Porphyreon


Porphyreon is the name for two towns, north and south, in the late Roman province of Phoenice Prima. One of the towns was a bishopric that was a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Tyre.

Porphyreon North

The northern Porphyreon was described by Scylax north of Sidon and also by Palerin of Bordeaux eight miles from Sidon. It corresponds to present-day Jieh, Lebanon.

Porphyreon South (bishopric)

Porphyreon south, according to the Pseudo-Antoninus, may be located six or seven miles north of Carmel. Historians of the Crusades confound this town with Caipha.
In fact Simeon Stylite the Young, contemporary of Paul, Bishop of Porphyreon, affirms that the episcopal town may be found near Castra, a place inhabited by the Samaritans. Now, in the same epoch the Pseudo-Antoninus locates the Castra Samaritanorum a Sucamina milliario subtus monte Carmelo south of Porphyreon.
The church of Porphyreon, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, was built by Justinian I.
The ruins of Porphyreon should be found near Belus, the Nahr Namein, in the sands of which may still be seen the murex brandaris and the murex trunculus, from which is extracted the famous purple dye of Tyre, and which gave its name to Porphyreon.
The Napoleonic era map survey of Pierre Jacotin marks the Ruines de Porphyrion as being located a kilometre north-east of the grotte d'Elie.

Bishopric

Porphyreon is described in the Notitia Episcopatuum of Antioch as belonging to the sixth century, but does not appear in that of the tenth century. Le Quien mentions five of its bishops:
  • Thomas, 451;
  • Alexander, at the end of the fifth century;
  • Theodore, 518;
  • Christophorus, 536;
  • and Paul, 565-78.