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Avlonari Αυλωνάρι
Community
Avlonari
Coordinates: 38°30′N 24°08′E / 38.500°N 24.133°E / 38.500; 24.133
Country	Greece
Administrative region	Central Greece
Regional unit	Euboea
Municipality	Kymi-Aliveri
Municipal unit	Avlon
Population
• Community	1,273
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)

Avlonari (Greek: Αυλωνάρι) is a village and a community (unit) of the Municipality Kymi-Aliveri, in the eastern part of the Aegean island of Euboea, Greece. It was the seat of the municipality of Avlon, and the medieval town and bishopric of Aulon, which remains a Latin Catholic titular see.

The community includes the villages Chania, Dafni, Elaia and Lofiskos. Avlonari is situated on a hillside, 13km northeast of Aliveri, 15km south of Kymi, Greece and 47km east of Chalcis.

Population

History

Modern Avlonari is usually identified with Avlon or Aulon (Greek: Αὐλών), a town and bishopric attested since the 9th century. Aulon appears in the Notitiae Episcopatuum, commencing with that of Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912) as a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Athens, in the sway of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. No names of its first-millennium bishops are known. The Byzantine-era church of St. Demetrios at Chania, in the lowland below Avlonari, built by reusing material from an earlier church, may have been the bishopric's seat.

After the Fourth Crusade (1202–04), Euboea was captured by Crusaders, who divided the island and established Lombard baronies, and Aulon became a diocese of the Latin Church. A Greek, Theodoros, was appointed, but destituted by the Latin Archbishop of Athens, for refusing to receive his consecration according to the Latin rite; Pope Innocent III restored him after obtaining his liturgical submission (December 1208). yet a papal letter from July 1210 already mentions "bishop-elect", plausibly to replace the troublesome Greek Theodoros, whom Innocent III addressed two more letters in 1211.

In about 1222, the see of Aulon (known in Italian as la Valona) was merged with the Bishopric of Negroponte. This was disputed from 1235 on, leading to the restoration of a separate bishop for Aulon (episcopus Abilonensis) in 1240. Aulon in attested as a fief in the 14th century, and in the 15th century, under Venetian rule, as an administrative district. The district was led by two captains (Capitanei Avalone), who had their seats on fortresses in the nearby heights of Cuppa and Potiri. A three-story watch tower also survives in Avlonari itself.

The town was raided by the Ottoman Turks in 1423, and captured, along with the rest of Euboea by the Ottoman Empire in 1470. Under Ottoman rule, the bishopric of Aulon was merged with a new, Orthodox Metropolis of Euripus.

Titular see

No longer a residential bishopric, this Aulon is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular bishopric, being distinguished from an Adriatic diocese Aulon by using for the Euboean Aulon the Latin adjective Aulonensis, while the Latin adjective regarding the other Aulon in Epirus (modern Vlore, in Albania) is Aulonitanus.

The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as Latin Catholic titular bishopric.

It is vacant, having had the following incumbents, so far of the fitting Episcopal (lowest) rank :

• Tomás Juan Carlos Solari (1943.08.23 – 1948.09.20) as Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires (Argentina) (1943.08.23 – 1948.09.20); later Metropolitan Archbishop of La Plata (Argentina) (1948.09.20 – death 1954.05.13)
• Manuel Tato (1948.11.13 – 1961.07.11) as Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires (Argentina) (1948.11.13 – 1961.07.11); later Bishop of Santiago del Estero (Argentina) (1961.07.11 – death 1980.08.12)
• Manuel Augusto Cárdenas (1962.04.07 – death 1998.07.28), first as Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires (1962.04.07 – 1975.04.22), then as Auxiliary Bishop of Argentina of the Eastern Rite (1975.11.11 – 1992.02.11), finally on emeritate.

See also

• List of Catholic dioceses in Greece
• Aulon for (ancient) namesakes
• List of settlements in the Euboea regional unit

References

1. "Αποτελέσματα Απογραφής Πληθυσμού - Κατοικιών 2021, Μόνιμος Πληθυσμός κατά οικισμό" [Results of the 2021 Population - Housing Census, Permanent population by settlement] (in Greek). Hellenic Statistical Authority. 29 March 2024.
2. ^ Koder, Johannes; Hild, Friedrich (1976). Tabula Imperii Byzantini, Band 1: Hellas und Thessalia (in German). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 130–131. ISBN 978-3-7001-0182-6.
3. Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum, in: Abhandlungen der philosophisch-historische classe der bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1901, p. 556, nº 489.
4. Le Quien, Michel (1740). Oriens Christianus, in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus: quo exhibentur ecclesiæ, patriarchæ, cæterique præsules totius Orientis. Tomus secundus, in quo Illyricum Orientale ad Patriarchatum Constantinopolitanum pertinens, Patriarchatus Alexandrinus & Antiochenus, magnæque Chaldæorum & Jacobitarum Diœceses exponuntur (in Latin). Paris: Ex Typographia Regia. coll. 226-227. OCLC 955922747.
5. Koder, Johannes; Hild, Friedrich (1976). Tabula Imperii Byzantini, Band 1: Hellas und Thessalia (in German). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. p. 139. ISBN 978-3-7001-0182-6.
6. Le Quien, Michel (1740). Oriens Christianus, in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus: quo exhibentur ecclesiæ, patriarchæ, cæterique præsules totius Orientis. Tomus tertius, Ecclesiam Maronitarum, Patriarchatum Hierosolymitanum, & quotquot fuerunt Ritûs Latini tam Patriarchæ quàm inferiores Præsules in quatuor Patriarchatibus & in Oriente universo, complectens (in Latin). Paris: Ex Typographia Regia. coll. 837-838. OCLC 955922748.
7. Janin, Raymond (1931). "Aulon" (PDF). Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques. Vol. V. coll. 671-672.
8. Le Quien, Michel (1740). Oriens Christianus, in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus: quo exhibentur ecclesiæ, patriarchæ, cæterique præsules totius Orientis. Tomus tertius, Ecclesiam Maronitarum, Patriarchatum Hierosolymitanum, & quotquot fuerunt Ritûs Latini tam Patriarchæ quàm inferiores Præsules in quatuor Patriarchatibus & in Oriente universo, complectens (in Latin). Paris: Ex Typographia Regia. coll. 845-846. OCLC 955922748.
9. Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 842

Sources and external links

• GCatholic
• Video on Avlonari from ERT's travelling program Traveling in Greece (Menoume Ellada) (in Greek)

• Populated places in Euboea
• Kymi-Aliveri
• Defunct dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
• Catholic titular sees in Europe
• Medieval Euboea