The foundation of the See of Corinth is attributed to the
Apostle Paul, who is held to have preached in the city and addressed multiple epistles to the Corinthian Church, two of which became
canon. His successor and first bishop was
Saint Apollos of
Ephesus.
Pope Clement I also wrote an epistle to the community, in the first century. In the
Roman and early
Byzantine periods, Corinth was the capital and metropolitan see of the province of
Achaea (southern
Greece). The city was largely destroyed in the earthquakes of 365 and 375, followed by
Alaric's invasion in 396. It was rebuilt on a smaller scale thereafter, but with grandiose buildings. In 1203/4, the city fell to the ambitious lord of the
Argolid,
Leo Sgouros, who secured possession of Corinth by inviting its Metropolitan, Nicholas, to
Acronauplia for dinner, and then had him thrown from its heights. Sgouros' ambitions to create a state of his own in southern Greece were checked by the onslaught of the victorious
Crusaders, who captured Corinth in 1210. After the city's capture, the Crusaders established a
Latin Archbishopric to replace the Greek Orthodox see. Le Quien (III, 883) mentions twenty Latin prelates from 1210 to 1700, but
Eubel (I, 218; II, 152) mentions twenty-two archbishops for the period from 1212 to 1476. The city was recovered by the Byzantine
Despotate of the Morea in 1395, and, after a short period (1397–1404) of rule by the
Knights Hospitaller, returned to Byzantine hands, where it remained until it fell to the
Ottoman Empire on 8 August 1458. After the Byzantine recovery of the city, the Catholic see became a
titular see. Today, the Metropolis of Corinth belongs to the
Church of Greece, under the
Archbishop of Athens and All Greece. ==List of bishops==