Bithynia

BITHYNIA. - Western region of northern Anatolia, bordering to the north on the Black Sea, to the east on Paphlagonia, to the west on the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) and the Bosporus, to the south on Galatia and the province of Asia. Its most important centers were Chalcedon on the Bosporus, Nicomedia to its south (today Ismid), and still further south Nicaea and Prusa (today Brussa), the ancient residence of the Bithynian kings. Occupied by the Romans in 74 B.C. after the death of the last king Nicomedes III, who ceded it by testament, it became one of the six Roman provinces of Anatolia, at first administered by the senate, later by the emperor. In 65 or 64 B.C., after Mithridates was defeated, the western part of the Pontic Kingdom with the coast of Paphlagonia was annexed to it, and the province was called Bithynia et Pontus. But the ethnic-religious differences between the two regions, Bithynia and Pontus, remained: thus we find the high priests and presidents of the people distinguished, namely the Bithyniarch and the Pontarch. Bithynia is one of the regions of Asia Minor in which Christianity made the most rapid progress. It is mentioned in 1 Pt. 1:1, among the recipients of the epistle: which leads one to suppose that it was evangelized by the apostle Peter himself. It is held that the first bishop was Prochorus, one of the first seven deacons. In the famous letter of Pliny the Younger to Trajan (Ep. 10 ad Trai.) we read that the Christian religion was widely diffused not only in the great centers but also in the villages and the countryside, and that the persecutory laws against the Christians exposed to death a great multitude of people of every age and condition ("multi omnis aetatis, omnis conditionis"). On that occasion many shed their blood for the cause of the faith. There were other martyrs in the persecution of Decius, among them Tryphon, to whom a

"title" church was dedicated in Rome. But the greatest number of martyrs occurred under Diocletian (v.), who in 285 had fixed his residence at Nicomedia, and became, at the instigation of his son-in-law Galerius, the fiercest persecutor of the Christians, with the edict of 303. The great church of Nicomedia and the other sacred buildings were destroyed; many were the martyrs. The rhetorician Lactantius (v.), who had been summoned by Diocletian to Nicomedia to hold the chair of eloquence, was drawn to the Christian religion by the example of these martyrs. The persecution continued still under Galerius and Maximinus Daia, until the edict of Milan (313) restored peace to the Church of Bithynia. Shortly afterwards the Arian controversies flared up, and Bithynia was involved in them, especially through the influence of Eusebius bishop of Nicomedia. The First Ecumenical Council was held at Nicaea (v.) in Bithynia (325), to repress the Arian heresy. Two other ecumenical councils were held in Bithynia: the Fourth at Chalcedon (v.) against Monophysitism (451), and the Seventh Ecumenical, at Nicaea (787). Monastic life too flourished greatly in Bithynia and many monasteries were scattered throughout the whole region, particularly on the Bithynian Olympus. The Persian invasion and the Turkish conquest erased almost entirely the traces of so glorious a past.

Gaetano Stano