Traianoupoli (Greek: Τραϊανούπολη) or Traianopolis in Thrace, Trajanopolis or Trajanople was a medieval settlement in the 14th century in the Evros regional unit of East Macedonia and Thrace region, northeastern Greece, nowadays named Loutra Traianoupoleos.
Traianoupoli was also the name of a municipality which existed between 1997 and 2011 following the Kapodistrias Plan.
Modern town
Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Alexandroupolis, of which it is a municipal unit.[2] The municipal unit has an area of 163.549 km2.[3] Population 2,315 (2021).
The city was founded by the Roman emperorTrajan (r. 98–117) near the ancient town of Doriscus, and received his name.[4] In the Roman period, the city was famous for its baths.
In the 4th century, it became the capital and metropolitan see of the Thracian Roman province of Rhodope. Under Justinian I (r. 527–565) the city walls were repaired.[4] The city remained the metropolis of the ecclesiastical province of Rhodope until its decline in the 14th century, but ceased being a provincial capital with the rise of the theme system, coming under the Theme of Macedonia, although a single strategos of Traianoupolis is attested in an 11th-century seal.[4] In autumn 1077, the troops of the rebel general Nikephoros Bryennios the Elder proclaimed him emperor at Trajanople.[4]
In the Partitio Romaniae of 1204 it is listed as the pertinentia de Macri et Traianopoli. The CrusaderGeoffrey of Villehardouin is known to have been assigned fiefs in the area. In 1205 or 1207, the town was destroyed by Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria, but in 1210 it is attested as a Latin (Roman Catholic) archbishopric.[4] Following its recovery by the Empire of Nicaea, the Greek Orthodox see was restored; in 1260, John Kondoumnes was named as its bishop.[4] The area was ravaged by Bulgarian raids in 1322 and by Turkish raids in 1329/30. By the time John Kantakouzenos and his ally, Umur Bey, erected their camp on the site in the winter of 1343/44, the city had lain destroyed and abandoned for several years. In 1347, the local metropolitan was therefore allowed to reside in Mosynopolis instead.[4] The area fell to the Ottoman Turks by 1365, and in 1371 the see was supplanted by that of Serres in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.[4]
The sole use of the site after the city's abandonment was as a way-station, and in ca. 1375/85, the Ottoman Gazi Evrenos built an inn (Hana) and a Turkish bath, which still survive.[4] Traces of the medieval buildings and the circuit wall also survive.[4]
The city was largely destroyed and abandoned after the raids of the 1320s, so that in 1347, the metropolitan moved his residence to Mosynopolis. In 1353, the incumbent metropolitan was assigned the Metropolis of Peritheorion as well. Following the Ottoman conquest shortly after, in 1365 the dispossessed Metropolitan was moved to the Metropolis of Lacedaemon. In 1371 the see of Serres replaced Trajanopolis in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.[4]
The title of Metropolitan of Trajanopolis remained a titular appointment in the Church of Constantinople until 1885, when it was assigned to the Metropolis of Ainos (full title "Ainos, Trajanopolis, and Dede-Agatch"). From 1922, with the establishment of the Metropolis of Alexandroupolis within the modern Greek state, the title passed to it; the full title of the metropolitans of Alexandroupolis is "Metropolitan of Alexandroupolis, Trajanopolis and Samothrace", with the style of "hypertimos and exarch of Rhodope".[5]
Catholic titular see
The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic Metropolitan titular archbishopric in the 17th century, simply as Traianopolis (or Trajanopolis), which was changed in 1933 to Trajanopolis in Rhodope (since 1970 spelled Traianopolis in Rhodope), avoiding confusion with a Turkish namesake.
It is vacant since 1968, having had the following incumbents, all except the first (merely episcopal, the lowest rank) of the highest (Metropolitan) rank :
Titular Bishop Claudio de Villagómez (1684-04-24 – 1685-11-04?)
