Europus

A titular see in Provincis Euphratensis, suffragan of Hierapolis. The former name of this city was Thapsacus (Thaphsakh), an Aramean word which means “ford”; it was an important trade-center at the northern limit of Solomon’s kingdom (1 Kings 4:24). The younger Cyrus and Alexander the Great forded the Euphrates at this point. The Macedonians called it Amphipolis. It took finally a third name, Europus under which it is mentioned by the geographers Ptolemy, Pliny, Hierocles, Georgius, Cyprius, etc. and figures in the “Notitia episcopatuum” of the Antiochene patriachate. (see Echos d’Orient, 1907, 451) We know but one of its Greek bishops, in 451 (Lequien, Oriens christ., II, 949), and a Jacobite one, between 793 and 817 (Revue de L’Orient Chrétien, 1899, 451). Justinian built a fortress at Europus (Procop., de ædif., II, 9). When the city was destroyed is unknown. Its ruins stand at Djerabis, a corrupted form of Europus, on the right bank of the Euphrates, about twenty-five kilometers south of Biredjik, in the vilayet of Aleppo.