Timotheus Chorepiscopus

A chorepiscopus (Greek chorepiskopos, a "country bishop" with limited authority over rural parishes outside a metropolitan see) named Timotheus, known only as the recipient of letters within late-antique episcopal correspondence. The chorepiscopate was a genuine office of the fourth- and fifth-century Eastern church, ranking below the city bishop and entrusted with overseeing village congregations; Basil of Caesarea in particular addressed several letters to chorepiscopi under his jurisdiction in Cappadocia. This Timotheus is otherwise unattested beyond the letters and cannot be securely identified; the grouping of his name across the Basil, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Isidore of Pelusium collections may reflect more than one person bearing the common name Timotheus. He should be treated as an obscure ecclesiastical correspondent of the fourth-to-fifth-century Greek East rather than a documented historical figure. (obscure)