Notitiae Episcopatuum - Church of Constantinople

Church of Constantinople

• The Ecthesis of pseudo-Epiphanius, a revision of an earlier Notitia Episcopatuum (probably compiled by Patriarch Epiphanius under Byzantine Emperor Justinian), made during the reign of Heraclius (about 640)
• a Notitia dating back to the first years of the ninth century and differing but little from the earlier one
• the Notitia of Basil the Armenian drawn up between 820 and 842; the Notitia compiled by Leo VI the Wise, and Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus between 901 and 907, modifying the hierarchical order established in the seventh century and since disturbed by incorporation of the ecclesiastical provinces of Illyricum and Southern Italy in the Byzantine Patriarchate
• the Notitiae episcopatuum of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (about 940), of John I Tzimisces (about 980), of Alexius I Comnenus (about 1084), of Nilus Doxapatris (1143), of Manuel Comnenus (about 1170), of Isaac Angelus (end of twelfth century), of Michael VIII Palaeologus (about 1270), of Andronicus II Palaeologus (about 1299), and of Andronicus III Palaeologus (about 1330).

All these Notitiae are published in:

• Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum (Munich, 1900)
• Gelzer, Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orbis romani (Leipzig, 1890)
• Gelzer, Index lectionum Ienae (Jena, 1892)
• Gustav Parthey, Hieroclis Synecdemus (Berlin, 1866).

The later works are only more or less modified copies of the Notitia of Leo VI, and therefore do not present the true situation, which was profoundly changed by the Islamic invasions of the region. After the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, another Notitia was written, portraying the real situation (Gelzer, Ungedruckte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum 613-37), and on it are based nearly all those that have been written since. The term Syntagmation is now used by the Greeks for these documents.