MAMA XI 302 (Konya)

For the ecclesiastical background to this inscription, with a collection of the evidence relating to the Apotactite sect in Lykaonia, see Thonemann 2011b. This is the first direct piece of evidence for the existence of an Apotactite group on the territory of Ikonion. Other communities of Apotactites are attested in two inscriptions from the region immediately to the north-west of Ikonion, around Laodikeia Katakekaumene. From the remote village of Kara Tepe in the steppe north of Laodikeia (near ancient Bardaetta: TIB Phrygien 205, s.v. Bardaētta), we have the tombstone (MAMA I 173) of a certain Aniketos, described as πρεσβύτερος τῶν Ἀποτακτιτῶν, set up by two other presbyters, Eugraphios and his (spiritual) brother Diophantos, who describe themselves as Aniketos’ ‘successors’ (διάδοχοι). Another tombstone (MAMA VII 88) is known from the highlands south-west of Laodikeia, at Kestel (Beykavağı: TIB Phrygien 300, s.v. Kestel), set up for an individual (possibly a πρωτοπρεσβύτερος) by the presbyters of an Apotactite monastic community (Γάϊος πρεσ̣[βύτερος καὶ οἱ] συνπρεσβύ[τεροι τοῦ τῶν] Ἀποτακτιτῶ̣[ν - - - μο]ναστηρίου). Another group of Apotactites can be inferred much further to the north, at Ankyra in Galatia (Mitchell 1982: 103-4). The fact that this inscription was discovered so close to the urban centre of Ikonion (Zivecik [Ortakonak] lies in the plain of Konya, some 20km north-east of the modern city-centre) may throw some doubt on Mitchell’s suggestion (1993: II 103) that the Apotactites tended to seek ‘genuine isolation’ in the deep Anatolian countryside.