As secular capital of the
Roman province of Honorias, in the civil
Diocese of Pontus, the bishopric of Claudiopolis became the
metropolitan see, in the sway of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople, with five
suffragan sees :
Heraclea Pontica,
Prusias ad Hypium,
Tium,
Cratia and
Hadrianopolis in Honoriade. It appears as such in the
Notitiae Episcopatuum of Pseudo-Epiphanius of about 640 and in that of
Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise of the early 10th century, ranking sixteenth viz. seventeenth among the Patriarchate's Metropolitans. The city, known as Claudiopolis (like several others) under
Byzantine rule fell to
Turks migrating west in the 11th century who called it Boli, was recaptured by Byzantines in 1097,
besieged unsuccessfully by the
Sultanate of Rum in 1177 and reconquered at some point before 1214. Under Ottoman rule since the 14th century it lost to
Heraclea Pontica the Metropolitan dignity. It ceased to exist as a residential bishopric in the 15th century.
Michel Le Quien mentions twenty bishops of the see to the 13th century; documentary mentions are available for the following incumbent bishops and archbishops: • the first is
St. Autonomus, said to be an Italian missionary who suffered martyrdom under
Diocletian. • Callicrates (mentioned in 363 in
Socrates Scolasticus' church history) • Gerontius (first actual historically documented bishop, in 394 attending the council against Metropolitan Bagadius of
Bosra. • Olympius (in 431) • Calogerus (449 - 458) • Carterius (mentioned in 459) • Hypatus (circa 518)[dismissed by Janin] • Epictetus (in 536) • Vincentius (in 553) [dismissed by Janin] • Ciprianus I (in 680) • only Janin also includes a bishop Sisinnius, attending the
council in Trullo (692), but assigns apparently the same to namesake see
Claudiopolis in Isauria • Nicetas I (in 787) • Ignatius, a friend and correspondent of Patriarch
Photios I of Constantinople • Ciprianus II (869 - 879) • Nicetas II (10th-11th centuries) • John (1028 - 1029) ==Catholic titular see ==