page_title: Niksar
section_title: Bishops
hierarchical_section_title: Niksar / Ecclesiastical history / Bishops
caption_attribution_description: English: Seal of Constantine Melissopetriotes, Metropolitan bishop of Neokaisareia
context_page_description: Niksar /'niksar/ is a city in Tokat Province, Turkey. It was settled by many empires, being once the capital city of the province. Niksar is known as "Çukurova of the North-Anatolia" due to its production of many kinds of fruits and vegetables except citrus fruits. On 02 Mai 2018 Niksar was included in the World Heritage tentative list.
context_section_description: Noted bishops include Saints Gregory Thaumaturgus, Paul of Neocaesarea, and Thomas, a 9th-century martyr.
  Gregory of Nyssa claimed that about 240, when Gregory Thaumaturgus was consecrated bishop of his native city, Neocæsarea had only seventeen Christians and that at his death (270) it counted only seventeen pagans. In 315 a great council was held there, the acts of which are still extant. In the early church baptism was generally by immersion. Baptism by perfusion, that is by pouring the water over the candidate, was permitted in the case of the seriously ill and where sufficient water for immersion was unobtainable or impractical, as in, for example, prisons. The Council of Neocaesarea ruled that individuals baptized by perfusion were disqualified from being presbyters. This became an issue in the case of Novatian, who had received baptism by perfusion when dangerously ill.
  Being early placed at the head of an ecclesiastical province, Neocæsarea had four suffragan sees about 640 ("Ecthesis" of pseudo-Epiphanius, ed. Heinrich Gelzer, 539), retaining them until the tenth century, when Trebizond obtained its independence and, by degrees, the other three suffragans were suppressed. In 1391 the Archdiocese of Neocaesarea was confided to the metropolitan of Trebizond (Miklosich and Müller, "Acta", II, 154). About 1400 there was, however, a regular metropolitan (op. cit., II, 312), residing at Ordu. Among the twenty-seven bishops of this city mentioned by Le Quien, the most noted are Saints Gregory Thaumaturgus, Paul of Neocaesarea, and Thomas, a 9th-century martyr.
caption: Seal of Constantine Melissopetriotes, Bishop of Neocaesarea