“I Carve You, Keeper of My Soul and My Writings, on My Seal...”
Abstract
The lead seals perfectly illustrate the indissoluble connection of Byzantine society with religion, its attributes and Christian symbols. There is not much data saved in annals of Byzantine history, including church sources, on the general background of hagiographic information about church figures, in particular about the clergymen of provincial dioceses, were. Their lists are not completed and the names of some of them had become famous only due to the findings of the Byzantine lead seals – molybdoboulles. Introduction of several new seals – seal of monk Kallinikos from Cherson (second half of the eleventh century), bullae of high priests from diocese of the Asian Minor region – John, bishop of Chaldia (first half of the eighth century), Basil, bishop of Magnesia ad Meandrum (eleventh century), and metropolitans of Sardeis Stilianos (second half of the eleventh century) and Peter (eleventh century), John Koloneiates, proedros from Colonia (second half of the eleventh century) and Michael, metropolitan of Traianoupolis (second half of the eleventh century) allows us not only extend our information about individual dioceses of Byzantine empire, but in some cases to get unknown data on other sources.
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