Valona

Titular see, suffragan of Dyrrachium, in Epirus Nova. The ancient name was Aulon, mentioned for the first time by Ptolemy (Geographia, III, xii, 2). Other geographical documents, such as Peutinger’s “Tabula” and the “Synecdemus” of Hierocles, also mention it. Among the known bishops are Nazarius, in 458, and Soter, in 553 (Farlati, “Illyricum sacrum”, VII, 397-401). The diocese at that time belonged to the Patriarchate of Rome. In 733 it was annexed, with all eastern Illyricum, to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and yet it is not mentioned in any “Notitiae episcopatuum” of that Church. The bishopric had probably been suppressed, for, though the Bulgarians had been in possession of this country for some time, Aulon is not mentioned in the “Notitiae episcopatuum” of the Patriarchate of Achrida. During the Latin domination a Latin see was established, and Eubel (Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, I, 124) mentions several of its bishops. Valona, or Vlora, in Albania, is now a caza of the sandjak of Berat in the vilayet of Janina. The city, which has a port on the Adriatic, has about 10,000 inhabitants; there is a Catholic parish, which belongs to the Archdiocese of Durazzo. Several of the Latin bishops mentioned by Le Quien (Oriens christianus, III, 855-8), and whom Eubel (op. cit., I, 541) mentions under the See of Valanea in Syria, belong either to Aulon in Greece (now Salona) or to Aulon in Albania (Valona).