Gindarus

Gindarus is a Catholic titular see. The original diocese was in Syria Prima, in the Patriarchate of Antioch. It is now Jendires, not far from Kal'at Semaan, the monastery of Simon Stylites.

Pliny [Hist. nat. V, 81.] locates it in Cyrrhestica, as does Strabo [XVI, 2, 8.] who says it was a celebrated haunt of brigands. Ptolemy [V, xiv.] speaks of it as being in the region of Seleucia, and Stephen of Byzantium makes it a small town situated near Antioch.

Bishops

The first and only known Bishop of Gindarus was Peter, who assisted at the Council of Nicæa in 325 [Heinrich Gelzer, "Patrum Nicænorum nomina", p. 61.] and at that of Antioch in 341 [Lequien, "Oriens Christianus", II, 789.] . The episcopal see is not mentioned in the sixth-century "Notitia Episcopatuum" of Antioch [Echos d' Orient, 1907, 144.] , nor in that of the tenth century [op. cit., 1907, 94.] . It is also missing from the list of cities of Syria given by the geographer Hierocles and George of Cyprus.

It is probable that it was never an important town, and that its see, of early creation, soon disappeared. Under the Emperor Theodosius the Great, Gindarus was only a small village which he fortified ["Patrologia Graeca", XCVII, 517.] , and in the time of Justinian I, when the relics of the martyr, St. Marinus, afterwards transferred to Antioch, were found there, Gindarus possessed only a "periodeutes" and not a bishop.

Notes