Ptolemais in Phoenicia


Ptolemais was an ancient port city on the Phoenician coast. It was also called Ptolemais in Phoenicia. It was an Ancient bishopric, which became a double Catholic titular see.
In the Middle Ages, it was known as Acre amongst some Western European crusaders, who started a new, militantly Latin chapter there.

History

Greek historians refer to the city as Ake, meaning "cure." According to the Greek myth, Heracles found curative herbs here to heal his wounds. Josephus calls it Akre. The name was changed to Antiochia Ptolemais shortly after Alexander the Great's conquest, and then to Ptolemais, probably by Ptolemy I Soter, after the Wars of the Diadochi lead to the partition of the kingdom of Alexander the Great and its inclusion first into the Egypt-based Lagid empire, then in the Seleucid Empire.
Around 37 BC, the Romans conquered the Hellenized Phoenician port-city called Akko. It became a colony in southern Roman Phoenicia, called Colonia Claudia Felix Ptolemais Garmanica Stabilis. Ptolemais stayed Roman for nearly seven centuries until 636 AD, when was conquered by the Muslim Arabs. Under Augustus, a gymnasium was built in the city. In 4 BC, the Roman proconsul Publius Quinctilius Varus assembled his army there in order to suppress the revolts that broke out in the region following the death of Herod the Great.
During the rule of the emperor Claudius there was a building drive in Ptolemais and veterans of the legions settled here. The city was one of four colonies created in ancient Levant by Roman emperors for veterans of their Roman legions. As a result, Claudius granted the title "Colonia Claudia Felix Ptolemais Garmanica Stabilis". The city was a center of Romanization in the region, but most of the population was made of local Phoenicians and Jews: as a consequence after the Hadrian times the descendants of the initial Roman colonists were no more speaking Latin and were fully assimilated in less than two centuries.
In 66 AD Gessius Florus, the Roman Procurator of Judea, conducted an initial massacre of the Jews living in the city. The next year Vespasian, the Roman military commander, accompanied by his son Titus, moved from Akko-Ptolemais to suppress the Jewish rebellion in Galilee.
In 130 AD the port of Ptolemais was used as a base for the Roman Legions setting forth to suppress the Bar-Kochba revolt. After the destruction of Jerusalem many Jews settled in Ptolemais, that was losing its original Phoenician characteristics since Augustus times.
In 190 AD Christianity started to be important in the city: Clarus, the Bishop of Ptolemais, participated in a council of Christian leaders. Ptolemais grew to be an important port in the eastern Mediterranean sea of the Roman empire. After Hadrian times Ptolemais was the commercial center & port of Jewish Galilee and was starting to be no more part of Phoenicia.
In 351 AD Constantius Gallus suppressed a Jewish rebellion and did a small massacre of the Jews of Akko-Ptolemais.
Under Byzantine control the city lost importance and around 636 AD was conquered by the Arab Amr ibn al-Aas. Following the defeat of the Byzantine army of Heraclius by the Muslim army of Khalid ibn al-Walid in the Battle of Yarmouk, and the capitulation of the Christian city of Jerusalem to the Caliph Umar, Ptolemais was ruled by the Rashidun Caliphate beginning in 638 AD.

Christianity center

Ptolemais was an important center of early Christianity in the region. Saint Paul visited the city at the end of his third missionary journey.
Towards the end of the third century, Ptolemais was a predominantly Christian city, but with a large Jewish community. An unidentified visitor from Italy reported that in the sixth century the city had beautiful churches. Indeed, an important discovery was made in 2011: a Byzantine church in the middle of Crusaders' "San Giovanni d'Acri".

Ecclesiastical History

Bishops of Ptolemais in Syria

The Apostle Paul, returning from his trip to Macedonia and Achea, landed at Tyre, and from there sailed to Ptolemais, where he stayed some days with the local Christian community.
Ptolemais became of suffragan of the Metropolitan Archbishopric of Tyre.
The first bishop known is Clarus, who in 190 AD attended a Council meeting which saw some bishops of Phoenicia and Palestine to deal with the issue of the date of the Easter feast. But we must go back to the fourth century to find the next Bishop, Enea, who took part at the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and at the Synod held in Antioch in 341 AD. Nectabus was one of the fathers of the first Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Between the 4th and 5th centuries lived Bishop Antiochus, opponent of John Chrysostom. Helladius participated in the first Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Paul took part in the Council held at Antioch of 445 AD to judge the work of Athanasius of Perrhe and at the Council of Chalcedon of 451 AD. In 518 AD Bishop John signed a Synodal letter against Severus of Antioch and the Monophysite party. Finally, the last known Bishop of Ptolemais is George, who attended the second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD.
It faded after Islam was established in Greater Syria in the 7th century by the first Caliphs, conquering the Sassanid satrapy.
CRUSADERS
In the 12th century, the Crusaders started all over in their Kingdom of Jerusalem. From 1107 - 1190 AD including a Latin Catholic Diocese of Acre. Then reconquered in the 13th century for another further decades of Christian domination with Jewish communities peacefully living together.

Titular sees

Long after the Crusader states had perished, the Catholic church nominally restored the see as a titular see, actually twice, in different rite-specific branches.

Latin titular see

It is vacant since decades, having had the following incumbents, so far of the rank :
It has had the following incumbents, of the fitting Episcopal rank with an archiepiscopal exception :
;Titular Bishops of Giovanni S. d’Acri of the Maronites
;Titular Bishop of Ptolemais of the Maronites
  • Luigi Giuseppe El-Khazen, no prelature
;Titular Bishops of Ptolemais in Phœnicia of the Maronites''