Castabala

A titular see of Asia Minor, Latin title suppressed, 1894. This city was situated somewhere on the river Pyramos (now Djihan) in Cilicia, and was also known as Hieropolis. It was probably near Osmanié, in the vilayet of Adana, perhaps at Kestel or Kastal, a village five or six miles south of Anazarbus. Others have located it, erroneously, at Karanlik or Kartanlik between the Pyramos and Aegaea (now Ayas), or at Kara Kaya near Demir Kapou (Amanicae portae). According to Hierocles, Georgius Cyprius, and Parthey’s “Notitiae episcopatuum” (I), it was a suffragan of Anazarbus, metropolis of Cilicia Secunda. About the tenth century it seems to have been confounded with or united to Mamista, i.e., Mopsuestus. Seven bishops are mentioned by Lequien (II, 901). The first, Maris, is spoken of in an apocryphal letter of St. Ignatius, and another letter is addressed to him. Moyses was present at Nicaea in 325. Theophilus, a semi-Arian and friend of St. Basil, was sent to Rome on an embassy with two colleagues. The last, Theodorus, attended the Trullan Council in 692.