Enciclopedia Cattolica

FILADELFIA, ARCIDIOCESI DI

Philadelphia, Archdiocese of

Volume V · p. 774 · 1950

English translation · Testo originale italiano

FILADELFIA, ARCIDIOCESI di - La campana della libertà che fu suonata per la dichiarazione dell'indipendenza nell'1776, Filadelfia, Independenza Hall.
FILADELFIA, ARCIDIOCESI di - La campana della libertà che fu suonata per la dichiarazione dell'indipendenza nell'1776, Filadelfia, Independenza Hall.

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

It was also called the “Little Athens.” It is among the seven churches addressed in the Apocalypse (1:17). In the letter to the angel of the Church of Philadelphia (Rev 3:7–13), only praise is found: the small Christian community had withstood well the judicial persecutions of the “synagogue of Satan” (3:9).

Even St. Ignatius of Antioch warns the Philadelphians against the Jews (Ad Philad., 6). The Apostolic Constitutions (VII, 46; PG 1, 1953) claim that the first bishop of Philadelphia, Demetrius, was sent by St. Peter. Among the early faithful of Philadelphia, a prophetess named Amnia is remembered (Milzinde, cited by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., 5, 17; PG 20, 473).

It was the last city of the Byzantine empire in Anatolia to fall to the Turks. Conquered by Bājazid in 1396, it was renamed Alaşehir (the shining city). Today it has about 30,000 inhabitants.

Bibl.: W. Ramsay, Hist. geogr. of Asia Minor, London 1860, p. 121; L. Fillion, Philadelfia, in DB, V, cols. 258–61; V. Thierikower, Die hellenist. Städteingründungen von Alex. d. Gr. Die Römerzeit, Leipzig 1927, p. 179 sq.; Pietro De Ambrogii.