, mentioned in
1 Maccabees Sozomen and Eusebius and in
Book of Luke 24:13-35, of the
New Testament. Being a small town only from
Jerusalem, the village of
Emmaus was not initially a
bishopric, but rather part of the bishopric of
Jerusalem. In 131 CE,
Christian scholar and writer
Julius Africanus of Jerusalem, headed an embassy to Rome and had an interview with the
Roman emperor Elagabalus on behalf of Emmaus. Soon after it was refounded to become a "city" (πόλις), which quickly became famous, and was given the qualification of "Nicopolis".
Eusebius a century later writes Emmaus, whence was
Cleopas who is mentioned by the
Evangelist Luke. Today it is Nicopolis, a famous city of
Palestine. Jerome described how the towns congregation "consecrated the house of
Cleopas as a church." The bishopric of Emmaus was mentioned by St.
Jerome,
Hesychius of Jerusalem,
Theophanes the Confessor,
Sozomen, and
Theodosius. In 222 CE, a
basilica was erected there, which was rebuilt first by the
Byzantines and later modified by the
Crusaders. This Diocese, however, must not have been of significance, being represented at only one of the first four
councils nor mentioned by
Michel Le Quien but was in the
Notitiae Ecclesiastica. The ancient
bishopric ended when the Islamic armies entered the city. At the time of the
Muslim conquest of Palestine, the main encampment of the Arab army was established in Emmaus, when a
plague struck, killing as many as 25,000 of
the army. In the 7th century both
Willibald of Eichstätt and
Hugeburc von Heidenheim, in her
The Life of St. Willibald both describe the town church and "holy well". The church was one of 30,000 Christian buildings destroyed in 1009AD by
al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the
Fatimid caliph of
Egypt. In the 12th century
William of Tyre, described the abundance of water and
fodder in the area around the town, and
Daniel Kievsky wrote of the site, "but now all is destroyed by the pagans and the village of Emmaus is empty."
John Phocas (ca.1185) also described the town. The Bishopric was re-established in 1099 when the army of the
First Crusade, arrived in the town. But came under the rule of the
Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century and, the church built by the Crusaders converted into a
mosque. In 1930, the
Carmelite Order built a
monastery, the
House of Peace, on a tract of land purchased in the town in 1878. Three years later it was established as a
titular see in the
Roman Catholic Church. ==Known bishops==