Karpasia (town)

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Karpasia, also Karpasion (sometimes mistaken for Karpathos) is said to have been founded by the Phoenician King Pygmalion near Cape Sarpedon, now Cape St. Andreas, at the extreme end of the Karpass Peninsula on the north-east shore of Cyprus, a short distance north of the modern town of Rizokarpaso.

As Carpasia, its Latin name, it still is a Roman Catholic titular bishopric in the former Roman province of Cyprus. Its first-known bishop, St. Philo, was ordained by St. Epiphanius in the fourth century; he has left a commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, a letter, and some fragments. Hermolaus was present at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The chroniclers mention three other names, and a fourth occurs on a seal, all without dates. Another is quoted in the "Constitutio Cypria" of Alexander IV (1260).

The see was suppressed in 1222 by the papal legate Cardinal Pelagius, but it figures in later episcopal lists. During the Latin (crusader) domination, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Arsinoe (modern Famagusta) was obliged to reside at Rizokarpaso.

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This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. [1]