Skip to Content

Methodios bishop of the city of Pergamos (ninth century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of the Virgin holding the medallion of Christ. Within a border of dots, a circular inscription:

θεοτοκεRοηθ,τσ,

Θεοτόκε βοήθ(ει) τῷ σῷ δ(ούλῳ)

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Border of dots.

+μεθο
ιεπισκ
οππολεο
σπεργμ
ουμ

Μεθοδίῳ ἐπισκόπῳ πόλεος Περγάμου. Ἀμήν.

Obverse

Bust of the Virgin holding the medallion of Christ. Within a border of dots, a circular inscription:

θεοτοκεRοηθ,τσ,

Θεοτόκε βοήθ(ει) τῷ σῷ δ(ούλῳ)

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Border of dots.

+μεθο
ιεπισκ
οππολεο
σπεργμ
ουμ

Μεθοδίῳ ἐπισκόπῳ πόλεος Περγάμου. Ἀμήν.

Accession number BZS.1958.106.1728
Diameter 23.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 28.1.

Laurent, Corpus V/3, no. 1697 (slightly different reading).

Translation

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Μεθοδίῳ ἐπισκόπῳ πόλεος Περγάμου. Ἀμήν.

Mother of God, help your servant Methodios, bishop of the city of Pergamos. Αmen.

Commentary

The iconography and epigraphy are reminiscent of Patriarch Photios' seal (Dated Seals, no. 53). It is on this basis that we agree with Laurent that the specimen may be attributed to Methodios of Pergamos who attended the Council of 879/880.

Pergamos (modern Bergama) appears as a suffragan bishopric of Ephesos in the notitiae during the seventh century, while its first known bishop is attested in 343. In the early thirteenth century it was elevated to the rank of archbishopric and by the mid-thirteenth to metropolis, only to return to the rank of suffragan bishopric in the late fourteenth. See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 201; Culerrier, Suffragants d'Ephèse, 158 (episcopal list); Brandes, Städte, 110-11; ODB III, 1628.

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)
  • Les évêchés suffragants d’Ephèse aux 5e-13e siècles (Open in Zotero)
  • Die Städte Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (Open in Zotero)
  • A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Seals (Open in Zotero)