It was identified with modern Avhat (Avk(h)at). Today the Turkish village Beyözü, in the Anatolian province of Çorum (in the subprovince of Mecitözü), partly lies on the ruins.
History
Euchaita, in the Roman provinceofHelenopontus (Civil dioceseofPontus,
was known in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages as the centre of the cult of Saint Theodore of Amasea (martyred ?306), and became a major pilgrimage site after his remains were moved there from neighbouring Amasea. Its episcopal see was originally a suffragan (no incumbents known) of the Metropolitan of the provincial capital Amasea, in the sway of patriarchate of Constantinople. In the 5th century, the town was a favourite site of exile for disgraced senior churchmen. In 515, the unfortified town was sacked by a Hunnic raid, after which it was rebuilt, fortified and raised to the status of a city by Byzantine EmperorAnastasius I.[1]
The city was later burned down by the Sassanid Persians in 615, and attacked by the Arabs under second Ummayad Caliph Mu'awiya I in 640. A second Arab attack captured the city in 663; the raiders plundered the city, destroyed the church of St. Theodore, and wintered there, while the population fled to fortified refuges in the surrounding countryside.[1]
It became an autocephalous archbishopric in the early 7th century[1], as attested by the Notitia Episcopatuum edition of pseudo-Epiphanius, from the reign of [[Byzantine emperor Heraclius I (circa 640),.
The city was rebuilt and soon recovered. The Arabs scored a victory in its vicinity in 810, taking captive the local strategos of the Armeniac Theme and his entire treasury.
In 972, Emperor John I Tzimiskes renamed the neighbouring Euchaneia, whose exact relation or identity with Euchaita is unclear, into Theodoropolis.[1] The town is recorded as having a vibrant fair during the festival of St. Theodore in the middle of the 11th century, but its history thereafter is unknown.[1]
The archbishopric was nominally restored in 1922 as Latin Titular archbishopric of Eucaita (Latin = Curiate Italian). In 1925 it was demoted as Titular bishopric of Eucaita (Latin = Curiate Italian), but before another incumbent could take possession it was in 1929 again promoted as Titular Archiepiscopal See, now under the names Euchaitæ (Latin) / Eucaita (Curiate Italian) / Euchaiten(us) (Latin adjective).
It is vacant since decades, having had the following incumbents, of the fitting archiepiscopal (intermediate) rank : BIOS TO ELABORATE
Bernard Adriaan Gijlswijk (O.P.) (1922.12.02–1944.12.22)
^Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art. / Edit. by Eric McGeer, John Nesbitt, Nicolas Oikonomides. — Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001. — Vol. IV: The East. — PP. 45—46. — (Dumbarton Oaks Collection Series). — ISBN 0-88402-282-X
^Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art. / Edit. by Eric McGeer, John Nesbitt, Nicolas Oikonomides. — Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001. — Vol. IV: The East. — P. 44. — (Dumbarton Oaks Collection Series). — ISBN 0-88402-282-X
^Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art. / Edit. by Eric McGeer, John Nesbitt, Nicolas Oikonomides. — Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001. — Vol. IV: The East. — P. 46. — (Dumbarton Oaks Collection Series). — ISBN 0-88402-282-X
^Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art. / Edit. by Eric McGeer, John Nesbitt, Nicolas Oikonomides. — Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001. — Vol. IV: The East. — P. 47. — (Dumbarton Oaks Collection Series). — ISBN 0-88402-282-X
^Mitsakis K. Symeon Metropolitan of Euchaita and the Byzantine Ascetic Ideals in the Eleventh Century // Βυζαντινα : επιστημονικο οργανο κεντρου βυζαντινων ερευνων φιλοσοφικης σχολης αριστοτελειου πανεπιστημιου 2 (1970): pp. 301—334. — ISSN1105-0772
^Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art. / Edit. by Eric McGeer, John Nesbitt, Nicolas Oikonomides. — Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001. — Vol. IV: The East. — P. 45. — (Dumbarton Oaks Collection Series). — ISBN 0-88402-282-X
^Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art. / Edit. by Eric McGeer, John Nesbitt, Nicolas Oikonomides. — Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001. — Vol. IV: The East. — PP. 44—45. — (Dumbarton Oaks Collection Series). — ISBN 0-88402-282-X
Janin, Raymond (1969). La géographie ecclésiastique de l'empire byzantin, première partie: Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat oecuménique, Tome III: les églises et les monastères (in French). Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. pp. 148–155.
Trombley, Frank (1985). "The Decline of the Seventh-Century Town: The Exception of Euchaita". In Vryonis, Speros (ed.). Byzantine Studies in Honor of Milton V. Anastos. Malibu, California. pp. 65–90.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 442
Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, vol; I, coll. 543-548
Jean Darrouzès, Remarques sur des créations d'évêchés byzantins, in Revue des études byzantines, vol. 47, 1989, pp. 215–221
Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum, in: Abhandlungen der philosophisch-historische classe der bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1901, pp. 529–641
