Metropolis of Arta

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The Metropolis of Arta (Gr: Άρτα) is under the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece. Arta is located in northwestern Greece in the province of Eprius.

History

The date of the establishment of Arta as an episcopal see is unknown. The first report of Arta as a see, under the jurisdiction of the Eparchy of Nafpactos and Nikopolis, was in the twelfth century as reported by Emmanuel Komninos in an office list (Taktikon). He lived from 1143 to 1180. The bishop was reported as Basileios. According to P. Aravantinos, a chronographer of Epirus, Arta was part of the Eparchy of Artis and Naypactou, an exarch of Aitolias, from the thirteenth century to 1820.

During the period when the Despotate of Epirus was at its height, from 1205 to 1230, the bishop of the Eparchy of Nafpactos, Ioannis Apokafkos, established Arta as the second center of his Eparchy. Arta became the episcopal see when Bishop Ioannis succeeded Ioannis Apokafkos. It was in 1367 that the first Metropolitan of Nafpactos, the former Archbishop Matthaios of Lefkada, was enthroned in Arta. Subsequently, the metropolitans returned to Nafpactos with the title "Metropolitans of Nafpactos-Nikopolis", a title that was retained until the Greek revolution of the 1820s. Occasionally, for political reasons, the Eparchy came under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Ioannina, as in 1383 and during the years 1808-1813.

After the establishment of the first Greek state in the early nineteenth century, the Eparchy of Nafpactos - Artis was partitioned to form two ecclesiastical regions, the Metropolis of Aitolias and Akarnanias and the Eparchy of Arta and Preveza. After new borders between Greece and Turkey were defined in August 1882, the Eparchy of Arta and Preveza was again divided. The section in Greece under the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece became the Eparchy of Arta that continues to the present time. The other part, the Eparchy of Nikopolis and Preveza, remained part of Turkey until later in the early twentieth century, after the the New Lands became part of Greece, remained under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople.

Metropolitans

Churches

  1. The Church of Panagia Parigoritissa, Ancient Metropolis
  2. The Church of St. Theodora patron saint of Arta
  3. The Church of St. Basil, from XIIIth century

Monasteries

  1. The Holy Monastery of Lower Panagia, Byzantine monument

Topical Saints

  1. St. Theodora, empress of Arta (Epiros) (March 11)

Sources