Andronikos bishop of Berinoupolis (tenth/eleventh century)
Obverse
Inscription of four lines. No visible border.
+ΚΕΘ
ΤΣΔˋ
ΑΝΤΡΟ
ΝΗΚ
Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀντρονήκῳ
Obverse
Inscription of four lines. No visible border.
+ΚΕΘ
ΤΣΔˋ
ΑΝΤΡΟ
ΝΗΚ
Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀντρονήκῳ
Reverse
Inscription of four lines. No visible border.
ΕΠΗΣ
ΚΟΠ,Ε
ΡΙΝΠΟ
ΛΕΣ
ἐπησκόπῳ Βερινουπόλεως
Accession number | BZS.1958.106.2019 |
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Diameter | 23.0 mm |
Previous Editions | DO Seals 3, no. 103.1. |
Translation
Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἀντρονήκῳ ἐπησκόπῳ Βερινουπόλεως.
Lord, help your servant Andronikos, bishop of Berinoupolis.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 3: West, Northwest, and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Erlasse des Patriarchen von Konstantinopel Alexios Studites (Open in Zotero)
- Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople, Vol. 1, Les regestes de 381 à 715 (Open in Zotero)
- De Administrando Imperio (Open in Zotero)
- Kleinasiatische Ortsnamen (Open in Zotero)
- Galatien und Lykaonien (Open in Zotero)
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.