SEBASTE
667
SEBASTIA
cumbency. Another object of his solicitude was the
Christian education of the younger generation. Dur-
ing his administration the Jesuits transformed (1886)
their common school at Spokane into a college for
boys, and entered (1889) the small but growing town
of Seattle. At his invitation the Redemptorist and
Benedictine Orders, the Sisters of St. Dominic, St.
Francis, the Holy Names, and the Visitation entered
the diocese and began their useful work. At his
death the diocese had: 41 churches and chapels; 37
secular priests; 21 priests of religious orders.
The Right Rev. Edward J. O'Dea (b. 23 Nov., 1856, at Roxbury, Mass.; consecrated 8 Sept., 1896, at Vancouver) became third Bishop of Nesqually and first Bishop of Seattle. Preceding his elevation to the episcopal dignity he spent twelve years in the service of the Archdiocese of Oregon. The new bishop was confronted with financial difficulties. He came into a strange territory, and had to assume a cathedral debt of $25,000, which at this period of incipient diocesan development and general financial dejiression throughout the country jin'ssed heavily upon him. The foundation for the reorganization of the diocese was laid at a dioc(>san synod held in 189S, when a constitution for its government was adopted and promulgated. On this occasion also the bishop's financial embarassment was taken from his shoulders by his clergy. The spiritual needs of the youthful commonwealth were his next care. The former terri- tory had become a state. The Indians, decimated by disease and other causes, were relegated to small reservations, and industrious and thrifty immigrant farmers were rapidly taking their places. From a white population of 75, ()()() in ISSO the new state was making gigantic strides towards its goal of more than one million inhabitants in 1910. The bi.shop's solicitude was not limited to the general needs of the diocese; it ex- tended also to the wants of the (children and the needy.
He encouraged the establishment of parochial schools when possible. In 1909 an industrial home for neglected and orphan hoys was established under his personal supervision. To protect the Italian immi- grants and llieir familir>s against the dangers to their faith in large cities, lie invited th(> Missionary Sisters of the Saci-cd Heart, an Italian religious order, to the city of Seattle, and encouraged them in their dilHcuit and often ungrateful work. Washington's centre of population had .shifted towards Puget Sound, and Seattle became a city of 2;)7,()()0 inhal)itants. Its new cathedral, the Cathedral of St. James, built on a hill overlooking the city and harbour, was begun in 1905 and was dedicated on 22 Dec, 1907. By Decree of 11 Sept., 1907, the name of the see was changed to that of the Diocese of Seattle.
Statistics. — There are in the diocese (1911): 141 priests, including 52 of religious orders; 76 churches with resident priests, and 166 mission churches and chapels; 43 brothers and 503 sisters of religious orders; 6 colleges for bovs; IS acad(Miiics for girls, of which 2 are Normal schools; 32 parochial schools with 5126 pupils; 1 protectorate, now accommodating 78 boys; 1 home for working girls; 2 rescue homes for girls; 6 orphanages with over .500 children; 13 hospitals; 3 homes for aged poor. The estimated CathoHc population of Washington is about 100,000.
De Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries (New York, 1859) ; Idem, Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Moun- tains (New York, 1847) ; Pall.4.dino, Indian and White (Balti- more, 1894); Blanchet, Historical Sketches of the Catholic Church in Oregon (Portland, 1878) ; Snowden, History of Washington (New York, 1909); Costello, The Siwash (Seattle, 1895).
W. J. Metz.
Sebaste, a titular see in Phrygia Pacatiana, suf- fragan of Laodicea. Sebaste is known to us, apart from Hierocles, " Synecdemus", 667-8, by its coins and more so by its inscriptions; the latter identify it with the present village of Sivasli, in a fertile region at the foot of Bourgas Dagh, in the eastern portion of the
plain of Banaz Ova, a vilayet of Brousse. The neigh-
bouring village of Sedjukler, a mile and a half distant,
is also full of its ruins. Sebaste owes its name and
foundation to Emperor Augustus, who established in-
habitants of the adjacent villages in it; the Phrygian
god Men and his Grecian equivalent Zeus, as well as
Apollo and Artemis, were adored there. The town
was governed by strategi or archons, and in a. d. 99
a gcrousia or council was established. Several of the
inscriptions, which have been discovered in Sebaste,
are Christian.
