Photos

pelasgia port view
Pelasgia (Greek: Πελασγία, formerly Γαρδίκι, Gardiki), is a town and a former municipality in Phthiotis, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Stylida, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 128.334 km2, the community 52.089 km2.
In the 2011 census, the municipal unit of Pelasgia numbered 2,860 inhabitants, the town proper 1,497.
The village is located at the northern entrance of the Malian Gulf, some 2 km south of the acropolis of the ancient city of Larissa Kremaste.[5]

The ancient city is still mentioned until the early Byzantine period, but was abandoned after the Slavic invasions of the 7th century and reappears only in the 11th century under the new, Slavic, name of Gardiki,[5] which the settlement bore until 1927, when it was renamed to Pelasgia.[2]

In the 11th century, Gardiki—referred to in Byzantine sources also as hetera Gardikia (ἑτέρα Γαρδικία), "the other Gardiki", to distinguish it from the town of the same name near Trikala—was an episcopal see (a suffragan see of the Metropolis of Larissa).[5] The Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela, who visited it in 1165, found it almost deserted, with only a few Greek and Jewish families resident.[5] Nevertheless, under Emperor Isaac II Angelos in 1189 it is listed as among the metropolitan sees, albeit without any suffragans.[5] A manuscript list indicates that there was a Greek bishop named John in 1191–92.[6]

In the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, the town came under Frankish rule, and was known as Gardichy, Cardiche, Lacardica, and Gaudica. The local see accordingly came under the Latin Church. Gams mentions five Latin bishops from 1208 to 1389, the first being Bartholomew, to whom many letters of Pope Innocent III are addressed; Bartholomew was also bishop of Velestino and Demetrias,and seems to have been the only residential Latin bishop.