History
The former name of the city, and of the previous diocese (now Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria) was Serdica, the city of the Serdi, a Celtic people defeated by Crassus in 29 BC and subjected to the Kingdom of Thrace, then a vassal state of republican Rome. When this kingdom was suppressed in 49 BC, the Serdi were included in the Roman Province of Thracia. Roman Emperor Trajan transformed the borough of the Serdi into a city which he called Ulpia Serdica. In 275 Aurelian caused Dacia beyond the Danube to be evacuated, and transplanted to Moesia and Roman Thracia the soldiers and colonists who were faithful to the Roman cause. The country occupied by these immigrants formed the new Province of Dacia, Sardica being included in this province (Homo, "Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Aurélien", pp. 313–21). Later, Diocletian divided Dacia into Dacia Ripensis and Dacia Mediterranea. Sardica was the civil and ecclesiastical metropolis of the latter. Gallienus established a mint at Sardica, and Constantine the Great, who was born in the region, contemplated making it his capital.
Ecclesiastically, Sardica belonged to the Patriarchate of Rome until 733, when it was annexed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople until 809. Upon the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity in 865, Sardica was one of the first cities which had an episcopal see. Until 1204 it was included in the Graeco-Bulgarian Patriarchate of Achrida, until 1393 in the Bulgarian Patriarchate of Tirnovo and until 1872 again in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Since then Sardica, which is now called Sophia, belongs to the national Church of Bulgaria.
The earliest known bishop is Protagenes, who assisted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325; the best known is Bonosus, who shortly afterwards attacked the virginity of the Blessed Virgin.
When it was captured by the Bulgars, they changed its name to Sredetz, later transformed by the Greeks into Sraditza and Triaditza. Again occupied by the 'Greek' Byzantines from 1018 to 1186, it enjoyed great prosperity; a section of the population was Paulician or Manichaean, heresies from both Catholic and (later) Orthodox points of view. After some years of troubles it again fell into the power of the Bulgars. Its present name of Sophia dates from the Middle Ages, though the precise date of its first use cannot be assigned; in the sixteenth century Sredetz and Sophia were used simultaneously. In 1382 the city was captured by the Ottoman Turks, and for more than four centuries it was the residence of the beglerbeg (governor general) of all Rumelia. In 1878 Sophia was chosen as the capital of the tributary Principality of Bulgaria, and since 1908 became the capital of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, later of the present republic.
Read more about this topic: Roman Catholic Diocese Of Sofia And Plovdiv
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