Cambysopolis is the non-classical name of a Roman Catholic titular bishopric in the former Roman province of Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. The name is owing to a mistake of some medieval geographer.

Ancient and ecclesiastical history

After his victory at Issus (333 B.C.) Alexander the Great built, near the ancient town of Myriandros, a city called after him Alexandria Minor (or Alexandria ad Issum, or, more frequently Alexandria Scabiosa, i.e. mountainous).

It became a suffragan diocese of Anazarbus

Anazarbus

Anazarbus in Ancient Cilicia was an ancient Cilician city, situated in Anatolia in modern Turkey, in the present Çukurova about 15 km west of the main stream of the present Ceyhan River and near its tributary the Sempas Su.A lofty isolated ridge formed its acropolis...

, the metropolis of the Roman province of Cilicia Secunda.

Lequien (II, 903) mentions a dozen bishops; among them

• St. Helenus, martyr
• St. Aristion, martyr
• St. Theodore, martyr
• Paulus, a Monophysite (christologic heretic from the Catholic and orthodox point of view)) (E.W. Brooks, The Sixth Book of the Select Letters of Severus, II, 98).

In an Antiochene Notitia episcopatuum of the tenth century [A.P. Kerameus, Maurocordatos' Library (Greek), Constantinople, 1884, p. 66], instead of Alexandria Scabiosa, we read the strange form Alexandroukambousou, in one word. A little later, and surely in the twelfth century, this corrupt form was mistaken for two names and thus arose Alexandrou and Kambysou (polis). Hence came two episcopal titles connected with one city, and the name Cambysopolis passed into all the Greek and Latin "Notitiae episcopatuum". The Roman Curia

Roman Curia

The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...

 preserved only the title Cambysopolis; the correct Ancient name, Alexandria Scabiosa, exists no more.

Modern history

The city, situated on the bay of the same name, was later called Alexandretta, and by the Turks Iskanderoun when it was in the vilayet of Aleppo

Vilayet of Aleppo

The Vilayet of Aleppo was a vilayet or province of the Ottoman Empire centered around Aleppo.-History:Thanks to its strategic geographic location on the trade route between Anatolia and the east, Aleppo rose to high prominence in the Ottoman era, at one point being second only to Constantinople in...

, and was united to that Syrian latter city by a carriage-road. In the early 20th century it had about 7000 inhabitants (3000 Greeks, 500 Catholics of Latin and Eastern Rites). The Catholic parish was conducted by Carmelites

Carmelites

The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...

, and there are attached to it Sisters of St. Joseph.

On 10 August 1920 the whole Sandjak (district within the vilayet) of Alexandretta became part of French Syria, and thus on 23 September 1923 part of Alawite (Latakia) State of French Syria, where in March 1926 - June 1926 the separate State of Alexandretta within French Syria declared, but not recognized by French authorities.

On 5 September 1938 the Sandjak of Alexandretta was again separated from Syria as State of Hatay (under French protection).
On 23 July 1939 it was incorporated into the modern republic of Turkey.