Much of what remains of Livissi was built in the 18th century.
Lycian style tombs can be found in the village and at Gokceburun north of the village. Lebessus is mentioned as a
Christian bishopric in the
Notitia Episcopatuum of Pseudo-Epiphanius composed under the
Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in about 640, and in the similar early 10th-century document attributed to Emperor
Leo VI the Wise, as a
suffragan of the
metropolitan see of
Myra, the capital of the
Roman province of
Lycia, to which Lebessus belonged. Since it is no longer a residential bishopric, Lebessus is listed by the
Catholic Church as a
titular see. Livissi is probably the place where the inhabitants of Byzantine
Gemiler Island fled to protect themselves from pirates. It experienced a renewal after nearby Fethiye (known as
Makri) was devastated by an earthquake in 1856 and a major fire in 1885. More than 20 churches and chapels were built in the village and the plain (Taxiarhes – the 'Upper' church – and 'Panayia Pyrgiotissa' – the 'lower' church – St. Anna, St. George, etc.). Most of them are still standing in ruinous or semi-ruinous condition. The village population was over 6,000 people, according to Greek and Ottoman sources. The persecutions of Livissi inhabitants as well as Greeks of nearby Makri (
Fethiye) were part of the wider campaign
against all Ottoman Greeks and other Christians of the Empire (cf.
Armenian genocide). The persecutions in the area started in 1914 in Makri. In 1916, a letter in Greek addressed to Sir
Alfred Biliotti, the Consul General of Great Britain at Rhodes, explained the murders and persecution of Livissi and Macri Greeks who asked him for intervention. Unfortunately, the letter was intercepted at Livissi by Turkish authorities. Later that same year, many families of Livissi were deported and driven on foot to
Denizli, around 220 km away. There, they suffered various extreme atrocities and tortures, facing even death. According to local tradition, Muslims refused to repopulate the place because it was "infested with the ghosts of Livisians massacred in 1915". Two more exile phases followed in 1917 and 1918. In 1917, families were sent in villages near Denizli, such as
Acıpayam, through forced march of fifteen days, consisting mainly of the elderly, women and children, who had remained in the area. During that
death march, the roads were strewn with bodies of dead children and the elderly who succumbed to hunger and fatigue. The exiles of the next year were no less harsh. At the start of the
Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) Kayaköy was already nearly empty of its former inhabitants. When this war ended in September 1922, the few remaining Greeks of Livissi and Makri were forced to abandon their homes and embark on ships to Greece. Some of them founded the refugee settlement of
Nea Makri (New Makri) outside of Athens. Many of the town's empty buildings were damaged in the
1957 Fethiye earthquake. ==Kayaköy today==