Thessalonica (now Thessaloniki)

THESSALONICA (now Thessaloniki). - A city on the Aegean Sea, a still-frequented port and a populous city. In antiquity it bore the name of Therma, whence the gulf at the bottom of which it lies was formerly called the Thermaic Gulf.

Cassander rebuilt and enlarged it (316 B.C.), giving it the name of his wife Thessalonica, daughter of Philip II, king of Macedonia. After the battle of Pydna (168 B.C.) it fell into the power of the Romans and became the capital of the second of the four districts of Macedonia. The city had a hinterland of very fertile countryside, irrigated by several rivers, among them the Vardar; but its characteristics were those of a port city. The port was the object of particular care on the part of the Macedonian sovereigns, and later of the Romans, who had docks there (navalia: Livy, XLIV, 10. 32) and brought it to notable prosperity. It was the headquarters of the Pompeians before the battle of Pharsalus (48 B.C.). During the second civil war, it sided with the triumvirs Octavian and Antony; and these, after the victory of Philippi (42 B.C.), granted it recognition as a free city, governed by six πολιτάρχαι, a title used in Acts 17:6, 8. Because of its geographical position, between Thrace, Macedonia and Achaea, T. attracted St. Paul, who must have regarded it as a center for the spread of the faith, which it in fact became (I Thess. 1:6 ff.).

From T. there branched out an important road network, whose main artery was the Via Egnatia, which came from Durazzo and was considered the overseas extension of the Via Appia. It was a meeting point of religions and races, sustained by the traffic of the three [continents] and the basin of the eastern Mediterranean and by the various industries that flourished there, especially that of weaving. St. Paul (ca. 50 A.D.) found there an important colony of Jews.

Francesco Spadafora

EVANGELIZATION

Christianity penetrated into T. in the apostolic age. In 50-51, during his second journey, St. Paul, coming from Philippi by way of Amphipolis, accompanied by Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy, preached in the Synagogue for three consecutive sabbaths (Acts 17:2); there he founded the second European Christian community, recruited especially from the Greek element. The Jews stirred up riots and forced the missionary to take refuge first in Beroea and then in Athens, where Paul had Silas and Timothy join him (Acts 17:15; 18:5), whom he then sent back to T. (1 Thess 3:1).

The Christian community of T. developed steadily, as is shown by the Edict of protection of Antoninus Pius (138-61) recalled by Melito (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 4, 26, 16); at Salonica in 304 under Diocletian the martyr sisters Agape, Chione and Irene fell (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Il testo greco originale degli atti delle ss. Agape, Irene e Chione, in Nuove note agiografiche [Studi e testi, 9], Rome 1902, pp. 3-19), commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on April 1, and in the Syriac Breviary, the first two only, on April 2 (Passio graeca, in BHG, 2, 34); under Galerius (305-11) the martyrs Agathopus and Theodulus, commemorated on April 4 (Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinop., p. 583); much venerated was the military martyr Demetrius (BHG, 2, 496-547; H. Delehaye, Les légendes grecques des saints militaires, Paris 1909, pp. 107-108). T. also venerates Sts. David (ca. 535) and Theodora (ca. 892). The lists of bishops are fragmentary and few names are certain before the 4th century. The first bishop (legendary) would be Aristarchus, a disciple of St. Paul. The bishop Demetrius, patron of the city, died a martyr in 290 or in 306 (Acta SS. Octobris, IV, pp. 50-209); the second part of the Miracula constitutes an essential source for the history of the Slavs in the Middle Ages.

The bishop Alexander appears at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and at the consecration of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 335. Eusebius indicates him as metropolitan (Vita Constantini, 4, 43, 3). In 378 Theodosius was converted to Catholicism at T., whence in 380 he issued the severe Edict against the Arians. After 379 Macedonia is united to the Eastern Empire but remains in the patriarchate of Rome. The metropolitans of T. are the apostolic vicars of eastern Illyria, from 382 to 389. In 518 a Council was held at T.; in 649 the conflict with Rome broke out (Hefele-Leclercq, III, p. 208); in 732 the emperor Leo III definitively separated Illyria from Rome in order to unite it with Constantinople. T. thus oriented itself toward the schism prepared from the beginning of the 6th century by the separatist machinations of Andrew and Dorotheus; while through the action of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, born at T., this city became from 860 a missionary center for the evangelization of the Slavs. In 904 T. was devastated by a raid of Saracens and in 1185 it was taken by the Normans. In 1204 the Kingdom of T. was created for Boniface of Montferrat (v. CROCIATE), which had an ephemeral life; in fact in 1246 T. returned to being part of the Greek Empire of Nicaea. Ceded to Venice in 1423, it was taken by the Turks in 1430, who occupied it until 1912, the year in which it passed to Greece.