Le Quien (Oriens christ., I, 805) mentions seven bishops, six of whom are known to have taken part in councils, by their signatures: Modestus at Chal- cedon, 451; Anatolius at Constantinople, 553 (pos- sible Bishop of Sebaste in Cilicia); Plato at Con- stantinople, 692; Leo at Nicaa, 787; Euthymius at Constantinople, 869; Constantine at the Photian Council, Constantinople, 879; Theodore, the author of a lost historical work, in the tenth century. The see is mentioned in the "Notitia) episcopatuum" until the thirteenth century, sometimes under the name of Sebastia.
Another Sebaste occurs in the "Notitiic epis- copatuum" as a bishopric in Cilicia Prima, Tarsus being its metropolis, and also a Julio-Sebaste, a see in Isauria, suffragan of Seleucia.
Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geog., s. v.; Ramsay, Asia Minor, 381, etc.; Idem, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 560, .■>S1 seq., GOO seq., 616, 791, and passim.
S. P^tridJis.
Sebaste, Forty Martyrs of. See Forty Martyrs.
Sebastia (Sivas), Armenian Catholic Diocese OF. — The city, which existed perhai)s under another name in pre-Roman times, was called Sebastia and en- larged by Augustus (Babelon and Hcinach, " Monnaies d'Asie Mineure", I, 101); under Diocletian it became the capital of Armenia Prima and af t (>r Justinian who re- built its walls, the capital of Armenia Secunda (Proco- pius, "De/Edificiis", 111,4; Justin., "Nov.", xxxi, 1). Towards 640 Sebastia numbered five .suffragan bishop- rics and only four in the tent ii c(Milui'y (Cielzer, "Unge- druckte . . . Texte der Notitia" episcojiatuum", 538, 553). Inl347the(liocesestille\isted,andaslate, per- haps, as 1371 (Miklosichand Miiller, " Acta patriarch- atus Constant in<)i)olitani", 1, 257, .558; II, 65, 78); in the fifteenth century it had become merely a titular see. Among its bishops, of whom Le Quien mentions fif- teen (Oriens christ., I, 419-26), were: St. Blasius, whose feast is celebrated 3 February; Eulahus, present at the Council of Nica;a in 325; Eustathius, who was several times condemned, and who played a consider- able part in the establishment of monasticism; St. Meletius, who later became" Bishop of Antioch; St. Peter, brother of St. Basil the Great of Cajsarea (feast 9 January) .
This city produced many martyrs: St. Antiochus, feast 16 July; Saint Trenarchus under Diocletian, 29 November; Sts. Atticus, iMuloxius, and their compan- ion.s, martyrs under the Emi)eror Licinius, 2 Novem- ber; St. Severian, 9 September; and esjjecially the Forty Martyrs, soldiers who were i)hinged into a frozen lake and suffered martyrdom in 320, and whose feast occurs 9 March. In the beginning of the eleventh century the city was governed under the suze- rainty of the Greek emperors, by an Armenian dynasty which disappeared about 1080; in the twelfth century it became the residence of the Turcoman emirs; in the thirteenth century, of the Seljuk princes, one of whom, Ala-ed-Din, rebuilt the city in 1224. To this epoch may be traced several very beautiful me- dris.sas, or schools, still in a state of preservation. Another Turkish dynasty was there exterminated in 1392 by Sultan Bajazet. Taken and destroyed in 1400 by Timur, who, it is said, caused the massacre of its 100,000 inhabitants, Sebastia passed anew under the sway of the Osmanlis. Sivas is the chief city of a
