Balojenska biskupija (Ecclesia Baloiensis)
The Diocese of Baloie (Ecclesia Baloiensis)

Summary/Abstract: The early Christian period in the mainland of the Eastern Adriatic is still mainly unknown even though research has been carried out for more than one hundred years. Major difficulties come forward particularly when trying to determine, with certain precision, the earliest ecclesiastical organization (episcopia), boundaries of singular dioceses and parishes (paroeciae), their original names, sites of cathedral churches, names of their bishops, priests or deans etc. The best example to illustrate this, is the Diocese of Baloiensis (Ecclesia Baloiensis), which is the subject of this paper. Numerous problems related to it arise also from the acts of the Church councils held in Salona in 530 and in 533 AD, presided by the Salonitan archbishop Honorius Iunior. The 15th and the 16th centuries manuscript copies provide us with numerous controversial data and rather unclear names. Further difficulties arise from the scarcity of adequate epigraphical or written sources to compare with the data supplied by the Salonitan councils. However, what cannot be argued are the clear and numerous traces of the early Christians in these territories, manifested amongst others, by the remains of the cult buildings – early Christian basilicas, baptisteries, vaulted tombs, sarcophagi with cripto-Christian or Christian symbols, as well as inscriptions, small objects and parts of liturgical items for everyday use etc.

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