DUROSTOR (SILISTRA)

DUROSTOR (SILISTRA). — A city situated on the Bulgarian bank of the Lower Danube, known in antiquity by the possibly Celtic name of Durostorum in Lower Moesia. It has been an episcopal see since the 4th century. After the Bulgarian conquest (c. 700), following the conversion of the Bulgarians (865) and the death of Simeon under Peter (927–69), the Byzantines for a short time accepted the recognition of the patriarchal title for the archbishop of D., which was then called Distra; this name became Is-distra-n in the Greek-Turkish period. At that time it was also occupied for a while by the Romanian princes of Wallachia. Finally called Silistra, with a Bulgarian majority (c. 1,700 inhabitants in 1930), it was occupied by the Romanians from 1913 to 1944 along with the “quadrilateral” or Southern Dobruja.