Diocese of Buto

The Diocese of Buto (Latin Butus, Greek Butos) is a former Christian diocese and titular see of both the Roman Catholic and Coptic Orthodox Churches, with see in the Ancient City of Buto in the Nile Delta of Egypt.[1]

Location

Buto, identified with Tell al-Fara'in ("Pharaohs' Mound") and the village of Ibtu or Abtu near the city of Desouk (Arabic: دسوق‎),[2] was an ancient city in the Nile Delta, even one of the oldest cities on earth, with a history back to the Neolithic age.

During the Roman and Byzantine era it became the seat of an early Christian bishopric.

History

During the Roman and Byzantine era there was a Bishopric based in the town of Buto, which was important enough in the Roman province of Aegyptus Primus to become one of the suffragans of its capital's Metropolitan, the Patriarchate of Alexandria. Lequien's Oriens Christianus [3] identified Butus with Phthenothi, but according to Klaas A. Worp's list of Byzantine-era bishops in Egypt,[4] Ftenote is a different see [not titular], which had the bishops Pininute(s,) (325), Agapius (343) and Eracleius (451), in which case the first-mentioned wasn't bishop of Butus.

Recorded bishops of Buto (with the above proviso) were :

  • ? Pininute (mentioned in 325)
  • Caius (in 325)
  • Ammon, who attended the Council of Chalcedon,[5]
  • Tommasus (Thomas) (first mention 458 - 459)
  • Teonas (in 459).

Latin titular see

The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as Latin Titular bishopric of Butus (Latin) / Buto (Curiate Italian) / Butien(sis) (Latin adjective) in the Roman Catholic Church.

It is vacant since decades, having had a single incumbent, of the fitting Episcopal (lowest) rank:[6]

Orthodox titular see

The see remains a titular bishopric of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Africa.

See also

References
  1. Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Butos". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
  2. Wilkinson, R. H. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, (Thames & Hudson, 2000), p. 104.
  3. Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris, 1740, vol. II, coll. 529-530
  4. Klaas A. Worp, A Checklist of Bishops in Byzantine Egypt (A.D. 325 - c. 750), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994), pages 283-318
  5. Richard Price, Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Volume 1 (Liverpool University Press, 2005) p338.
  6. http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/former/t0362.htm GCatholic - (titular) bishopric
  7. Bernard C. Pawley, Observing Vatican II (Cambridge University Press, 2014)p285.
  8. Butus at GCatholic.org.
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