Basilinopolis

A titular see of Asia Minor. Originally a small village in Bithynia Prima, it obtained the rank of a city under, or perhaps shortly before, Julian the Apostate (Mansi, VII, 305). The first known bishop, Alexander, was consecrated by St. John Chrysostom about 400. Other bishops are Gerontius (451), Cyriacus (518), Sisinnius (680), Georgius (787), and Anthimus in 878 (Lequien, Or. Chr., I, 623-625). At Chalcedon (451) the see had been the object of a sharp contest between the metropolitans of Nicomedia and Nicaea about jurisdiction. Basilinopolis was finally made by the council a suffragan of Nicomedia (Mansi, ibid., 301-314); and it remained so until about 1170 under Manuel Comnenus (Hierocles, Synecdemos, ed. Parthey, 169). The see does not figure in a “Notitia episcopatuum” of the fifteenth century, the city doubtless having been destroyed by the Osmanli. Its exact site is not known. According to W. M. Ramsay (Hist. Geogr. of Asia Minor, 179), it was probably situated on the western side of the Lake of Nicaea (Isnik-Ghueul), near Bazar-Keui, between Kios (Ghemlek) and Nicaea (Isnik).