Description : Kula (Bulgarian: Кула, lit. 'tower') is a town in northwestern Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of Kula Municipality part of Vidin Province. Located just east of the Serbian-Bulgarian border, it is the third largest town in the province after Vidin and Belogradchik. Kula lies 30 kilometres west of Vidin and 13 kilometres east of the border checkpoint at Vrashka Chuka. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 3,287 inhabitants. Kula is the modern site of the Late Roman fortress of Castra Martis, the ruins of which can still be seen today, which also was a bishopric in the Roman province of Dacia Ripensis and remains a Latin Catholic titular see under the Latin name. Castra Martis, named after the Roman god of war Mars, on the modern site of Kula (Latin/Italian Cula), in Vidin Province in northwestern Bulgaria, served to protect the road through Vrashka Chuka pass in the western Balkan mountains. It was important enough in the Roman province of Dacia ripensis to become a suffragan of the provincial capital's Metropolitan Archdiocese of Ratiaria, in the sway of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Its only recorded Suffragan Bishop was Calvus, participant at the Council of Serdica in 343 (called by the Pope, boycotted by most Eastern sees). In 408, the Huns under Uldin took control of the site during an attack on the Eastern Roman Empire, apparently by treachery.
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