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Theodore bishop of Oinaion (?) (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

The Virgin standing orans. Sigla: ̅-θ̅υ : Μή(τη)ρ Θ(εο)ῦ. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Border of dots.

+θκεR.
θεοδορο
τοελαχισ
τ,επισκοπ,
τυνε

Θ(εοτό)κε β(οή)[θ(ει)] Θεοδόρο το ἐλαχίστ(ῳ) ἐπισκόπ(ῳ) τ(οῦ) Υνέου

Obverse

The Virgin standing orans. Sigla: ̅-θ̅υ : Μή(τη)ρ Θ(εο)ῦ. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Border of dots.

+θκεR.
θεοδορο
τοελαχισ
τ,επισκοπ,
τυνε

Θ(εοτό)κε β(οή)[θ(ει)] Θεοδόρο το ἐλαχίστ(ῳ) ἐπισκόπ(ῳ) τ(οῦ) Υνέου

Accession number BZS.1955.1.4681
Diameter 21.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 4, no. 83.2.

Laurent, Corpus V/3, no. 1739 (with misreadings).

Translation

Θεοτόκε βοήθει Θεοδόρο το ἐλαχίστῳ ἐπισκόπῳ τοῦ Υνέου.

Mother of God, help Theodore, most humble bishop of Oinaion.

Commentary

Laurent has read the fifth line of the reverse as συνε, but there is no doubt that the inscription reads τυνε (without an abbreviation mark after tau).

The place-name Oinaion/Yneon, that Laurent (Corpus V/3, no. 1827) searched for to the east of Naupaktos in Greece, is well attested in the Pontos (today Ünye) but this town is not mentioned  as a bishopric in the Notitiae episcopatuum. Only in one manuscript of Darrouzès, Notitiae no. 10 (l. 242, apparatus) Oinaion is mentioned as a bishopric of Neokaisareia in the place normally reserved to Rhizaion, a bishopric that is located some 300 km to its east. But this seal and BZS.1955.1.2057 are quite legible and certainly were struck at very different points in time. So we propose the hypothesis that the pontic Oinaion, the importance of which increased with time, may have become the seat of the neighboring bishop of Polemonion and that the name of the place where the prelate was, at times, living, may have appeared on some seals, without making its way into the official notitiae.  Something similar seems to have happened in the XVIIth century: Chrysanthos, metr. of Trebizond, Ἡ ἐκκλησία τῆς Τραπεζοῦντος, AP 4-5 (1936) 711.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 4: The East (Open in Zotero)
  • Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)