Carpasia

A titular see of Cyprus. Carpasia, Karpasia, also Karpasion (sometimes mistaken for Karpathos) is said to have been founded by King Pygmalion near Cape Sarpedon, now Cape St. Andrea, at the extreme end of a peninsula on the north-east shore of Cyprus, a short distance north of the modern Rhizokarpaso. 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 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 domination the Greek Archbishop of Arsinoe (Famagusta) was obliged to reside at Rhizokarpaso.

P.G., XL, 9-154; KERAMEUS, Analecta, I, 393-399; FABRICIUS, Biblioth. græca, ed. HARLES, IV, 751, X, 479; MASLATRIE, Histoire de Chypre, passim; IDEM, L'ile de Chypre, 46; HACKETT, A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus (1901), 318, 320.

S. Pétridès.