Camachus was a town in theRoman province ofArmenia III. The true primitive name seems to have been Camacha. Camachus, Camachum and Camache are later forms. It is todayKemah in easternTurkey.
The town enclosed a celebrated temple of the god Aramazd, containing a great number of literary monuments, which were destroyed by the orders of St. Gregory of Armenia. Here were deposited the treasures of the Armenian kings, as well as many of their tombs: hence the name - the word Gamakh by which it was known inArmenian signifying "corpse". TheByzantine emperors kept a strong garrison there to defend the eastern part of their empire from the attacks of the Muslims, up to the commencement of the 11th century.[1]
Theepiscopal see of Camachus does not appear in ecclesiastical history before the 7th century. When thePseudo-Ecthesis ofEpiphanius was drawn up (about 640), it was not yet a see. But in 681, George, "Bishop of Daranalis or Camachus", was present at theThird Council of Constantinople and subscribed its acts as "bishop of the clima of Daranalis"; a third name of the see, Analibla, is given by the old Latin version. The same prelate subscribed (692) the acts of theTrullan Council. Another bishop of Camachus, Sisinnius, took part in asynod called byPatriarch Alexius of Constantinople in 1029.[2][3]
About the end of the 9th century, Camachus, until then asuffragan ofSebaste (metropolis ofArmenia I), was made a metropolitan see byLeo the Philosopher; it had five, and at one time eight, suffragan sees.
By the 15th century the residential see had disappeared. Accordingly, it is today listed by theCatholic Church as atitular see.[4]