- Berissa
Berissa (also spelled "Berisa" or "Verissa") is a Roman Catholic
titular see in the formerRoman province ofPontus Polemoniacus , in Asia Minor, which Kiepert andW. M. Ramsay have identified with the modern village of Baulus (also known as "Bolus"), south-west ofTokat . [ [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02491c.htm Berissa] -Catholic Encyclopedia article]History
In the time of
St. Basil it was included in thediocese of Ibora , as appears from letters LXXXVI and LXXXVII of the great bishop, but soon after became an independent bishopric inArmenia Prima , withSebasteia as metropolis. This important change took place before 458, when its bishop, Maxentius (written wrongly Ausentius), subscribed with his colleagues of Armenia Prima the synodal letter to theEmperor Leo I (Mansi, XII, 587-589).Hierocles , at the beginning of the sixth century, does not treat it as an independent city; but it is mentioned as such byJustinian in aNovella of 536, among the cities ofArmenia Secunda . It must be remembered that this emperor, when creating the province ofArmenia Quarta in 536, gave to Armenia Prima the name of Armenia Secunda, without altering the established ecclesiastical organization, so that Berissa remained a suffragan see of Sebasteia. Among its later bishops may be mentioned Thomas, who was present at thefifth ecumenical council at Constantinople, in 553 (Mansi, IX, 175), and another at the sixth in 680 (ibid., XI, 66). It appears still later in the "Notitiae Episcopatuum " assuffragan to Sebasteia, and its name is written sometimes "Berisse" or "Berisse"; Merisse and Kerisse are merely palaeographical mistakes. Berissa was a Latin bishopric as late as the fifteenth century, when Paul II appointed the FranciscanLibertus de Broehun to succeed the deceased bishop, John (Wadding, Annales Minorum, VI, 708).References
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