Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/727

 MYRA

661

MYSORE

ent at the Council of Constantinople in 680; and an- other John who went to the Second Council of Nica>a in 787. Myndus is now the little port of Gtimushlii Li- man (Liman-port) in the vilayet of Smyrna where the remains of a pier and some other ruins are to be seen.

Le Quien, Oriens christ.. I, 915; Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, 3. v.; Leake, .4sia Minor, 228.

S. PETRIDfes.

Myra, a titular see of Lycia in Asia Minor. The city was from time immemorial one of the chief places in "the province. It was situated on the banks of the River Andriacos, twenty stadia from the sea (Ap- pian, "Bell, civil.", IV, 82; Strabo, XIV, iii, 7; Pliny, XXXII, 8; Ptolemy, V, vi, 3; Stephen of Byzantium, B. v.). The hamlet of Andriaca served as its port. On his way from C;esarea to Rome St. Paul stayed at Myra (Acts, xxvii, 5); at least the "textusreceptus" reads thus, but the Vulgate has substituted Lystra. The Codex Bezoe, the Gigas Bible, and the ancient Egyptian version also mention Myra after Patara of Lycia (Acts, xxi, 1). The "Acta Pauli" probably tes- tify as to the existence of a Christian community at Myra in the second century (Harnack, "Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums", 465, 487). Le Quien (I, 965-70) opens his list of the bishops of this city with St. Nicander, martyred under Domitian about A. D. 95, and whose feast is celebrated 4 November (Acta SS., Nov., II, 225). As to St. Nicholas Thau- maturgus, venerated on 6 December, the "Index" of Theodorus Lector (sixth century) is the first docu- ment which inscribes his name among the fathers of NicEea in 325 (Gelzer, "Patrum Nicaenorum nomina", 67, n. 151). Theodosius II made the flourishing city of Myra the capital of Lycia and, it is said, erected there a church to St. Nicholas. Peter, Bishop of Myra composed in defence of the Council of Chalce- don writings quoted by St. Sophronius and by Pho- tius (Bibliotheca, Codex 23). At the Sixth (Ecumeni- cal Council (787) two bishops of Myra, Theodore and Nicholas, assisted, one representing the orthodox party, the other the Iconoclasts.

Eubel ("Hierarchia catholica medii sevi", II, 1370) mentions five Latin titulars of the fifteenth century. At present Myra is only a village called Dembr(5 in the sanjak of Adalia and the vilayet of Koniah. Its ruins are numbered among the most beautiful of Asia Minor. Among them are the remains of a temple of Apollo, mentioned by Pliny, those of a magnificent theatre, several burial-places hewn in the rock, with tombs inscribed in Lycian and Greek, some of them ornamented with bas-reliefs. Numerous Christian ruins are also found, among them those of the Church of St. Nicholas, around which Russians have recently erected a monastery.

Fellows, Discoveries in Lycia, I (London, 18.57), 169; Spbatt AND Fohbes, Trawls in Lycia, I (London, 1847), 131; Texier, Asie Mineure, 691-94; Ramsay, St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman citizen, 297, 300. 319; Cdinet, La Turquie d'Asie (Paris, 1892), 875-77.

S. Salaville.

M3^na, a titular see of Asia Minor, suffragan of Ephesus. Herodotus (1, 149) mentions it as one of the eleven cities of ^Eolia; Strabo, who says it was built by the Amazon Myrina, also assigned to it an vEolian ori- gin (Geographia, XII, iii, 21 ; viii, 6; XIII, iii, 6) ; Xeno- phon (Hellenica, III, i, 6) relates that Artaxerxes gave it to a chieftain named Gorgion. According to Pliny (Hist, nat., V, 30 ; XXXII, 6) it was famous for its oys- ters, and must have borne the name of Sebastopolis, of which no trace is found elsewhere. An inscription (Bulletin de correspondance helldnique, V, 283) tells us that Myrina formed part of the Kingdom of Perga- mus in the third century B. c. Destroyed by an earth- quake under Tiberius (Tacitus, "Annales", II, 47) and again under the Emperor Trajan (Orosius, VII, 12), it was each time rebuilt. It was the birth-place of Agathias, a Byzantine poet and historian of the

