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Constantine metropolitan of Chonai (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of St. Michael holding a scepter in his right hand and globus in his left hand. Vertical inscription: χ-μ|χ : [Ἀρ]χ(άγγελος) Μ(ι)χ(αήλ). Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines, decorations above and below. Border of dots.


+κν
σταντι
μητροπ,
χνν

Κωνσταντί[ν(ῳ)] μητροπ(ολίτῃ) Χωνῶν

Obverse

Bust of St. Michael holding a scepter in his right hand and globus in his left hand. Vertical inscription: χ-μ|χ : [Ἀρ]χ(άγγελος) Μ(ι)χ(αήλ). Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines, decorations above and below. Border of dots.


+κν
σταντι
μητροπ,
χνν

Κωνσταντί[ν(ῳ)] μητροπ(ολίτῃ) Χωνῶν

Accession number BZS.1955.1.4806
Diameter 21.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 12.1a.

Translation

Κωνσταντίνῳ μητροπολίτῃ Χωνῶν.

Constantine, metropolitan of Chonai.

Commentary

This seal and BZS.1958.106.144 appear to be from the same boulloterion.

A metropolitan of Chonai by the name of Constantine who attended the patriarchal synod between 1028 and 1039 (Rhallès-Potlès V, 32, 36; Ficker, Erlasse, 20, 26, 42) may have been the owner of the present seal.

Chonai (modern Honaz) was built in the eighth century near ancient Colossae by the inhabitants of this city. Thus the bishop of Colossai, a suffragan of Laodikeia, was renamed bishop of Chonai (first attested in 787). The see was raised to an archbishopric under Photios (slightly before 860) and became a metropolis before 945. See Laurent, Corpus V/2, 421-22 (add Zacos, Seals II, no. 575); ODB I, 427.

The city was famous for a miracle performed by St. Michael, and it is only natural to find this archangel depicted on the few known seals of its metropolitans. The sanctuary seems also to have issued amulets to protect wearers from harm: see Zacos, Seals II, no. 575.

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)
  • Syntagma tōn theiōn kai hierōn kanonōn tōn te hagiōn kai paneuphēmōn apostolōn (Open in Zotero)
  • Erlasse des Patriarchen von Konstantinopel Alexios Studites (Open in Zotero)