EARLY CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS

The church of St. George is built on a Roman rotunda contemporary with the Arch of Galerius (a. 297); it was transformed into a church in the 5th century, with an apse added to the east. In the dome and in the niches cut into the walls the mosaics imitate Hellenistic models, while the figures of the saints are of Eastern art. Especially notable is the frieze with the calendar of the mid-6th century, important particularly for the inscriptions relating to the cult of the saints (E. Weigand, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 39 [1939], pp. 116-45). The church of St. Demetrius, erected on the site of the martyr's torture, was built in 412 under Leontius, eparch of Illyria. It was rebuilt in the 7th century in the form of a cross and restored several times thereafter; in 1917 it was badly damaged by a fire. The original building was a Hellenistic basilica with an atrium, narthex, first three and then five naves separated by columns, and a matroneum. After the fire, some mosaics from the 4th to the 9th century were recovered (St. Demetrius, the Blessed Virgin orans, St. Sergius) along with some frescoes datable from the 6th to the 9th century. The church of St. Parasceve (or the Virgin Acheropoietos), of the 5th century, offers the type of the Hellenistic Christian basilica with three naves, of perfect symmetry, with columns and arches and Theodosian capitals. The metropolitan church of St. Sophia is the last church built in the Justinianic age; it is a domed basilica with mosaics of the 8th-9th century (Madonna orans, Jesus Christ, Ascension). Later are the church of St. David with mosaics of the 9th-10th century representing a beardless Jesus Christ with the symbols of the four Evangelists; the church of the Theotokos of 1028; the church of the Apostles with five domes, with a cruciform plan, erected in the 14th century under the patriarch Niphon on a pre-existing building; lastly the church of the Transfiguration of the 14th-15th century.

THE CHRISTIAN CEMETERY OF THESSALONICA

Discovered in 1899, it developed behind the pagan necropolis that was situated along the Via Egnatia outside the gates of the Calamari and of Telli-Capon. It was formed of a series of formae arranged in several rows, lined internally with thick stucco, more rarely with white marble; some paved with large bricks; they were closed with large slabs of marble or schist and then covered with earth; the inscription was engraved on a small slab of white marble. A large vaulted tomb has been found, reached by a small stairway; it was decorated on the sides with panels; in the center a cross between two palms and a bird; in the vault a large cross. Among the epitaphs, mention is made of the one in Latin with «Depositio Barbationis notarii v(iri) c(larissimi)»; another in Greek of a Dorotheos, from a village probably in Syria, and of a Theodora (P. Perdrizet, Le cimetière chrétien de Thessalonique, in Mél. d'arch. et d'hist., 19 [1899], pp. 541-48). In the Royal Museum of Brussels are preserved some Christian inscriptions from T., one in Greek belonging to a soldier named Maximian of the corps of the Ascarii minores; a Latin one commemorates a certain «Domesticus positus ad do(mnum) Ioan(nem)» who paid 3 and a half solidi for his tomb (P. Perdrizet, Inscriptions de Salonique, in Mél. d'arch. et d'hist., 25 [1905], pp. 81-95 and pl. 1). Well known is the Greek inscription of Calocerus to Macedonia and Sosigenia, his dearest parents, with the wish: «I am until the resurrection», and the fish (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 1890, pp. 54-60 and pl. 5, 2); there the word καυμητήριον is used in an individual sense, as in others also from T. (P. Perdrizet, Inscriptions de Thessalonique, in Mél. d'arch. et d'hist., cit.), characteristic being that of a Flavius Callistus placed in charge of the administration of the emperor's domains in the region, in which the wish is also repeated to sleep there until the day of the resurrection (P. Perdrizet, Inscriptions de Thessalonique, in Mélang. d'arch. et d'hist., 20 [1900], p. 229); still others with the expression καυμητήριον in an individual sense (ibid., 25

[1905], pp. 86-88; Ch. Azen e Ch. Picard, La nécropole de Thess., ibid., 32 [1912], p. 351). Nella chiesa di S. Sofia fu trovato un frammento epigrafico greco menzionante una giovane Ioanna morta il 21 nov. 535 (I. Pargoire, Le soi-disant épitaphe de la fille de Bélisaire, in Échos d'Orient, 5 [1901-1902], pp. 302-303; ibid., 6 [1903], pp. 62-63). A ca. 30 km. ad est di T. sui monti è una chiesa cruciforme di S. Andrea de Péristerai del sec. IX (A. Orlandos, Τὸ καθολικὸν τῆς παρὰ τὴν Θεσσαλονίκην μονῆς περιστερῶν, in Ἀρχείον τῶν βυζαντινῶν μνημείων τῆς Ἑλλάδος, 7 [1951], pp. 146-47). Recentemente Ch. I. Makaronas ha illustrato la scoperta di un edificio ottagono in muratura, conservato fino a 7 m. al di sopra del suolo primitivo, lastricato di marmo, con decorazione a mattoni rappresentante una croce tra due cipresi. Vi si è trovato un frammento di statua virile nuda e una parte d'un pulpito paleocristiano (Τὸ ὑκτάγωνον τῆς Θεσσαλονίκης, in Πρακτικά Ἀρχαιολογικῆς Ἑταιρείας, 1950, pp. 303-21).

APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF THESSALONIKI

It was erected on 18 March 1926 and embraces, besides the city of Salonika and its surroundings, Greek Thrace, Greek Macedonia and the islands of Thasos, Lemnos, Santorini and Tenedos. It has 8 churches and 2 parishes for 2,510 Catholics, served by 4 religious priests, 3 male religious congregations and 3 female ones. The residence of the apostolic vicariate is at Salonika; at present the vicariate is governed by an apostolic administrator (Ann. Pont. 1953, pp. 733-34).

Cirillo Vogel - Enrico Josi