In the
Hellenistic-
Roman era, the city was called Aphrodisias. In the Christian era, it was renamed Stauropolis (
Greek: Σταυρούπολις) 'city of the cross'. In later
Byzantine times, it assumed the name of Caria, a name preserved by the village of Geyre.[6]
At the
Council of Chalcedon (451) 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 (about 640), the seat of Stauropolis is listed at the 20th place in the hierarchical order of metropolitanates under the
patriarchate of Constantinople[8] and are attributed 28 dioceses suffragan.[9] In the Notitia attributed to Emperor
Leo VI (early tenth century) Stauropolis fell to 21st place among the metropolitanates of the Patriarchate,[10] and the suffragan dioceses have become 26.[11]
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.[12] Isaias of Stauropolis attended the
Council of Florence (1439) and fled to avoid signing the decree of union.
^The Roman Martyrology. Transl. by the Archbishop of Baltimore. Last Edition, According to the Copy (Printed at Rome in 1914). Revised Edition, with the Imprimatur of His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1916. pp. 125-126.
^Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum, in: Abhandlungen der philosophisch-historische classe der bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1901, p. 534, nº 27.
^Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum, in: Abhandlungen der philosophisch-historische classe der bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1901, , pp. 539-540, nnº 290-318., nº 27.
^Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum, in: (Abhandlungen der philosophisch-historische classe der bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1901), p. 550, nº 24.
^Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California, 1971), p. 296