Pelusium

Pelusium (; ; Tell el-Farama) was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. It became a Roman provincial capital and Metropolitan archbishopric and remained a multiple Catholic titular see and an Eastern Orthodox active archdiocese.
Location.
Pelusium lay between the seaboard and the marshes of the Nile Delta, about two-and-a-half miles from the sea. The port was choked by sand as early as the first century BC, and the coastline has now advanced far beyond its ancient limits that the city, even in the third century AD, was at least four miles from the Mediterranean.
The principal product of the neighbouring lands was flax, and the "linum Pelusiacum" (Pliny's Natural History xix. 1. s. 3) was both abundant and of a very fine quality. Pelusium was also known for being an early producer of beer, known as the Pelusian drink. Pelusium stood as a border-fortress, a place of great strength, on the frontier, protecting Egypt as regards to Syria and the sea. Thus, from its position, it was directly exposed to attack by any invaders of Egypt; it was often besieged, and several important battles were fought around its walls.
Names and identity.
Pelusium was the easternmost major city of Lower Egypt, situated upon the easternmost bank of the Nile, the "Ostium Pelusiacum", to which it gave its name. Pliny the Elder gives its location in relation to the frontier of Arabia: "At Ras Straki, 65 miles from Pelusium, is the frontier of Arabia. Then begins Idumaea, and Palestine at the point where the Serbonian Lake comes into view. This lake... is now an inconsiderate fen."
The Roman name "Pelusium" was derived from the Greek name, and that from a translation of the Egyptian one. It was variously known as Sena and Per-Amun (Egyptian and Coptic: "Paramoun") meaning House or Temple of the sun god Amun, Pelousion or Saien (), Sin () -Chaldaic and Hebrew-, Seyân (Aramaic), and Tell el-Farama (modern Egyptian Arabic). According to William Smith, it was the "Sin" of the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel xxx. 15). Smith surmised that the word in its Egyptian and Greek forms ("Peremoun" or "Peromi"; πήλος) had the connotation of a 'city made of mud' ("cf." omi, Coptic, "mud"). The anonymous author of the Aramaic Palestinian Targum has translated the word "Rameses" in the Pentateuch as meaning "Pelusin" (Pelusium). It is not certain whether or not the 10th-century rabbi and scholar, Saadia Gaon, agreed with that determination, although he possessed another tradition of later making, writing that "Rameses" mentioned in Numbers 33:3, and in Exodus 1:11 and 12:37, as also in Genesis 47:11, refers to the Egyptian town of "ʻAin Shams". According to the 1st-century historian Josephus, Pelusium was situated on one of the mouths of the Nile. Modern-day historical geographers associate "ʻAin Shams" with the ancient city of Heliopolis.
History.
The following are the most notable events in the history of Pelusium :
The khalifs who ruled Pelusium following the Crusades, however, generally neglected the harbors, and from that period Pelusium, which had long been on the decline, almost disappeared from history.
Archaeological research.
The first excavations in Pelusium started in 1910 and were conducted by French Egyptologist Jean Cledat, who also drew the plan of the whole site. In the 1980s, work was carried out by Egyptian researchers directed by Mohammed Abd El-Maksoud as well as French linguist and historian Jean-Yves Carrez-Maratray. The Egyptian expedition uncovered Roman baths with mosaics, dated to the 3rd century. Due to the planned construction of the Peace Canal, which was to cross the site, salvage excavations were commenced in 1991. Each of the several institutions from all over the world which took part in the project was assigned its sector in the area of Pelusium and its vicinity, i.e., the so-called Greater Pelusium. The Egyptian team explored the Roman theatre and the Byzantine basilica; the Swiss carried out a survey; the British worked in the southern part of the site, and the Canadian in the western. From 2003 to 2009, an expedition from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw conducted research in the so-called Great Theater from the 2nd/3rd century and residential buildings of a later date. The Polish-Egyptian team also carried out restoration and reconstruction works in the theater.
In 2019, besides the main streets of Pelusium city, a 2,500-square-metre Graeco-Roman building made of red brick and limestone was revealed by the Egyptian archeological mission. Interior design of the building contained the remnants of three 60 cm-thick circular benches. According to archaeologist Mostafa Waziri, building was very likely used as a hold meetings for the citizens′ representatives or headquarters for the Senate Council of Pelusium.
Roman military roads.
Of the six military roads formed or adopted by the Romans in Egypt, the following are mentioned in the Itinerarium of Antoninus as connected with Pelusium:
Ecclesiastical history.
Pelusium is named (as "Sin, the strength of Egypt") in the Biblical book of Ezekiel, chapter 30:15.
Pelusium became the seat of a Christian bishop at an early stage. Its bishop Dorotheus took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 335, Marcus was exiled because of his support for Athanasius of Alexandria. His replacement Pancratius, an exponent of Arianism, was at the Second Council of Sirmium in 351. Several of the succeeding known bishops of Pelusium were also considered heretical by the orthodox. As the capital of the Roman province of Augustamnica Prima, Pelusium was ecclesiastically the metropolitan see of the province.
Pelusium is still the seat of a metropolitan bishopric of the modern-day Eastern Orthodox Church.
Isidore of Pelusium (d. c.450), who was born in Alexandria, became an ascetic and settled on a mountain near Pelusium, in the tradition of the Desert Fathers.
Pelusium is today listed by the Catholic Church as a Metropolitan titular archbishopric both in the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic Melkite Catholic Church.
Latin titular see.
In the nineteenth century, the diocese was nominally restored as a Metropolitan titular archbishopric Pelusium of the Romans.
It is vacant since decades, having had the following incumbents, of the highest rank "with a single episcopal (lowest rank) exception :"
Melkite titular see.
Since its twentieth century establishment as Metropolitan titular archbishopric, Pelusium of the (Greek) Melkites has had the following incumbents, all of this highest rank :