answers: Philippi
context: in the Roman Empire. Jerusalem was later named as one of the Pentarchy, but this was never accepted by the church of Rome. See also East–West Schism#Prospects for reconciliation. Antioch, a major center of Hellenistic Greece, and the third-most important city of the Roman Empire, then part of Syria Province, today a ruin near Antakya, Turkey, was where Christians were first so-called and also the location of the Incident at Antioch. It was the site of an early church, traditionally said to be founded by Peter who is considered the first bishop. The Gospel of Matthew and the Apostolic Constitutions </s> "Bishop of Damascus") then he was baptized. Thessaloniki, the major northern Greek city where it is believed Christianity was founded by Paul, thus an Apostolic See, and the surrounding regions of Macedonia, Western and Eastern Thrace, and Epirus, which also extend into the neighboring Balkan states of Albania and Bulgaria, were early centers of Christianity. Of note are Paul's Epistles to the "Thessalonians" and to Philippi, which is often considered the first contact of Christianity with Europe. The "Apostolic Father" Polycarp wrote a letter to the Philippians, c.125. Nicopolis was a city in the Roman province of Epirus Vetus, today </s> the Persian Empire. Bardaisan, writing about 196, speaks of Christians throughout Media, Parthia and Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) and, according to Tertullian (c. 160–230), there were already a number of bishoprics within the Persian Empire by 220. By 315, the bishop of Seleucia–Ctesiphon had assumed the title "Catholicos". By this time, neither Edessa nor Arbela was the centre of the Church of the East anymore; ecclesiastical authority had moved east to the heart of the Persian Empire. The twin cities of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, well-situated on the main trade routes between East and West, became, in the words of John Stewart, "a magnificent
question: the site of the first european missionary activity was the principal city of