sixth century. The names are known of some of the bishops of this diocese, which still existed in the four- teenth century: Dorotheus, 431; Proterius, 451; John, 553; Cosmas, 787 (Le Quien, "Oriens Christ.", I, 705). The site of Myrina was discovered at a place called Kalabassary in the caza of Menemen and the vilayet of Smyrna, at the mouth of the Hodja-Tchai, the ancient Pythicos. The remains of the harbour and the arsenal have disappeared under the alluvia of the river. Excavations (1880-1882) brought to light about four thousand tombs, dating from the two cen- turies immediately preceding the Christian Era, in which were found numerous objects representing the divinities of the Greek pantheon; children's toys, re- productions of famous works, etc. : most of these may be seen to-day in the Museum of the Louvre.

PoTTlER and Reinach, La nScropote de Myrina (Paria, 1S87); Bulletin de correspondance hellenique, VI, 197-209. 388-433, 557- 580: VII, 81-95, 204-50, 440-47, 493-501; VIII, 509-14; IX, 165-207, 359-74, 485-93.

S. Vailh^.

Mjrriophytum, titular see of Thracia Prima and sufTragan of Heraclea. The early history of this city is not known. We find it mentioned for the first time in connexion with an earthquake which destroyed it in the year 1063 of our era (Muralt, "Essai de chronolo- gic byzantine", II, 8). It was visited by John Can- tacuzene about 13.50 (Hist., Ill, 76). As a suffragan of Heraclea we find it, under the title of Peristasis and Myriophytam, mentioned first in a "Notitia episco- patuum" of the end of the fifteenth century (Gelzer, " Ungedruckte . . . Texte der Notitia; episcopa- tuum", 633). The title of Peristasis existed already in 1170 (Parthey, "Hieroclis Synecdemus", 103). In the sixteenth century Myriophytum displaced Pe- ristasis, and the diocese took the name of Myriophy- tum and Peristasis (Le Quien, "Oriens christianus", I, 1151). No change has since taken place, except that among the Greeks in 1908 it was elevated to an autocephalous metropolitan see. To-day Myriophy- tum isa rather busy port on the Sea of Marmora; the city numbers 5000 Greeks and 400 Turks. The schis- matic archdiocese includes only ten parishes with about 22,000 souls, of whom Peristasis alone includes about 6000.

DaAKoa. Thrakika (in Greek, Athens, 1892), 72-93.

S. Vailh^.

Mysore (Maisoub), Diocese of (Mysuriensis), in India, suffragan to Pondicherry, comprises the terri- tory of the Mysore native state, the British Provinces of Coorg and Collegal, part of Wynaad and the taluk of Ossoor, Salem district; surrounded by the Dioceses of Madras, Poona, Goa, Mangalore, Coimbatore, and Pondicherry. The Catholic population is about 48,202. The diocese, like the rest of the Pondicherry province, is under the Paris Society of Foreign Mis- sions. The clergy are 65 in number (53 European and 12 native priests)^ having the care of 123 churches and chapels. They are assisted by the Brothers of the Immaculate Conception, the Brothers of St. Gabriel, the Nuns of the Good Shepherd Order, the Little Sis- ters of the Poor, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Tarbes, and Native Sisters of St. Anne and also of the Im- maculate Conception. The cathedral and the bishop's residence are at Bangalore.

History. — Originally Mysore belonged to the Arch- diocese of Goa, but what early mission work was done there is a matter of obscurity. In the Canarese or western portions a mission seems to have been estab- lished about the middle of the seventeenth century; in the eastern or Tclugu portion another mission was brought into existence about the year 1703 by two French Jesuits who came from Vellore and founded churches at Bangalore, Devanhalli,Chikka, Ballapoora, and elsewhere. But their work was stopped and partly destroyed by the fanaticism of the sultan, Tipu"(1782-99). The district came under the Foreign