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Andronikos bishop of Berinoupolis (tenth/eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Inscription of four lines. No visible border.

+ΚΕΘ
ΤΣΔˋ
ΑΝΤΡΟ
ΝΗΚ

Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀντρονήκῳ

Reverse

Inscription of four lines. No visible border.

ΕΠΗΣ
ΚΟΠ,Ε
ΡΙΝΠΟ
ΛΕΣ

ἐπησκόπ Βερινουπόλεως

Obverse

Inscription of four lines. No visible border.

+ΚΕΘ
ΤΣΔˋ
ΑΝΤΡΟ
ΝΗΚ

Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀντρονήκῳ

Reverse

Inscription of four lines. No visible border.

ΕΠΗΣ
ΚΟΠ,Ε
ΡΙΝΠΟ
ΛΕΣ

ἐπησκόπ Βερινουπόλεως

Accession number BZS.1958.106.2019
Diameter 23.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 103.1.
Laurent, Corpus V/3, no. 1805.

Translation

Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀντρονήκῳ ἐπησκόπῳ Βερινουπόλεως.

Lord, help your servant Andronikos, bishop of Berinoupolis.

Commentary

An Andronikos, bishop of Berinoupolis, signed a decree of the Patriarch Alexios Stoudites in 1032 (Ficker, Erlasse, 27; cf. Grumel, Regestes, no. 840). He may well have been the owner of our seal. The see of this Andronikos was certainly Berinoupolis of Ankyra, as appears from his place of precedence, in keeping with the hierarchical order of their metropolitans: Andronikos of Berinoupolis, a suffragan of Ankyra (4th metropolis) is placed between Gregory of Peristasis (suffragan of Herakleia, 3rd metropolis) and Nicetas of Arabisssos (suffragan of Melitene, 13th metropolis), well before the place reserved to the suffragans of Ikonion (24th metropolis).

Two bishoprics were named Berinoupolis after the wife of Emperor Leo I. One, a suffragan of Ankyra, is known in the notitiae with a second name, Stavros (Βηρινουπόλεως ἤτοι Σταυροῦ); it was a double bishopric, the exact location of which is unknown, but we know the approximate region thanks to DAI (chap. 50, lines 103-4) informing us that the regiments of Timios Stauros and of Berinoupolis were transferred from the theme of the Boukellarioi to Charsianon during the reign of Leo VI. The second Berinoupolis, a suffragan of Ikonion in Lykaonia, had a second (prehellenic) name, Psibela (Ψιβήλων), which is the only one attested in the notitiae after the 10th century. It is more probably that our seal belongs to the first Berinoupolis of Galatia. See Laurent, Corpus V/1, n685; Zgusta, 662; Galatien und Lykaonien, 143-44, 217.

Bibliography