- Castoria (titular see)
Castoria is a Catholic
titular see . The original diocese was inMacedonia .Livy [XXXI, XL.] mentions a town near a lake inOrestis , called Celetrum, whose inhabitants surrendered toSulpitius during the Roman war againstPhilip V of Macedon (200 B.C.).Procopius [De aedif., vii. 3.] relates thatJustinian , finding the town ofDiocletianopolis ruined by the barbarians, built a city on the lake, of Castoria.Tafel [De Viâ Egnatianâ, 44-46.] suggests that Celetrum, Diocletianopolis, and Castoria are three successive names of the same place. In any case, Castoria seems to have replaced Celetrum.There
Bohemond camped with his army at Christmas, 1083. The Byzantine chroniclers describe it as a strong fortress. In the tenth century it must have been occupied by the Bulgarians. About 1350 it was given up by the EmperorJoannes Cantacuzene to theKing of Serbia , and in 1386 it was captured by the Turks.Bishops
As early at least as the reign of
Basil II , Castoria was the first suffragan see of thearchdiocese of Achrida .Lequien [II, 315.] mentions only three bishops: Joasaph in 1564, Hierotheus, who went to Rome about 1650, and Dionysius Mantoucas.Some ten Latin bishops are known from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. [Lequien, III, 1087;
Eubel , I, 179, II, 134.]Notes
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
