Loryma

Loryma is a Roman Catholic titular see in the former Roman province of Caria, in Asia Minor (now Anatolia, Asian Turkey).

Town

Loryma is small fortified town and harbour on the coast of Caria, formerly in the Ottoman province (vilayet) of Smyrna (present Izmir), not far from Cape Cynossema, at the western extremity of the pensinula known as Rhodian Chersonesus, opposite to and twenty Roman miles from Rhodes island.

History

Nothing is known of its ecclesiastical history, but Leake (Asia Minor, 223) mentions its ruins: towers, tombs and ramparts, west of Port Aplothiki. The "Notitiæ episcopatuum" mentions Loryma among the suffragan sees of the Metropolitan of Stauropolis (also in Caria) up to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Lequien ("Oriens christianus", I, 915) names three bishops of Loryma: George, present at the Council of Constantinople in 680, Anthimus at the Council of Nicæa in 87 and Joseph at the Council of Constantinople in 879.

Citadel

Above the bay of Loryma (modern Bozuk Buku) lies the ruins of a curtain wall surrounding the top of the hill. Constructed from large blocks of stone shaped in-situ, the remaining walls (mostly a metre high on the outside) retain very precise corners and sheer faces.

ources and References

*
* SMITH, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography".
* Ancient authors:
** Strabo, XIV, 652
** Ptolemy, V, 2, 8
** Titus Livius, XXXVII, 17; XLV, 10