Metellopolis

Metellopolis

A titular see of Phrygia Pacatiana, in Asia Minor. The inscriptions make known a Phrygian town named Motella which name is connected with the Phrygian feminine proper name Motalis and the Cilician masculine Motales, as also with Mutalli, or Mutallu, the name of an ancient Hittite king of Northern Commagene. One of these inscriptions was found in the village of Medele, in the vilayet of Broussa, which evidently preserves the ancient name. Motella seems to be the town which Hierocles (Synecdemus, 668, 6) calls Pulcherianopolis; it may be supposed to have been raised to the rank of a bishopric by the Empress Puleheria (414-53). Shortly before 553, perhaps in 535, Justinian raised Hierapolis to metropolitan rank, and attached to it a certain number of suffragan sees previously dependent on Laodicea. Among these the "Notitiæ Episcopatuum" mention, from the ninth to the twelfth or thirteenth century, this same Motella, which they call Metellopolis, and even once Metallopolis. An inscription informs us of Bishop Michael, in 556; and another, of Bishop Cyriacus, perhaps in 667. At the Council of Nicæa, 787, the see was represented by Eudoxius, a priest and monk. Bishop Michael attended the two councils of Constantinople in 869 and 879.

LE QUIEN, Oriens Christianus, I, 826 (very incomplete); RAMSAY, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 109, 121, 141, 158, 541.

S. PÉTRIDÈS.