Mariamme was a city in the late

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

of Syria I, corresponding to present-day Qal'at El-Hosn or

Krak des Chevaliers Krak des Chevaliers (; , ; or , ; from , ) is a medieval castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world. The site was first inhabited in the 11th century by Kurds, Kurdish troops garrisoned there by ...

Hecataeus of Miletus Hecataeus of Miletus (; ; c. 550 – c. 476 BC), son of Hegesander, was an early Greek historian and geographer. Biography Hailing from a very wealthy family, he lived in Miletus, then under Persian rule in the satrapy of Lydia ...

is quoted by

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

describing Mariamme as a Phoenician city.

, ''Cum annotationibus L. Holsteinii, A. Berkelii et Th. de Pinedo. Vol. I, cum Guilielmi Dindorfii praefatione, cui insunt lectiones libri Vratislav'', Leipzig, 1825, p. 286

Arrian Arrian of Nicomedia (; Greek: ''Arrianos''; ; ) was a Greek historian, public servant, military commander, and philosopher of the Roman period. '' The Anabasis of Alexander'' by Arrian is considered the best source on the campaigns of ...

mentions Mariamme as a city under the dominion of the king of

Arwad Arwad (; ), the classical antiquity, classical Aradus, is a town in Syria on an eponymous List of islands of Syria, island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative center of the Arwad nahiyah, Subdistrict (''nahiyah''), of which it is ...

in the time of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

. The bishopric of Mariamme is no longer a residential

episcopal see An episcopal see is the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, making it synonymous with ''diocese'' ...

and is therefore included in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

's list of

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

s. The first

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

was appointed to the see in 1923 in the person of Martín Rucker Sotomayor, who had been named the

Apostolic Vicar Apostolic may refer to: The Apostles An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission: *The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles *Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Churc ...

for the Vicariate Apostolic of Tarapacá in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. The current holder of the title is Claudiu-Lucian Pop, a

curial bishop Curial may refer to: * one of the Curiales, a social class in ancient Rome * anything related to the Roman Curia * anything related to a royal court * a title character of ''Curial e Güelfa'' * Napoléon Joseph Curial (1809–1861), French peer an ...

of the

Romanian Greek Catholic Church The Romanian Greek Catholic Church or Romanian Church United with Rome is a '' sui iuris'' Eastern Catholic Church, in full union with the Catholic Church. It has the rank of a Major Archiepiscopal Church and it uses the Byzantine liturgical r ...

. Previous titular bishops include Ceslaus Sipovich.

References

Phoenician cities Arwad Catholic titular sees in Asia {{Asia-RC-titularsee-stub