Hierapolis

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

A titular see of Phrygia Salutaris, suffragan of Synnada. It is usually called by its inhabitants Hieropolis, no doubt because of its hieron (which was an important religious centre), is mentioned by Ptolemy (v, 2, 27), and by Hierocles (Synecd., 676, 9). It appears as a see in the "Notitiæ Episcopatuum" from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries. It has been identified as the modern village of Kotchhissar in the vilayet of Smyrna, near which are the ruins of a temple and the hot springs of Ilidja. Hierapolis once had the privilege of striking its own coins. We know three of its bishops: Flaccus, present at the Council of Nicæa in 325 and at that of Philippopolis in 347; Avircius, who took part in the Council of Chalcedon, 451; Michael, who assisted at the second Council of Nicæa in 787. St. Abercius, whose feast is kept by the Greek Church on 22 October, is celebrated in tradition as the first Bishop of Hierapolis. He was probably only a priest, and may be identical with Abercius Marcellus, author of a treatise against the Montanists (Eusebius, H.E., V, xvi) about the end of the second century. On the epitaph of Abercius and its imitation by Alexander, another citizen of Hierapolis, see ABERCIUS, INSCRIPTION OF. The town in question must not be confounded with another Hierapolis or Hieropolis, more important still, a see of Phrygia Pacatiana. Lequien in his "Oriens Christianus" makes this error (I, 831 sqq.). There is also another Hierapolis, a see of Isauria, suffragan of Seleucia (Lequien, II, 1025).

RAMSAY, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford, 1895-1897); IDEM, Trois villes phrygiennes in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 1882, VI; DUCHESNE, Hierapolis, patrie d'Abercius in Revue des questions historiques (July, 1883).

S. PÉTRIDÈS