Loryma

For the genus of moths, see Loryma (moth).

Loryma (Ancient Greek: Λώρυμα) was an ancient town and episcopal see in the Roman province of Caria, in Asia Minor (Anatolia, Asian Turkey). It is now listed as a titular see.

Location

Loryma was a small fortified town and harbour on the coast of Caria, not far from Cape Cynossema, at the western extremity of the peninsula known as Rhodian Chersonesus, opposite to and twenty Roman miles from Rhodes island.

Its ruins, west of Port Aplothiki, with towers, tombs and ramparts are described by William Martin Leake (Asia Minor, 223).

Above the bay of Loryma (modern Bozuk Bükü) lie the ruins of a curtain wall surrounding the top of the hill. Constructed from large blocks of stone shaped in-situ, the remaining walls (up to several metres high on the outside) retain very precise corners and sheer faces.

Ecclesiastical history

Up to the 12th and 13th centuries, the Notitiæ episcopatuum mention Loryma as one of the suffragan sees of the Stauropolis, the metropolitan see of Caria. Lequien (Oriens christianus, I, 915) names three bishops of Loryma:

• George, present at the Council of Constantinople in 680
• Anthimus at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787
• Joseph at the Council of Constantinople in 879.

Titular bishops

• Antonio Laghi, O.F.M. † (1715, appointed - 1727)
• Francesco Saraceni, O.F.M. † (1728, appointed - 1742)
• Jan Krasiński † (1748, appointed - 1760)
• Jan Szemiot † (1760, appointed - 1762)
• Anthony Coyle † (1777, appointed - 1782)
• Jan Nepomucen Kossakowski † (1793, appointed - 1794)
• Georgius Połubiński † (1796, appointed - 1801)
• Luis Gregorio López Castillo † (1815, appointed - 1825)
• Vitaliano Provenzano † (1839, appointed - 1857)
• Valentino Baranowski † (1857, appointed - 1871)
• Stefano Pribék de Ville † (1872, appointed - 1902)
• Francisco García y López † (1903, appointed - 1909)
• George William Mundelein † (1909, appointed - 1915)
• Adolf Józef Jełowicki † (1918, appointed - 1937)
• Eugène Curien † (1937, appointed - 1947)
• Vittorio Longo † (1956, appointed - 1974)

Literary reference

The British traveler and writer Freya Stark visited Loryma and wrote concerning the historical significance of its sheltered harbor:

In the stillness of Loryma we spent the night. The wind could be heard howling outside, against the hills that enclosed our sheltered water as if it were a mountain tarn. Only a fanning ripple touched the centre. The sound of the wind, inarticulate and busy like the world’s voice, gave an illusion of safety, of an unassailable peace. If it could penetrate, how many sleeping echoes would it waken? Athenians from Samos, dodging the Dorian Cnidus, picking up ship’s tackle at Syme, sheltering at Loryma; Conon, before the battle, with his ninety ships; the Roman fleet that dared not face Hannibal in the offing; Cassius, gathering forces against Rhodes, twenty miles away. Each in their turn passed through the narrow opening and felt the sudden calm. In these places, the natural features have remained unaltered; the moments that visit them, fashioned to one pattern by nature itself, drop like beads on a string, through long pauses, one after the other, into the same silence.

Gallery

• Loryma Citadel from the sea - 6 Jun 2013.jpg
• Loryma Citadel round blocks from outside wall, 6 Jun 2013.jpg
• Loryma Citadel tower blocks from inside wall, 6 Jun 2013.jpg
• Loryma Citadel wall section, 6 Jun 2013.jpg