İpsala

History

In Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times, this was the town of Cypsela, which belonged to the Roman province of Rhodope, whose capital and metropolitan see was Traianopolis. During the reign of Orhan, it came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. From the 7th century onward, the bishopric of Cypsela, initially a suffragan of Traianopolis, appears in the Notitiae Episcopatuum as an autocephalous archdiocese. Its bishops Georgius and Theophylactus were present respectively at the Second Council of Constantinople (553) and the Second Council of Nicaea (787). Stephanus was at both the Council of Constantinople (869) and the Council of Constantinople (879). No longer a residential bishopric, Cypsela is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.