Milopotamos

Milopotamos

A titular see of Crete, suffragan of Candia. Certain historians and geographers identify this locality with the ancient Pantomatrion mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium, by Ptolemy (III, xv, 5), who places it between Rhethymnos and the promontory of Dium, and by Pliny (IV, xx, 3), who places it elsewhere. If Milopotamos is identical with Avlopotamos, this Greek see is alluded to for the first time towards 1170 (Parthey, "Hieroclis Synecdemus", 118); it is spoken of again in another undated "Notitia episcopatuum" (Gelzer, "Ungedruckte . . . Texte der Notitiæ episcop.", 627). As to the Latin residential see, its first titular, Matthew, is mentioned about 1212, shortly after the conquest of the island by the Venetians. From 1538 to 1549 the Diocese of Cheronesus was joined to it; on the other hand, in 1641, the Diocese of Milopotamos was united with Rhethymnos and after the conquest of the island by the Turks in 1670, became merely titular. We know the names of about twenty residential Latin bishops. Among the schismatic Greeks the See of Aulopotamos is united with that of Rhethymnos. The ruins of the city may be seen along the sea-shore at Castel Mylopotamo, about twelve miles from Rhethymnos.

LE QUIEN, Oriens christianus, III, 935-938; CORNELIUS, Creta sacra, II (Venice, 1755), 173-180; GAMS, Series episcoporum, 403; EUBEL, Hierarchia catholica medii œvi, I, 357; II, 212; III, 261.

S. VAILHÉ.