (Ottoman period) (14/9/2009 v.1) 
 

1. Introduction

Laodikeia (Denizli) has been since late antiquity the seat of a metropolis and capital of the ecclesiastical province of Phrygia Pacatiana, with a maximum number of 45 depended bishops in the past, from which Ierapolis and Chones later became metropolises of their own.1

2. Early Ottoman Period

With the infiltration of the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor after the end of the 11th century and their continuous confrontation with the Byzantines, in the area of Laodikeia, which lay in the boundaries of the Byzantine lands, the Christian element decreased progressively, until it was limited in the most important cities and the bishoprics were extinguished. After the subjection of Laodikeia in Ottoman authority (after 1204), the city maintained a significant number of Christians, as testified by the known Arab traveler Ibn Battuta, who visited it in 1332,2and remained the seat of a diocese.

In the 14th century, there are some reports about the metropolitan of Laodikeia, who participated in the Holy Synod of the patriarchate in the middle of the century, until 1365, and then from 1381, when the known metropolitan Makarios held the post until 1400.3As a matter of fact, it is possible to reconstruct the term of Makarios in general terms. Possibly he was elected (from being a priest-monk) in around 1381, he remained in Constantinople until 1383 taking part in the Holy Synod. In 1384 he had to go to his metropolitan seat, something that possibly led to his assignment, in the August of that year, of the province of Kotyaion, a post that was vacant after the recent death of the metropolitan who resided there,4as well as of Chonai, KulaandKolis, which constituted patriarchal exarchies.5 This information shows us the places in which the Christian element still lived from the wider area of geographical Phrygia. The subjection of the above areas to the metropolitan of Laodikeia lasted for a relatively small period of time, since Kotyaion was given to the metropolitan of Prousa in 1386 and the areas Kula and Kolis to the metropolitan of Philadelpheia in 1394.6

3. The history of the diocese from the 15th to the beginning of the 17th century

During the two centuries of its existence, the diocese of Laodikeia included the Orthodox communities of only two cities, Denizli itself and Chonai (Honaz), as it is clear by the contents of the registers of the 16th century, which do not include any reference to the existence of a Christian population in another settlement of the area.7 The operation of an active diocese in Denizli in the 15th and 16th century is mainly testified by the recording of this city as a metropolitan seat in the patriarchic berats in the years 1483 and 1525, while there are sporadic isolated references to the metropolitans of Laodikeia in the same period.8 The survival of the diocese depended on the ability of its Orthodox population to maintain it. Its disappearance, which must have taken place in the end of the 16th century or in the beginning of the 17th,9 is due to the further decrease of the Orthodox element in Denizli during the 16th century, which we can observe from the recordings in the Ottoman tax registers (in a percentage over the total population of the city, from 6% in 1530, to 2% in 1699).10 Since then, the Orthodox Christians of Denizli were left without any high ecclesiastical official until the beginning of the 18 century, when after the re-activation of the diocese of Philadelphia they were subjected to it.

1. Fedalto, G., Hierarchia Ecclesiastica Orientalis: Series Episcoporum Ecclesiarum Christianarum Orientalium. I. Patriarchatus Constantinopolitanus (Padova 1988), pp. 150-66.

2. Gibb, H.A.R. (ed.), The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325-1354, vol. 2 (Cambridge 1959), pp. 425-28.

3. Miklosich, Fr. – Müller, J., Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, sacra et profana, vol. Ι (Vienna 1860), no. CXCIV, p. 450, no. CCXXVIII, p. 488, vol. ΙΙ (Vienna 1862), no. CCCLIII, pp. 38, 39, no. CCCLV, p. 43, no.  CCCLVII, p. 46, no. DXXIX, p. 312.

4. We know that the deceased metropolitan of Kotyaion had settled there from the fact that, when the province was given to the metropolitan of Prousa, after a brief stay under the metropolitan of Laodikeia, the former one was ordered to go there and collect the personal property of the deceased.  Miklosich, Fr. – Müller, J., Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, sacra et profana, vol. ΙΙ (Vienna 1862), no. CCCCXLIII, p. 177.

5. Miklosich, Fr. – Müller, J., Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, sacra et profana, vol. ΙΙ (Vienna 1862) no. CCCLXXXI, p. 88.

6. Miklosich, Fr. – Müller, J., Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi, sacra et profana, vol. ΙΙ (Vienna 1862), no. CCCLXXXVI, p. 90, no. CCCCLXII, pp. 209-10.

7. Gökçe, T., XVI ve XVII. Yüzyıllarda Lazık ıyye (Denizli) Kazası (Ankara 2000), pp.  82-83, 87-88.

8. Ζαχαριάδου, Ε., Δέκα Τουρκικά Έγγραφα για την Μεγάλη Εκκλησία (1483-1567) (Athens 1996), pp. 115, 136.

9. There is no mention of the diocese of Laodikeia in the bishopric lists of 1645, nor in the berat in 1662. See Σάρδεων Γερμανός, "Κατάλογος των επαρχιών του Πατριαρχείου Κων/πόλεως κατά τον ιζ' αιώνα", Ορθοδοξία 3 (1928), pp. 231-37. Κονόρτας, Π., Οθωμανικές Θεωρήσεις για το Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο: Βεράτια για τους Προκαθήμενους της Μεγάλης Εκκλησίας (17ος - αρχές 20ού αιώνα) (Athens 1998), pp. 232-33.

10. Gökçe, T., XVI ve XVII. Yüzyıllarda Lazık ıyye (Denizli) Kazası (Ankara 2000), pp. 87-88, 101-102.

     
 
 
 
 
 

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