ANCHIALE. – A city of Thrace on the Black Sea, today in Bulgaria, already mentioned by Strabo (Geographia, VII, 6, 1), Pliny (Hist. Nat., IV, 44), Ovid (Tristia I, 9, 36), and Ammianus Marcellinus (XXVII, 4, 12).
Called Ulpia under Trajan. Christianity became established there very early, since in the 2nd century we find there a bishop named Sota, presented by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, 19) as an adversary of Montanism. Around 630, A. was an autocephalous archbishopric, directly dependent on Constantinople, and remained so until the 14th century.
Later becoming a metropolitan see, until the first decade of the 20th century it still depended, although situated in Bulgaria, on the patriarchate of Constantinople.
BIBL.: J. Kleinsorge, De civitatum Graecarum in Ponti Euxii ora occidentali utarum rebus, Halle 1888; S. Valibé, s. V. in DHG, II, cols. 1511–13. Mario Scaduto