Camachus was a town in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

of Armenia III. The true primitive name seems to have been Camacha. Camachus, Camachum and Camache are later forms. It is today Kemah in eastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

History

The town enclosed a celebrated temple of the god Aramazd, containing a great number of literary monuments, which were destroyed by the orders of St. Gregory of Armenia. Here were deposited the treasures of the Armenian kings, as well as many of their tombs: hence the name - the word Gamakh by which it was known in

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

signifying "corpse". The

Byzantine emperors This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as le ...

kept a strong garrison there to defend the eastern part of their empire from the attacks of the Moslems, up to the commencement of the 11th century.

Bishopric

The

episcopal see An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, mak ...

of Camachus does not appear in ecclesiastical history before the 7th century. When the ''Pseudo-Ecthesis'' of Epiphanius was drawn up (about 640), it was not yet a see. But in 681, George, "Bishop of Daranalis or Camachus", was present at the

Third Council of Constantinople The Third Council of Constantinople, counted as the Sixth Ecumenical Council by the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches, as well by certain other Western Churches, met in 680–681 and condemned monoenergism and monothelitism as heretical a ...

and subscribed its acts as "bishop of the clima of Daranalis"; a third name of the see, Analibla, is given by the old Latin version. The same prelate subscribed (692) the acts of the

Trullan Council The Quinisext Council (Latin: ''Concilium Quinisextum''; Koine Greek: , ''Penthékti Sýnodos''), i.e. the Fifth-Sixth Council, often called the Council ''in Trullo'', Trullan Council, or the Penthekte Synod, was a church council held in 692 at ...

. Another bishop of Camachus, Sisinnius, took part in a

synod A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word ''wikt:synod, synod'' comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin ...

called by Patriarch Alexius of Constantinople in 1029. About the end of the 9th century, Camachus, until then a

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictiona ...

of Sebaste (metropolis of Armenia I), was made a metropolitan see by Leo the Philosopher; it had five, and at one time eight, suffragan sees. By the 15th century the residential see had disappeared. Accordingly, it is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 856

References

{{Ancient settlements in Turkey Catholic titular sees in Asia History of Turkey