Kırşehir, formerly Mocissus and Justinianopolis, is a city in Turkey. It is the capital district of the Kırşehir Province. According to the 2000 census, the population of the district is 121,947 of which 105,826 live in the city of Kırşehir.
History
The history of Kırşehir dates back to the Hittites. During the period of the Hittites, the basin of Kırşehir was known as the country of "Ahiyuva", meaning "the Land of the Achaeans", as the Greeks were known to the Hitti. This basin also took the name Cappadocia at the time of the Romans and Byzantines. Kırşehir was once known as Aquae Saravenae. The Turks took the city in 1071 and bestowed the current name. In Turkish, "Kır Şehri" means "steppe city" or "prairie city". It became the chief town of a sanjak in the Ottomanvilayet of Angora, which possessed 8000 inhabitants, most of them Muslims. In the 19th century, Kırşehir was attached to the sanjak of Ankara. In the year 1921, Kırşehir was made capital of its own province. Kemal Atatürk visited the city in 1921 and 1931.
Historic buildings and structures
Kesikköprü
is one of the bridges built by Seljuk Empire in Middle Anatolia. It is on the way of Kırşehir-Konya, about
is the tomb of the 14-century sufi poet Aşık Pasha )died 1332).
Ecclesiastical history
Metropolitan Archbishopric of Mocissus
Mocissus was also a Christian bishopric, and became a metropolitan see when, as Procopius informs us, Justinian divided Cappadocia into three provinces and made this fortified site in north-western Cappadocia metropolis of Cappadocia Tertia, giving it the name of Justinianopolis. Nothing else is known of its history, and its name should perhaps be written Mocessus. There is no doubt that the site of Mocissus, or Mocessus, is that which is occupied by the modern city of Kırşehir. It figured in the Notitiæ episcopatuum until the 12th or 13th century. Only a few of its bishops are known: the earliest, Peter, attended the Fifth Ecumenical Council ; the last, whose name is not known, was a Catholic, and was consecrated after the mid-15th century Catholic Council of Florence by Patriarch Metrophanes II of Constantinople.
Titular see
The diocese was restored in 1895 as a titular archbishopric of the highest rank. It's vacant, having had the following incumbents:
Kırşehir has a hot summer continental climate, with cold and snowy winters and hot and dry summers. Rainfall occurs mostly during the spring and autumn.
