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Stephen monk and bishop of Proussa (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of St. Michael holding scepter and globus. On either side the inscription: ΜΧ: Μ(ι)χ(αήλ). Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Border of dots.

+Κ̅Ε̅Θ
ΣΤΕΦ,Ν,Α,
ΕΠΙΣΚΟ
ΠΠΡ
ΣΗΣ

Κ(ύρι)ε β(οή)θ(ει) Στεφ(ά)ν(ῳ) (μον)αχ(ῷ) (καὶ) ἐπισκόπῳ Προύσης

Obverse

Bust of St. Michael holding scepter and globus. On either side the inscription: ΜΧ: Μ(ι)χ(αήλ). Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Border of dots.

+Κ̅Ε̅Θ
ΣΤΕΦ,Ν,Α,
ΕΠΙΣΚΟ
ΠΠΡ
ΣΗΣ

Κ(ύρι)ε β(οή)θ(ει) Στεφ(ά)ν(ῳ) (μον)αχ(ῷ) (καὶ) ἐπισκόπῳ Προύσης

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.865
Diameter 15.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 67.4a; see also Laurent, Corpus, V/1, no. 381.

Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore.

Translation

Κύριε βοήθει Στεφάνῳ μοναχῷ καὶ ἐπισκόπῳ Προύσης.

Lord, help Stephen, monk and bishop of Proussa.

Commentary

Note the seal from the same boulloterion: BZS 1955.1.4674.

Proussa (modern Bursa at the foot of Mount Olympus in Bithynia), a suffragan of Nikomedeia (but situated in the Opsikion theme), was represented at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and is mentioned as such in all notitiae until the twelfth century. In early times, it was also called Θεούπολις: cf. Zacos-Veglery II, no. 1096. After its conquest by the Turks in 1326, it became a metropolis (about 1359). See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 273; Janin, Grands centres, 174-75; ODB III, 1750. 

We note that St. Michael is usually represented on the seals of the bishops of Proussa, allowing us to hypothesize that the episcopal church of the city may have been dedicated to the Archangel. Cf. SBS 4 (1994) 22.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 3: West, Northwest, and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
  • Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 2 (Open in Zotero)
  • La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, vol. 2, Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins (Open in Zotero)