Patras (titular see)

Patras was a metropolitan see in Achaia, Greece. It is now a Catholic titular see.

History

Patras was dependent on Rome until 733, when it became subject to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Nothing is known of the beginning of Christianity in the city of Patras, unless we accept the tradition that it was evangelized by the Apostle St. Andrew. A celebrated Stylite lived there in the tenth century, to whom St. Luke the Younger went to be trained ["Patrologia Graeca" CXI, 451.] .

In 1205 William of Champlitte took possession and installed canons; they in turn elected Anthelme, a monk of Cluny, as archbishop. The territory formed a barony subject to the Aleman family and included in the principality of Morea or Achaia.

The Latin archbishops held it from the second half of the thirteenth century till 1408, when they sold it to Venice. In 1429 it again fell into the power of the Greeks, and was taken by the Turks in 1460.

Greek see

The Greek see, first dependent on Corinth, became a metropolitan see in the ninth century. It had four suffragans [Gelzer, "Ungedruckte ... Texte der Notitiæ episcopatuum", 557.] ; then five about 940 [Gelzer, "Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orbis Romani", 77.] ; after 1453 it had only two, which successively disappeared [Gelzer, op. cit., 634.] . Its titulars were called Metropolitans of Patras from the ninth century until the Middle Ages, Metropolitans of Old Patras until 1833, Bishops of Achaia until 1852, Archbishops of Patras and Eleia from that time.

The list of its titulars has been compiled by Le Quien ["Oriens christiana", II, 177-82.] , Heinrich Gelzer [In Gerland, "Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des lateinischen Erzbistums Patras", Leipzig, 1903), 247-55.] , Jules Pargoire [In "Echos d'Orient", VII, 103-07.] .

Latin see

The Latin archdiocese, created in 1205, lasted until 1441, when it became a titular see. It had five suffragans, Andravida, Amyclæ, Modone, Corone, and Cephalonia-Zante; even when Modone and Corone belonged to the Venetians they continued to depend on Patras.

The list of Latin titulars has been drawn up by Le Quien [op. cit., III, 1023-32.] , Eubel ["Hierarchia cath. med. ævi", I, 412; II, 236; III, 289.] , and Gerland [op. cit., 244-46.] .

Later history

In 1640 the Jesuits established themselves at Patras, and in 1687 the Franciscans and Carmelites. In the nineteenth century the pope confided the administration of the Peloponnesus to the Bishop of Zante, in 1834 to the Bishop of Syra.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11547b.htm Source]