Byllis (Ancient Greek; Βύλλις or Βουλλίς) was at first an Illyrian settlement of the Bylliones. The settlement was refounded as city, now a Hellenic Byllis. Later on the population became Latin speaking.

It was situated west of Avlona, on the coast, near the modern village Gradica, or Gradiste, a Slav name substituted in later episcopal "Notitiae" for the old Illyrian name Byllis (Not. episc. III, 620; X, 702). Under the Romans, it was part of the province of Epirus Nova.

Hierocles (653, 4) knows only of Byllis. Felix, Bishop of Apollonia and Byllis, was present at the Council of Ephesus, in 431. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Eusebius subscribes simply as Bishop of Apollonia; on the other hand, Philocharis subscribes as Bishop of Byllis only in the letter of the bishops of Epirus Nova to the Byzantine Emperor Leo I in 458.

In later years it retained only a titular bishop in the Roman Catholic church, whose title is often added to that of Apollonia among the suffragans of the archbishopric of Dyrrachium.

References

Bibliography

• Wilkes, J. J. The Illyrians, 1992,ISBN 0631198075,
• Catholic Encyclopedia article

External links

• Illyria and Illyrians