Amasea

AMASEA. - The first city of the province of Helenopontus in Asia Minor, on the river Iris; capital of the province in the imperial period, it was heavily damaged by an earthquake in the year 529 A.D. (Procopius, Historia arcana, XVIII, 42). In a life of St. Basiliscus (Acta SS. Aprilis, III, ed. Venice 1738, p. Lvi) it is related that in A. there was shown the place called the chair of the Apostles, where St. Peter is said to have preached, and who is said to have appointed Nicetius bishop of A. Another tradition, however, attributes the first evangelization of A. to the apostle St. Andrew.

A native of A. is St. Basiliscus, bishop of Comana, celebrated in the East on 22 May (Synax. Constantinop., column 699). Also from A. is St. Philanthus, martyred with three companions of his, venerated on 18 Aug. (ibid., col. 699). In the life of St. Basiliscus, bishop of A., martyred ca. the year 522, mention is made of the first Christian church that is said to have been built by the same bishop within the city and where his tomb is said to have been. Eusebius, on the other hand, relates that several churches of A. were closed or destroyed in the persecution of Licinius (Vita Constantini, 12; Hist. eccl., X, 8, 14). Among the military martyrs of A., a St. Publius is commemorated in the East on 26 Apr. (Synax. cit., col. 630), a contemporary of St. Basiliscus. Earlier, that is, of 17 Feb. 306, is the martyrdom of the soldier Theodore Tiro (H. Delehaye, Les légendes grecques des saints militaires, Paris 1909, pp. 11-43; 127-213). In his honor the emperor Anastasius I (491-518) dedicated a basilica in the time of bishop Mamas (S. Pétridès, Note sur une inscription chrétienne d'A., in Echos d'Orient, 3 [1900], pp. 273-78). To the first half of the 5th century belongs the mention of the church dedicated to the gardener martyr of Sinope, St. Phocas, as is attested by the panegyric delivered there in his honor by the bishop of A., Asterius (cf. Van de Vorst, St Phocas, in Analecta Bolland, 30 [1911], pp. 252-95). Many restorations carried out in the churches of A. in the time of Justinian are attested by Procopius (De aedificiis, 3, 7). From the life of St. Eutychius, of the end of the 6th century, the names of certain monasteries are also gleaned, such as the one situated near the Acropolis dedicated to St. John, and the other of which St. Eutychius was abbot before 552, the year in which he became patriarch of Constantinople. From the first half of the 5th century dates the monastery to which belonged Meletius and Seleucus, later bishops of A. Among the churches, mention is made of the one dedicated to the martyr St. Thalelaeus, erected on the mountain that overlooks A. The churches dedicated to the Madonna and to St. Michael were hollowed out in the spacious halls of private dwellings.

A. was invaded by the Arabs in 1075. Pope Benedict XIV, with the Bull Ad supremum of 15 Feb. 1743, united the metropolitan see of A. with that of Pavia, and therefore the bishop of this see received the pallium, but Pius VII, with the Bull Paternae charitatis studium of 16 March 1819, again separated the two titles.

Enrico Josi