Stauropolis (diocese)


Stauropolis is the former metropolitan see of Caria in Asia Minor within the Patriarchate of Constantinople. It remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.

History

The bishopric was centered on the ancient town of Stauropolis, on the site of modern Geyre, Turkey. It was the metropolitan seat of the Roman province of Caria in the civil Diocese of Asia and the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
In the Hellenistic-Roman era, the city was called Aphrodisias. In the Christian era, it was renamed Stauropolis 'city of the cross'. In later Byzantine times, it assumed the name of Caria, a name preserved by the village of Geyre.
Stauropolis was home to an ancient Christian community. The Roman Martyrology on May 3 remembers the martyrs Diodorus and Rodopiano, who were condemned to be stoned to Aphrodisias during the Diocletianic Persecution.
At the Council of Chalcedon bishops signed the documents of confession as Aphrodisiadis Metropolitan Cariae. There are about thirty known bishops of Stauropoli in the first Christian millennium, many of them thanks to epigraphic and sigillografiche discoveries.
In the Notitia Episcopatuum composed during the reign of Emperor Heraclius I, the seat of Stauropolis is listed at the 20th place in the hierarchical order of metropolitanates under the patriarchate of Constantinople and are attributed 28 dioceses suffragan. In the Notitia attributed to Emperor Leo VI Stauropolis fell to 21st place among the metropolitanates of the Patriarchate, and the suffragan dioceses have become 26.

Residential bishops

  • Ammon
  • Eumenius
  • Cyrus
  • Critonianus
  • Nonnus
  • Euphemius
  • Severianus
  • Paul
  • Deuterius
  • Theopropius
  • Ortagoras
  • Theodore I
  • Sisinnius
  • Eustacus
  • Anonymous
  • Michael
  • Nicephorus I
  • Theodore II
  • Niephorus II
  • Sergius
  • Ephraem of Caria
  • Joseph
  • Anonymous
  • John I
  • Leo the Deacon
  • Eustation II
  • Anonymous
  • John II
  • Constantine
  • Ignatius
  • John III?
  • Demetrius
Surviving acta record that between 1356 and 1368 it was without a metropolitan, but was under the administration of the metropolitan of Bizye. In 1369 metropolitan reappears as the recipient of the churches of Miletus and Antioch on the Maeander, and another is mentioned in 1399. Isaias of Stauropolis attended the Council of Florence and fled to avoid signing the decree of union.

Catholic titular see

The see survives only as a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church: