NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

To the bishops of the Pontic Diocese.To the bishops of the Pontic Diocese. 3115Letter CCLII. 3114The honours of martyrs ought to be very eagerly coveted by all who rest their hopes onthe Lord, and more especially by you who seek after virtue. By your disposition towardsthe great and good among your fellow servants you are shewing your affection to our commonLord. Moreover, a special reason for this is to be found in the tie, as it were, of blood,which binds the life of exact discipline to those who have been made perfect through endurance.Since then Eupsychius and Damas and their company are most illustrious amongmartyrs, and their memory is yearly kept in our city and all the neighbourhood, the Church,calling on you by my voice, reminds you to keep up your ancient custom of paying a visit.A great and good work lies before you among the people, who desire to be edified by you,and are anxious for the reward dependent on the honour paid to the martyrs. Receive,therefore, my supplications, and consent of your kindness to give at the cost of small troubleto yourselves a great boon to me. 31163114 Placed in 376.3115 In the title the word διοίκησις is used in its oldest ecclesiastical sense of a patriarchal jurisdiction commensuratewith the civil diocese, which contained several provinces. cf. the IXth Canon of Chalcedon, whichgives an appeal from the metropolitan, the head of the province, to the exarch of the “diocese.” “The title exarchis here applied to the primate of a group of provincial churches, as it had been used by Ibas, bishop of Edema,at his trial in 448; alluding to the ‘Eastern Council’ which had resisted the council of Ephesus, and condemnedCyril, he said, ‘I followed my exarch,’ meaning John of Antioch (Mansi vii. 237; compare Evagrius iv. 11, using‘patriarchs’ and ‘exarchs’ synonymously). Reference is here made not to all such prelates, but to the bishops ofEphesus, Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and Heraclea, if, as seems possible, the see of Heraclea still nominally retainedits old relation to the bishop of Thrace.” Bright, Canons of the First Four Gen. Councils, pp. 156, 157. ThePontic diocese was one of Constantine’s thirteen civil divisions.3116 cf. p. 184, n. cf. Proleg. Eupsychius, a noble bridegroom of Cæsarea, was martyred under Julian for hisshare in the demolition of the temple of Fortune. Soz. v. 11. cf. Greg. Naz., Ep. ad Bas. lviii. September 7 wasthe day of the feast at Cæsarea.803