AMASEA. — The first city of the province of Hellenopontus in Asia Minor, on the River Iris; capital of the province during the imperial period, it was severely damaged by an earthquake in the year 529 A.D. (Procopius, Historia arcana, XVIII, 42). In a life of St. Basil (Acta SS. Aprilis, III, ed. Venice 1738, p. Lvi), it is related that in A. there was shown the place called the Chair of the Apostles, where St. Peter is said to have preached and to have appointed Nicetius bishop of A. Another tradition, however, attributes the first evangelization of A. to the apostle St. Andrew.
St. Basiliscus, bishop of Comana, a native of A., is commemorated in the East on 22 May (Synax. Constantinop., column 699). Also from A. was St. Philantes, martyred with three companions who are venerated on 18 August (ibid., col. 699). The life of St. Basil, bishop of A., martyred around the year 522, recalls the first Christian church, said to have been built by the bishop himself within the city and to have contained his tomb. Eusebius, on the other hand, relates that several churches of A. were closed or destroyed during the persecution of Licinius (Vita Constantini, 12; Hist. eccl., X, 8, 14). Among the military martyrs of A., a St. Publius is commemorated in the East on 26 April (Synax. cit., col. 630), a contemporary of St. Basil. Earlier, namely on 17 February 306, was the martyrdom of the soldier Theodore Tiro (H. Delehaye, Les légendes grecques des saints militaires, Paris 1909, pp. 11-43; 127-213). In his honor the emperor Anastasius I (491-518) dedicated a basilica during the episcopate of Bishop Mamas (S. Pétridès, Note sur une inscription chrétienne d'A., in Echos d'Orient, 3 [1900], pp. 273-78). From the first half of the fifth century there is mention of the church dedicated to the gardener and martyr St. Phocas of Sinope, as attested by the panegyric delivered there in his honor by Asterius, bishop of A. (cf. Van de Vorst, St Phocas, in Analecta Bolland, 30 [1911], pp. 252-95). Many restorations carried out in the churches of A. during the time of Justinian are attested by Procopius (De aedificiis, 3, 7). From the life of St. Eutychius, from the end of the sixth century, the names of several monasteries can also be derived, such as the one situated near the Acropolis and dedicated to St. John, and the other of which St. Eutychius was abbot before 552, the year in which he became patriarch of Constantinople. From the first half of the fifth century dates the monastery to which Meletius and Seleucus, later bishops of A., belonged. Among the churches, mention is made of the one dedicated to the martyr St. Thalleleus, erected on the mountain overlooking A. Churches dedicated to Our Lady and to St. Michael were established in spacious halls of private residences.
A. was invaded by the Arabs in 1075. Pope Benedict XIV, with the Bull Ad supremum of 15 February 1743, united the metropolitan see of A. with that of Pavia; consequently, the bishop of the latter see received the pallium. Pius VII, however, with the Bull Paternae charitatis studium of 16 March 1819, once again separated the two titles.