CHIOS

CHIOS. - An island in the Aegean Sea, already famous in the third century for the glorious death of the martyr St. Isidoro. It has a Greek bishop and a Latin bishop (recently only an apostolic administrator, whose office is entrusted to the archbishop of Naxos). Already at the ecumenical Councils of Chalcedon (451), Constantinople (680), and the Second Council of Nicaea (787), the acts are subscribed by a bishop of C. The Latin bishopric was founded after the establishment of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204); however, only from the year 1329 is the series of Latin bishops known. C., after the rule of the Genoese Republic (1346-1566), was subjected to the Turks (1566-1912). The Catholic Church experienced its most flourishing life in C. in the middle of the sixteenth century, when there were 8,000 Catholics, 14 secular priests, and 22 religious priests (Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Capuchins). C. has given the Catholic Church many bishops, among them the three cardinals Vincenzo, Benedetto, and Orazio Giustiniani. The islands of Samos and Mitilene are under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of C. Today there are 150 Catholics.