Christian Mangup: The Modern Source Base and the Main Stages of Its History

Abstract

Throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages, the settlement of Mangup was one of the most important ideological centres for the spread of Christianity in the south-western Crimea. From the creation of the independent Gothic bishopric on, it housed the residence and the cathedral church of the hierarchs of Crimean Gothia. This is evidenced by numerous churches and monasteries discovered by many-year-long excavations of the site (27 in total). This paper is the first in the scholarship attempt of systematization of all available information from the sources related to the Christian history of the castle of Mangup, written, epigraphic, archaeological, and so on. Particular attention has been paid to the results of modern excavations of the church archaeology monuments at the settlement in question, carried out systematically in 2012–2021. They formed the basis for the reconstruction of the main stages of church building and the most important periods in the history of the local Christian community. Generally, it covers a wide period from the mid-sixth century, when a big basilica featuring the nave and two aisles, the future cathedral of the Gothic bishopric (metropolia), was built at Mangup along with the large Byzantine castle, and finished in the early seventeenth century. The construction and functioning of most part of known churches and monasteries of the castle of Mangup dates to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when this site finally developed into a large mediaeval city, the capital of the principality of Theodoro in the south-western Crimea.