Everything about Mopsuestia totally explained
Mopsuestia (
Greek Μόψουέστία, also
transliterated as
Mopsouhestia or
Mompsuestia) or
Mopsus or
Mamistra is an ancient city of
Cilicia Campestris (later
Cilicia Secunda) on the
Pyramus (also Pyramos, now the Ceyhan Nehri) river located approximately 20
km east of present-day
Adana (then called
Antiochia in Cilicia) in
Adana Province,
Turkey.
The founding of this city is attributed to the soothsayer,
Mopsus, who lived before the
Trojan war, although it's scarcely mentioned before the
Christian era.
Pliny the Elder calls it the free city of
Mopsos (
Hist. nat., V, 22), but the ordinary name is Mopsuestia, as found in
Stephanus of Byzantium and all the Christian geographers and chroniclers. Under the
Seleucid Empire, the city took the name of
Seleucia on the Pyramus (Greek: Σέλεύχεια προς του Πύραμο, also transliterated
Seleucia pros to Pyramo,
Seleukheia pros to Pyramo,
Seleukeia pros to Pyramo, and
Seleuceia pros to Pyramo;
Latin:
Seleucia ad Pyramum), but gave it up at the time of the
Roman conquest; under
Hadrian it was called
Hadriana, under
Decius Decia, etc., as we know from the inscriptions and the coins of the city.
Constantius II built there a magnificent bridge over the Pyramus (
Malalas,
Chronographia, XIII; P.G., XCVII, 488) afterwards restored by
Justinian (
Procopius,
De Edificiis, V. 5) and still to be seen in a very bad state of preservation.
Christianity seems to have been introduced very early into Mopsuestia and during the
3rd century there's mention of a bishop, Theodorus, the adversary of
Paul of Samosata. Other famous residents of the early Christian period in the city’s history include
Saint Auxentius (d.
360), and
Theodore,
bishop from
392–
428, the teacher of
Nestorius. The city was taken by the
Arabs at the very beginning of
Islam; in
686 all the surrounding forts were occupied by them and in
700 they fortified the city itself (
Theophanes, "Chronogr.", A. M. 6178, 6193). Nevertheless because of its position on the frontier, the city was recaptured from time to time by the
Byzantines. The war between Muslims and Byzantines was ongoing and was besieged in vain by the Byzantine troops of
John I Tzimisces in
964. The city was taken the following year after a long and difficult siege by
Nicephorus Phocas.
Mopsuestia then numbered 200,000 inhabitants, some of whom were Muslim, and he Byzantines made efforts to re-Christianize the city. Its river, the Pyramus, formed a great harbour extending twelve miles to the sea. In
1097 the
Crusaders took possession of the city and engaged in a fratricidal war under its walls; it remained in the possession of
Tancred who annexed it to the
Principality of Antioch. It suffered much from intnerecine war between Crusaders,
Armenians, and
Greeks who lost it and recaptured it alternately notably in
1106, in
1152, and in
1171. The Greeks finally abandoned it to the Armenians. Set on fire in
1266,
Mamistra, as it was called in the
Middle Ages, became two years afterwards the capital of the
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, at the time that a council was held there. Although it was by this time in a state of decline it still possessed at least four Armenian churches, and the
Greek diocese still existed at the beginning of the
fourteenth century (
Le Quien,
Oriens Christianus, II, 1002 ). In
1322, the Armenians suffered a great defeat under its walls. In
1432 the
Frenchman Bertrandon found the city occupied by the
Muslims and largely destroyed. Since then it has steadily declined and became, under the
Turkish name of
Misis, a little village. Misis was renamed as
Yakapınar in 1960s.
Mopsuestia remains a
titular see of the
Roman Catholic Church, the seat has been vacant since the death of the last bishop in
1963.
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