Parnassus (Cappadocia)
Parnassus or Parnassos was a town in the northern part of ancient Cappadocia, on the right bank of the Halys River, and on or near a hill, to which it owed its name, on the road between Ancyra and Archelais, about 63 miles west of the latter town. It became a bishopric and remains a Roman Catholic titular see.
History
As a town in the Late Roman province of Cappadocia Tertia, Parnassus was important enough to become a suffragan bishopric of the Metropolitan of Mocissus, in the sway of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Its site is near modern Parlasan, Şereflikoçhisar.Several of its bishops were historically documented :
- Pancratius, an Arian heretical schismatic, among the dissident bishops which left the Council of Sardica and held a small council at Philippopolis issuing a separate Arian position.
- Ipsius and Ecditius, whom Church Father Saint Basil the Great of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia mentioned in a letter
- Eustachius I participated over his 30 years term in various major synods: the council of Ephesus in 431, opposing the profession of faith; the Synod of Constantinople of 448 convoked by Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople to condemn heretical anti-Nestorian archimandrite Eutyches; the Council of Chalcedon in 451; he also signed in 458 the letter of the bishops of Cappadocia to Byzantine emperor Leo I the Thracian after the Coptic mob-murder of Patriarch Proterius of Alexandria and signed the synodal decree of Patriarch Gennadius of Constantinople against simony around 459.
- Pelagius prese partook in the synod of Constantinople in 536 which Patriarch Mena called to condemn Antimus
- Eustachius II was present at the 'Robber' Council in Trullo in 692
- Stephanus attended the Second Council of Nicaea in 787
- Teognostus participated at the Council of Constantinople in 879-880 condemning Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople.
Titular see
The diocese was nominally restored as a titular bishopric in 1895.It is vacant, having had the following incumbents, all of the lowest rank :
- Johann Baptist Schneider as Auxiliary Bishop of Wien
- Ludovic Joseph Legraive as Auxiliary Bishop of Mechelen
- Arturo Mery Beckdorf, later Titular Archbishop of Phasis
- Daniel Figueroa Villón as Auxiliary Bishop of Antofagasta ; later Coadjutor Bishop of Valdivia, Coadjutor Archbishop of Santiago, Titular Archbishop of Phasis as Auxiliary Bishop of La Serena promoted Coadjutor Archbishop of La Serena
- Daniel Tavares Baeta Neves as Auxiliary Bishop of Mariana ; later Bishop of Januária, Titular Bishop of Alexandria Minor, Bishop of Sete Lagoas
- Adolfo Luís Bossi, Capuchin Friars as Coadjutor Bishop-Prelate of São José do Grajaú, succeeding as Bishop-Prelate of São José do Grajaú, died 2002.