Polystylum

A titular see of Macedonia Secunda, suffragan of Philippi. When Philippi was made a metropolitan see Polystylum was one of its suffragans (Le Quien, “Oriens christ.”, II, 65). It figures as such in the “Notitiæ episcopatuum” of Leo the Wise about 901-7 (Gelzer, “Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notit. episcopat.”, Munich, 1900, 558); the “Nova Tactica” about 940 (Gelzer, “Georgii Cyprii descr. orbis romani”, Leipzig, 1890, 80); “Notices” 3 and 10 of Parthey, which belong to the thirteenth century. In 1212 Innocent III mentions it among the suffragans of the Latin Archdiocese of Philippi (P.L., CCXVI, 585). In 1363 the Greek bishop Peter became Metropolitan of Christopolis and the see was united to the Archdiocese of Maronia (Miklosich and Müller, “Acta patriarchatus Constantinopolit”, I, 474, 475, 559; Petit, “Actes du Pantocrator”, Petersburg, 1903, p. x and vii). About the same time the city was restored and fortified by the Emperor Cantacuzenus (Cantacuz, III, 37, 46; Niceph. Gregoras, XII, 161). Cantacuzenus says that Polystylum was the ancient Abdera; this statement also occurs in a Byzantine list of names of cities published by Parthey (Hierocles, “Synecdemus”, Berlin, 1866, 314). This is not absolutely correct. Polystylum is the modern village of Bouloustra in the villayet of Salonica, situated in the interior of the country north of Kara Aghatch where the ruins of Abdera are found, but it is doubtless because of this approximate identification that the see of Abdera is placed among the titular sees, although such a residential see never existed.