THE EARLIEST MENTIONS OF EPISCOPAL SEES OF ULCINJ AND BAR: A PHILOLOGICAL - ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTE
Abstract
This paper analyzes written and material sources concerning the earliest history of
the Episcopal sees of Ulcinj and Bar, because there are still some ambiguities in the
interpretation of the date of composition and the content of episcopal notita 3 published by
Gustav Parthey in 1866, and the notitia 10 published in the critical edition of Jean
Darrouzès in 1981, where they are both mentioned. Two notitae are actually the same list of
metropolitans of the Constantinopolitan church, where were listed fifteen suffragan bishops
of Durrachium. Although the compilation of that part of the list is dated in the end of the
10th or the beginning of the 11th century, the confusion produced at the beginning of the last
century by dating this notitia in the middle of the 8th century still persists in literature. That
misinterpretation consequently brought some scholars to the conclusion that the bishoprics
in question were founded in the first half of the 8th century. Tracing the origin of that false
interpretation proved that there is no firm scientific grounds for the assertion that Bar and
Ulcinj had the bishops on that early date.
Another problem considered in this paper is the identification of the bishop seat ὁ
Λικινίδων mentioned before ὁ Αντιβάρεως in notitia 10. Ὁ Λικινίδων has been recently
identified by some scholars as Ohrid and not as Ulcinj. Analysis of the Latin and Greek
written sources demonstrates that the confusion comes from the similar orthography of
these two cities that can be found in the civil lists of the cities of the Byzantine Empire, and
that the episcopal see listed in the notitia 10 is Ulcinj and not Ohrid.
In Bar like in Ulcinj were found the remains of churches dating from the 9th
century. The remains of the modest church as well as the ciborium with the inscription that
mentions the Byzantinе emperors Leo and Constantine, identified as Leo V (813-820) and
his son co-ruler were found in Ulcinj. In Bar, the small, possible cross-in-square church was
dedicated to the holy warrior Theodor, whose cult appears on the Adriatic, in Venice and in
the Apulia at the beginning of the 9th century. Remains of those churches prove the
presence of ecclesiastical organization in the south-east Adriatic at the time of
reconstruction of the Byzantine domination in the Adriatic, but not the existence of the
bishopric sees. However, that hypothesis cannot be rejected.
Due to the lack of reliable documents, it is not possible to determine precise date
of the establishing bishoprics of Bar and Ulcinj. The first mention of the bishopric Ulcinj
dates from 925, when this seat was mentioned in the decisions of the First church council of
Split, while Bar is to be found for the first time in the written sources in notita 10, dating
from the end of the 10th or the beginning of the next century.
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