Baniyas ( ar, بَانِيَاس ') is a
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
coastal city in
Tartous Governorate
Tartus Governorate, also transliterated as Tartous Governorate, ( ar, مُحافظة طرطوس / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ṭarṭūs'') is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in western Syria, bordering Latakia Governorate to t ...
, northwestern
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, located south of
Latakia
, coordinates =
, elevation_footnotes =
, elevation_m = 11
, elevation_ft =
, postal_code_type =
, postal_code =
, area_code = Country code: 963 City code: 41
, geocode ...
(ancient Laodicea) and north of
Tartous
)
, settlement_type = City
, image_skyline =
, imagesize =
, image_caption = Tartus corniche Port of Tartus • Tartus beach and boulevard Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa • Al-Assad Stadium&n ...
(ancient Tortosa).
It is known for its citrus fruit orchards and its export of wood. North of the city is an
oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...
, one of the largest in Syria, and a
power station
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.
Many p ...
. The oil refinery is connected with Iraq with
Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline
The Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline is a crude oil pipeline from the Kirkuk oil field in Iraq to the Syrian port of Baniyas. The pipeline is around long and the capacity is .
The pipeline was opened on 23 April 1952.
Between 1982 and 2000 the pip ...
(now defunct).
On a nearby hill stands the
Crusader castle
Crusader or Crusaders may refer to:
Military
* Crusader, a participant in one of the Crusades
* Convair NB-36H Crusader, an experimental nuclear-powered bomber
* Crusader tank, a British cruiser tank of World War II
* Crusaders (guerrilla), a C ...
of
Margat
Margat, also known as Marqab ( ar, قلعة المرقب, ''Qalaat al-Marqab'', lit=Castle of the Watchtower), is a castle near Baniyas, Syria, which was a Crusader fortress and one of the major strongholds of the Knights Hospitaller. It is locat ...
(Qalaat el-Marqab), a huge
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...
fortress built with black
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
stone.
History
In
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
n and Hellenistic times, it was an important seaport. Some have identified it with the Hellenistic city of Leucas (from colonists from the island
Lefkada
Lefkada ( el, Λευκάδα, ''Lefkáda'', ), also known as Lefkas or Leukas (Ancient Greek and Katharevousa: Λευκάς, ''Leukás'', modern pronunciation ''Lefkás'') and Leucadia, is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Gr ...
), in Greece, mentioned by
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus or Stephan of Byzantium ( la, Stephanus Byzantinus; grc-gre, Στέφανος Βυζάντιος, ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD), was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethni ...
. It was a colony of
Aradus
''Aradus'' is a genus of true bugs in the family Aradidae, the flat bugs. It is distributed worldwide, mainly in the Holarctic.Larivière, M. C. and A. Larochelle. (2006)An overview of flat bug genera (Hemiptera, Aradidae) from New Zealand, wit ...
,
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
, ''Geographica'', 16.2.12
Greek source
an
and was placed by Stephanus in the late
Roman province
The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...
of
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
, though it belonged rather to the province of
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
.
[Siméon Vailhé, "Balanaea" in ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (New York 1907)]
/ref> In Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, it is known as Balanaea or Balanea.
During the early 21st century Syrian civil war, rebel sources reported that a massacre
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
took place on 2 May 2013, perpetrated by regime forces. On 3 May, another massacre was, according to SOHR
, image = Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Logo.jpg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = The logo of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
, type = NGO
, founded_date =
, founder ...
, perpetrated in the Ras al-Nabaa district of Baniyas causing hundreds of Sunni residents to flee their homes. According to one opposition report, a total of 77 civilians, including 14 children, were killed. Another two opposition groups documented, by name, 96–145 people who are thought to have been executed in the district. Four pro-government militiamen and two soldiers were also killed in the area in clashes with rebel fighters.
Climate
Baniyas has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
(Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
''Csa''). Rainfall is higher in winter than in summer. The average annual temperature in Baniyas is . About of precipitation falls annually.
Bishopric
The bishopric of Balanea was a suffragan
A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations.
In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictiona ...
of Apamea
Apamea or Apameia ( grc, Απάμεια) is the name of several Hellenistic cities in western Asia, after Apama, the Sogdian wife of Seleucus I Nicator, several of which are also former bishoprics and Catholic titular see.
Places called Apamea in ...
, the capital of the Roman province
The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...
of Syria Secunda, as is attested in a 6th-century ''Notitiae Episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') are official documents that furnish Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church.
In the Roman Church (the -mostly Lati ...
''. When Justinian established a new civil province, Theodorias, with Laodicea as metropolis, Balanea was incorporated into it, but continued to depend ecclesiastically on Apamea, till it obtained the status of an exempt bishopric directly subject to the Patriarch of Antioch.[
Its first known bishop, Euphration, took part in the Council of Nicaea in 325 and was exiled by the ]Arians
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...
in 335 later Timotheus was at both the Robber Council
The Second Council of Ephesus was a Christological church synod in 449 AD convened by Emperor Theodosius II under the presidency of Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria. It was intended to be an ecumenical council, and it is accepted as such by the ...
of Ephesus in 449 and the Council of Chalcedon
The Council of Chalcedon (; la, Concilium Chalcedonense), ''Synodos tēs Chalkēdonos'' was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bith ...
in 451. In 536, Theodorus was one of the signatories of a letter to the emperor Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
against Severus of Antioch and other non-Chalcedonians. Stephanus participated in the Second Council of Constantinople
The Second Council of Constantinople is the fifth of the first seven ecumenical councils recognized by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. It is also recognized by the Old Catholics and others. Protestant opinions and rec ...
in 553.
In the Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
period, Balanea became a Latin-Rite see, called Valenia or Valania in the West. It was situated within the Principality of Antioch
The Principality of Antioch was one of the crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extende ...
and was subject to the Latin-Rite metropolitan see
Metropolitan may refer to:
* Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories
* Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England
* Metropolitan county, a t ...
of Apamea, whose archbishop intervened in the nomination of bishops of the suffragan see in 1198 and 1215. For reasons of security, the bishop lived in Margat Castle.[
No longer a residential bishopric, Balanea is today listed by the ]Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
as a titular see
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...
.
Notable people
*Anas Al-Sheghri
Anas Al-Sheghri ( ar, أنس الشغري; born 1988) was a leading activist in the protests in the beginning of the Syrian Civil War.
Life and Activism
Anas Ali Al-Shegri was born in the village of al-Baydha near the city of Baniyas, Banyas. ...
(born 1988), a Syrian Civil War activist.Free Syrian Translators: Faces from the Syrian Revolution: Anas Al-Sheghri
/ref>
References
{{Authority control
Cities in Syria
Balanea
Baniyas ( ar, بَانِيَاس ') is a Mediterranean coastal city in Tartous Governorate, northwestern Syria, located south of Latakia (ancient Laodicea) and north of Tartous (ancient Tortosa).
It is known for its citrus fruit orchards an ...
Populated places in Baniyas District
Populated coastal places in Syria
Phoenician cities