Skylitzes,

2 Avramea, Byzantine Thessaly, 41 3 Deriziotes, 'Kiismata, 203-204

A lthough the archaeological rem ains seem insufficient to give us inform ation about the ecclesiastical history o f the town, the variety of the literary sources and the official acts we have at our disposal reveal to a considerable extent the im portant role which Larisa played as the most em inent ecclesiastical centre of Thessaly.

For the whole of the Protobyzantine period, the prefecture of Thessaly was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction o f the Pope in Rom e, although the W est R om an State ceased to control that area already from the end o f the 4th century. The head o f the church o f Illyricum (the Pope's vicar) was the archbishop o f Thessalonica who, after the Justinianic ecclesiastical reform s on Illyricum (529, 545), exercised only a nom inal authority over the Greek provinces o f the diocese and was being increasingly contr olled by the Ecum enical Patriarchate In Constantinople or the em peror him self. 5 Every time the Patriarch's intervention becam e oppressive, the T hessalian bishops preferred to appeal directly to the Pope and not to the M acedonian see which was no longer capable of standing up for their interests. In this context, Thessaly em erges as a region where the jurisdictions o f the Pope and the Patriarch w ere confused. The tw o ecclesiastical pow ers often appear to be in a fierce com petition, with the Pope struggling, in a defensive role to keep at bay the interventions o f the Second Rome.

In 531, in C onstantinople, a m inority o f T hessalian bishops challenged the election o f Stephanos as m etropolitan of Larisa and finally succeeded in convincing the P atriarch to depose him . S tephanos lodged an appeal co m plain ing about the irregularities that took place during the process o f his deposition and the Pope was too keen to convene a council (known as C ollectio Thessalonicensis) with the purpose o f confirm ing his rights over the Vicariate, and contesting the Patriarchal claim s in areas under his jurisdiction.

In 536 and at Justinian's suggestion Pope A gapetos was apparently forced to accept as m etropolitan o f Larisa Achilleios, since the Patriarch had already ordained him fo r this position. 6 The influence of Rome in Thessaly declined m ore and m ore after

6 Pietri, 'La Geographic', Villes, 50-51 6 ibid, 52

V igilius' recantation o f the Three C hapters and the Slav invasions in G reece.T aking into account the letters which G regory sent to his m etropolitans in Illyricum it was not before 592 that the Pontifical siege was able to im pose its shadowy authority over the area once m ore. A ccording to these letters. Pope G regory having received serious grievances by bishop A drianos, appeared determ ined to restore the lost order. He reinstated A drianos to his bishopric in Thebes and imposed exem plary punishm ents on the m etropolitan o f Larisa (John) and the archbishop o f Justiniana Prim a who had cunningly fabricated his deposition. 7

The ecclesiastical dependence of Larisa on the Pontifical see was m aintained until the period o f the 1 saurian em perors. In 732/733 Leo 111 brought all the Illyrian diocese together with Thessaly under the jurisdiction o f the Patriarchate as a retaliation for the Pope's obstinate refusal to share his iconoclastic views. It was during the course o f the 8th century that Larisa, a Christian centre, and headquarters of the local adm inistration, was raised to m etropolitan status. A ccording to the Notitia 2, an Episcopal list that was dated by Darrouzes to the same century, the archbishop o f Larisa (he preserved the title which he used to bear before the absorption o f Illyricum by the Patriarchate) occupied the 40th place in the m etropolitan hierarchy. He was cited in conjunction with the archbishop of A thens as the Ecclesiastical head o f G reece although the sam e title was also attributed to the bishop of Aegina. 8 W e do not know however the exact num ber of bishoprics which Larisa had under its jurisdiction on the period o f its nom ination as m etropolis.

In the follow ing Notitia (3) Larisa appears as the head o f eighteen bishoprics. A vram ea com m enting on the lists which com prise the Notitia m aintains that they reflect earlier ecclesiastical conditions and that they consist on their own a useful geographical reference. ^ H ow ever, given their derivation from the problem atic codex 1555 A from Paris, their reliability as D arrouzes has shown is open to question. They can be dated back to the 9th century possibly and certainly after 787 and their resem blance to the

7 Pope Gregory regisirum cpistolarum, MGIl, Episiolae, iii 6, iii 7, iii 38 8 Darrouzes, Noiitiae, 217-218