he city is reputed to have been named by its mythical creator Beres (also spelled Pheres) or from the daughter of the king of Berroia who was thought to be the son of Macedon. Veria enjoyed great prosperity under the kings of the Argead Dynasty (whose most famous member was Alexander the Great) who made it their second most important city after Pella; the city reached the height of its glory and influence in the Hellenistic period, during the reign of the Antigonid Dynasty. During this time, Veria became the seat of the Koinon of the Macedonians, minted its own coinage and held sports games named Alexandreia, in honor of Alexander the Great, with athletes from all over Greece competing in them. Veria surrendered to Rome in 168 AD. During the Roman empire, Veria became a place of worship for the Romans. Diocletian made the large and populous city one of two capitals of the Roman province of Macedonia. Within the city there was a Jewish settlement where the Apostle Paul, after leaving Thessalonica, and his companion Silas preached to the Jewish and Greek communities of the city in AD 50/51 or 54/55:
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
Under the Byzantine Empire Berrhoea continued to grow and prosper, developing a large and well-educated commercial class (Greek and Jewish) and becoming a center of medieval Greek learning; signs of this prosperity are reflected in the many Byzantine churches that were built at this time, during which it was a Christian bishopric. The names of five of its bishops appear in extant contemporary documents: Gerontius took part in the Council of Sardica (c. 344), Lucas in the Robber Council of Ephesus (449), Sebastian in the Council of Chalcedon (451), Timothy in the synod convoked by Patriarch Menas of Constantinople in 536, and Joseph in the Council of Constantinople (869) that condemned Photius. The Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos promoted the local see to an archbishopric after 1261, and it advanced further to the rank of a metropolitan see by 1300. Berrhoea is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. In the 7th century, the Drougoubitai settled in the lowlands below the city, while in the late 8th century Empress Irene of Athens is said to have rebuilt the city and named it Irenopolis after herself, although some sources place this Berroia-Irenopolis in Thrace. The city was apparently held by the Bulgarians in the late 9th century. The 11th-century Greek bishop Theophylact of Ohrid wrote that during the brief period of Bulgarian dominance, Tsar Boris I built there one of the seven cathedral churches built by him and refers to it as "one of the beautiful Bulgarian churches". In the Escorial Taktikon of ca. 975, the city is mentioned as the seat of a strategos, and it apparently was the capital of a theme in the 11th century. The city briefly fell to Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria at the end of the 10th century, but the Byzantine emperor Basil II quickly regained it in 1001 since its Bulgarian governor, Dobromir, surrendered the city without a fight. The city is not mentioned again until the late 12th century, unless it is to be identified with the city of the same name captured during the Uprising of Peter and Asen, although this more likely refers to Beroe (Stara Zagora) in Thrace. It was briefly held by the Normans (1185) during their invasions of the Balkans.After the Fourth Crusade (1204), it became part of Boniface of Montferrat's Kingdom of Thessalonica, until the latter was conquered by the Despotate of Epirus in 1224. It changed hands again in 1246, being taken by the Emperor of Nicaea John III Doukas Vatatzes, and formed part of the restored Byzantine Empire after 1261. The 14th century was tumultuous: captured by the Serbian ruler Stephen Dushan in 1343/4, it became part of his Serbian Empire. It was recovered for Byzantium by John VI Kantakouzenos in 1350, but lost again to the Serbians soon after, becoming the domain of Radoslav Hlapen after 1358. With the disintegration of the Serbian Empire, it passed once more to Byzantium by ca. 1375, but was henceforth menaced by the rising power of the Ottoman Turks. The city changed hands several times over the next decades, until the final Turkish conquest ca. 1430.
After raids in the early 14th century, the city was captured by the Ottoman Empire sometime between 1374 and 1387, perhaps by Lala Şahin Pasha. It was named Karaferye (lit. 'black Veria'), perhaps to distinguish it from Beroe. There is a tradition claiming that the children of the Seljuk sultan Kaykaus II had earlier settled in Veria, and that one of their descendants converted to Christianity, explaining the presence of Gagauz in Veria. Under Ottoman rule, Veria was the seat of a kaza within the Sanjak of Salonica; by 1885, the kaza included 46 villages and chiftliks. Evliya Çelebi (17th century) reports that the city was unwalled and ungarrisoned, with 4000 houses, 16 Muslim quarters, 15 Christian quarters, and two Jewish congregations. Karaferye was a center of rice production.Later returning under Byzantine Greek control, in 1436 it was besieged and captured again by the Ottoman Empire and remained in their control until 1912. Under Ottoman rule, Veria continued to be a regional center of Greek commerce and learning, and counted many important Greek scholars as its natives (e.g. Ioannis Kottounios)
- VERIA IN THE GREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
The presence of a large, prosperous and educated bourgeoisie made Veria one of the centers of Greek nationalism in the region of Macedonia, and the city's inhabitants had an active part in the Greek War of Independence; important military leaders during the uprising included Athanasios Syropoulos, Georgios Syropoulos, Dimitrios Kolemis and Georgios Kolemis, among others; however, as was the case with the rest of Northern Greece, eventually the uprising was defeated, and Veria only became part of modern Greece in 1912 during the Balkan Wars, when it was taken by the Hellenic Army in October 16, 1912 (October 16 is an official holiday in Veria, commemorating the city's incorporation to Greece), and was officially annexed to Greece following the signing of the Treaty of Athens in November 1913.
During World War II, Veria was under Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1944. An important resistance movement developed in the city, with the left-wing EAM gaining the sympathy of the inhabitants; the people of Veria took part in resistance activities, such as sabotaging the railway, assassinating SS members, and burning Nazi war materiel. The Nazis appointed Prokopis Kambitoglou, a notorious local fascist and anti-Semite as the Mayor of Veria during the occupation, who helped the occupation authorities in their efforts to suppress resistance.
Source: wikipedia.org