Parium
Parium
Main page

Parium

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Parium

Parium (or Parion; Greek: Πάριον) was a Greek city of Adrasteia in Mysia on the Hellespont. Its bishopric was a suffragan of Cyzicus, the metropolitan see of the Roman province of Hellespontus.

Founded in 709 B.C., the ancient city of Parion is located in the village of Kemer in the township of Biga in Çanakkale province of Turkey, currently. A major coastal city with two harbors in the Roman period, Parium had intensive relations with Thrace and Anatolia throughout history. This was the main customs station through which all Istanbul-bound goods from Greece and the Aegean had to pass.

According to Strabo, it was a colony of Milesians, Erythraeans, and Parians. Ancient authors state that it was founded by Parion, son of Jason.

It belonged at one point to the Achaemenid Empire. Herophantus was a tyrant of Parion under Darius I.

It then belonged to the Delian League. In the Hellenistic period it came under the domain of Lysimachus, and subsequently the Attalid dynasty. In Roman times, it was a colonia, within the province of Asia; after that province was divided in the 4th century, it was in the province of Hellespontus. The ancient coinage of Parium is quite abundant, attesting to its great output and advanced mint (in Hellenistic times, the city's badge shown on coins was the Gorgoneion).

The Acts of the martyr Onesiphorus prove that there was a Christian community in the region before 180. Other saints worthy of mention are: Saint Menignus, martyred under Emperor Decius and venerated on 22 November; Saint Theogenes, bishop and martyr, whose feast is observed on 3 January; Basil the Confessor, bishop and martyr in the 8th century, venerated on 12 April.

Le Quien (Oriens christianus I, 787–90) mentions 14 bishops, the last of whom lived in the middle of the 14th century. An anonymous Latin bishop is mentioned in 1209 by Pope Innocent III (Le Quien, op. cit., III, 945), and a titular bishop in 1410 by Eubel (Hierarchia Catholica medii ævi, I, 410).

At first a suffragan of the archbishopric of Cyzicus, Parium became an autocephalous archdiocese as early as 640 (Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte ... Texte, 535). In the early 14th century, Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos made Parium a metropolis, by uniting it with Pegae, as they both faced decline amid the Turkoman invasions. In 1354 the metropolis of Pegae-Parium was described as being close to disappearing. The incumbent metropolitan received the see of Sozopolis in Thrace (Miklosich and Müller, "Acta patriarchatus Constantinopolitani", I, 109, 111, 132, 300, 330), in hopes that it would support the other two economically. However, the metropolis soon disappeared.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.