ANNCHIALE. – A city of Thrace on the Black Sea, now 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, for in the 2nd century we find there a bishop named Sotas, presented by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, 19) as an opponent of Montanism. Around 630, A. was an autocephalous archbishop, 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—though situated in Bulgaria—on the patriarchate of Constantinople.
BIBL.: J. Kleinsorge, De civitatum Graecarum in Ponti Euxini ora occidentali sitarum rebus, Halle 1888; S. Vailhé, s. V. in DHG, II, cols. 1511–13.