NICOPOLI d'EPIRO. — A city founded by Augustus as a monument to his victory at Actium. Favored by the Emperor and by its excellent position, it soon became, and long remained, the metropolis of Epirus proper, that is, of the region which from the time of Diocletian onward was called the province of Lower Epirus (Epirus vetus), and later the “theme of N.”
Devastated by an earthquake in 358 and by the Goths in 551, but rebuilt by Julian the Apostate in 361 and later by Justinian, it was definitively destroyed by the Bulgarians in 829; from then on, the remainder of its population, whose nationality at that time is not known with certainty, moved a short distance away to the present modest city which bears, perhaps from that time onward, the name of Prevesa, commonly recognized as Albanian, while the ancient settlement is called Paleoprevesa.
It is highly probable that St. Paul evangelized it, as is shown by his intention, expressed in the Epistle to Titus (3:9), when he invited him to join him there, where he intended precisely to winter; its bishop Eliodorus took part in the Council of Nicaea and perhaps also in that of Sardica; having become the metropolis of the ecclesiastical province modeled on the civil one, it appears at the head of eight suffragan sees in the fifth-eighth centuries: Phoenice, Anchiasmus, Corcyra, Adrianopolis (of Epirus), Photice, Eurea, Dodona, Butrotum (Butrint); in 595 it appears endowed with the pallium.
The attitude of this Church and of its province, as regards orthodoxy, is characteristic of the mentality of Illyrian Christianity: it is normally found aligned with the orthodox party, as in 367 in the person of its bishop Eliodorus, faithful to the Nicene definitions; his successor Donatus at Ephesus in 431 is constantly alongside Cyril; Eugenius, together with all his suffragans, responds orthodoxly to the circular letter of Leo I in 458; nevertheless, a phenomenon equally typical of ecclesiastical Illyricum, such orthodoxy depends more on juridical than on theological reasons: Epirus was ecclesiastically dependent on Thessalonica, which in turn, in the fourth and fifth centuries, held from Rome the office of vicariate over the whole of Eastern Illyricum, without being dependent on Constantinople; whenever Thessalonica deviated, N. also wavered: thus during the Acacian crisis (516-19), and likewise during the iconoclastic crisis (787); nevertheless, in both cases N. proves more attached to orthodoxy, resisting longer and returning to it sooner.
The bishop Alcisone in fact died in prison at Constantinople in 516 for having condemned Dorotheus of Thessalonica, while all his suffragans were likewise in exile for the same reason; his successor John was put to death in 519 by Dorotheus himself; when, moreover, in the various controversies, the Roman See had not yet pronounced, the Nicopolitan, like the other Illyrians, wavered, only afterward taking its stand with Roman orthodoxy as soon as instructions were received; thus Atticus took part in the “Robber Council of Ephesus” in 449, but in 451 corrected his position at Chalcedon, and Anastasius in 787 made an act of repentance at Nicaea II.
It consequently happened that at certain moments the Pope entrusted the metropolitan of N. with direct commissions, bypassing Thessalonica, as in 517. In any case, this metropolitan see was considered to be of a certain importance, to the extent that it might be said that, in the order of precedence of episcopal sees, its place was 54th (at Chalcedon, since not all were present, it normally occupied 46th place; at Ephesus, among the Cyrillians, 16th). After the destruction of the city, it is found shortly afterward dependent on Constantinople under Photius (858-86). From then on, among the metropolises, the 35th place is occupied by Naupactus, called “Naupactus of N.” and later simply Naupactus, which would also be the metropolitan see, with a certain splendor, at the time of the Despotate of Epirus.