NAXOS. – Greek island whose see was probably erected in the 5th century; its bishop GEORGE took part in the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Under Emperor LEO VI (886–911), the see of N. was subject to the metropolitan see of Rhodes. In May 1803 it was united with Paros to form a single metropolitan see of Paronaxia. Under Latin rule from the 13th century a Latin see was erected there, which after the fall of Rhodes became in the 16th century a metropolitan see, preserved under Turkish rule (1537–1829) and in the new Greece to the present day; only in 1919, owing to the small number of Catholics, it was united with the see of Tinos-Mykonos under the title of the archbishopric of Naxos-Tinos (and Mykonos).
Catholicism enjoyed its last flowering in N. in the 17th century; at that time the separated Greeks showed a strong inclination toward the Catholic Church, and the work of the new religious who came to the island—Jesuits and Capuchins—met with a favourable reception. The French Ursulines have continued since the 19th century to the present day the apostolate of education among the young women of the indigenous Ursulines “of the house” (or “Ursulines in the world”), with vigour and breadth, so that their college at Tinos became a centre for the formation of girls from the best families of Greece, most of them “Orthodox.” At N. the memory is preserved of the sojourn of St MARTIN I in the summer of 655, during his journey as a prisoner of the Byzantine emperor CONSTANTINE II, a supporter of Monothelitism.