Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Hierapolis

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes

Titular Archdiocese, metropolis of the Province of Euphrates, in the Patriarchate of Antioch. The native name, Mabog or Maboug, the Greeks make Bambyke and Seleucus Nicator transforms into Hierapolis or Hieropolis, both forms being found on the coins. This appellation of "Holy City" is an allusion to the celebrated temple erected to the Syrian goddess Atargatis or Derceto, who was also venerated at Palmyra, Ascalon, and elsewhere. The dove was sacred to this goddess, who is represented under the form of a woman-fish. The temple of Hierapolis was pillaged by Crassus at the time of his expedition against the Parthians. Lucian of Samosata tells us that numerous pilgrims repaired thither twice a year in order to pour water through the opening of an abyss. Under the Seleucides and the Romans, Hierapolis became a great commercial centre, a halting-place for the caravans going from Seleucia to Babylon. As the capital of the province of Commagene, or Euphrates, it became an important military stronghold where the Roman and Byzantine armies were concentrated, once the Persians had crossed the frontier and taken the first line of the defences. Julian the Apostate stopped here for some days before marching against Sapor. In 540 the city escaped pillage by the troops of Chosroes only by the payment of a heavy fine. Justinian fortified it, reducing the extent of the ramparts, which, with their numerous towers, also built by this emperor, are still standing. It requires about an hour to make the circuit of them. In 1068 the Emperor Romanus Diogenes took the city, thus staying the progress of the Turks.

Lequien (Or. Christ., II, 925-8) names ten bishops of Hierapolis. Among the best-known may be mentioned Alexander, an ardent advocate of the Nestorian heresy, who died in exile in Egypt ; Philoxenus or Xenaia (died about 523), a famous Monophysite scholar; Stephen (c. 600), author of a life of St. Golindouch. Under the Patriarch Anastasius, in the sixth century, the metropolitan See of Maboug had nine suffragan bishoprics (Echos d'Orient, 14, 145). Chabot (Revue de l'orient chrétien, VI, 200) mentions thirteen Jacobite archbishops from the ninth to the twelfth century. One Latin bishop, Franco, in 1136, is known ( Lequien, III, 1193). This see must not be confounded with Hierapolis in Arabia, a large number of whose titulars in the fifteenth century are mentioned by Eubel (II, 181). To-day Membidj is a caza of the sanjak and vilayet of Aleppo in a rich plain. The village is situated twenty miles west of the Euphrates, and contains 1500 inhabitants, all Circassians. The ruins of the city of Hierapolis are thirteen miles north, at Kara-Membidj, where remains of aqueducts and the Byzantine walls of Justinian are still to be seen.

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Prayer of the Day logo
Saint of the Day logo
Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.