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Atitular see of Lycaonia. Xenophon (Anab., I, ii, 19) says that it is the easternmost town of Phrygia; other writers e.g., Cicero (Ad. famil., III, 6; XV, 3), Ammianus Marcellinus (XIV, 2), place it in Lycaonia, and others in Galatia. It isknown that the boundaries of these provinces were often changed. It was the possession of M. Antoninius Polemon, dynast of Olbe, to whom Anthony gave it, and who reigned from 39 to 26 B.C. (Pliny, "Hist. Natur., " V, 37; Strabo XII, vi, 1). Iconium later formed part of the Roman Province of Galatia, when the latter was constituted 25 B.C. Under Claudius the town became a Roman colony, mentioned on manycoins and inscriptions.St. Paul preached here during his first mission andconverted a goodly number ofJews andpagans; shortly afterwards he returned to organize thechurch he had founded (Acts 14:20;16:2); he speaks elsewhere of thepersecutions he endured there (2 Timothy 3:11).Saint Thecla was one of his converts there. Christianized rather early, the town was the scene in 235 of acouncil which decreed that thebaptism ofheretics was invalid.Le Quien (Oriens Christ., I, 1067-74) mentions thirty-sixbishops down to the year 1721; the best-known isSt. Amphilochius, the friend ofSt. Basil andSt. Gregory of Nazianzus. The list might well be completed and brought down to the present time, for Iconium is yet the centre of aschismatical Greekdiocese.
What constitutes the reputation of the town is that from 1063 to 1309 it was the capital of the sultans of the Seljuk Turks, who on the extinction of their dynasty adopted as their heir Osman, the founder of thepresent [1910] dynasty. A great number of monuments or works of art of the period have been preserved, such as the ruins of the mosque of the Sultan Ala-ed-Din, the bluemedresseh (school), a vast hall of the palace with a magnificently decorated roof, the golden mosque, the mosque of Selim II, the tomb of Djelal-Eddin, a mystical poet and founder of the whirling dervishes. The superior-general of these Turkish religious, surnamed Tchelebi, always resides at Koniah and has the privilege of girding each new sultan with the sabre of Osman, which for Turkish sovereigns corresponds to the ceremony ofcoronation. Koniah, the capital of a vilayet which numbers more than a million inhabitants, itself possesses nearly 50,000 inhabitants, three-fourths of whom areMussulmans. There are about 300Catholics.
In 1892 theAugustinians of the Assumption established a mission here with aschool which is very prosperous today. The Oblate Sisters of the Assumption conduct a dispensary and aschool. TheGreek and above all theArmenianschismatics are very numerous. The town is connected with Constantinople by a railroad, and important works of irrigation have been set on foot in order to cultivate the plain which has hitherto been very arid. Koniah is one of the holy cities ofIslam. It contains more than 10,000 dervishes (Turkishmonks) andtheological students.
HAMILTON, Researches in Asia Minor, II, 205; RAMSAY, Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890), 332, 377-78, 393-95; SMITH, Dict. Greek and Roman Geog., II, 12; SARRE, Reise in Kleinasien (Berlin, 1896), 28-106; TEXIER, Asie Mineure (Paris, 1862), 661-663; CUINET, La Turquie d'Asie, I (Paria, 1892), 801-872; HUART, Konia, la ville des derviches tourneurs (Paris, 1897).
APA citation.Vailhé, S.(1910).Iconium. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07619a.htm
MLA citation.Vailhé, Siméon."Iconium."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 7.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1910.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07619a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by John Fobian.In memory of Dorothy Fobian Schmidt.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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