A titular see in the province of Lydia, suffragan of Sardis. The city is mentioned by Strabo, Hierocles, and Georgius Cyprius. Ptolemy locates it between the River Hermus, the modern Guediz Tchai, and Mt. Sipylus. Lequien (Or. chris., I, 881) names five of its bishops : John, known to Socrates (Hist. Eccl., VII, xxxvi), and who assisted at the Council of Ephesus in 431; Theodotus, 458; Theodore, 536; George, 787; and Leo, 878. Between the years 901 and 907, under Leo the Wise (Ecthesis pseudo-Epiphanii, ed. Gelzer, p. 553), Gordos is always mentioned as a suffragan of Sardis. It is not known when it was suppressed, but it no longer existed in the fifteenth century. Gordos, now Guerdiz, is the chief town of a caza of the sanjak of Saroukhan in the vilayet of Aidin. The city numbers four thousand inhabitants, six hundred of whom are Greek schismatics, the remainder being Mussulmans. It is the chief centre of the manufacture of Smyrna carpets.

The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed in fifteen hardcopy volumes.

Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.

No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.

Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912

Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online