Qlaudia (West Syriac diocese)

Qlaudia (or Claudia) was a diocese in the Syriac Orthodox metropolitan province of Melitene (Malatya), attested between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Sixteen Jacobite bishops of Qlaudia are mentioned either by Michael the Syrian or Bar Hebraeus. By 1283, as a result of several decades of warfare and brigandage, the diocese of Qlaudia was ruined. The diocese is not again mentioned, and seems to have lapsed around the end of the thirteenth century.

Location
Qlaudia was a district near Melitene (modern Malatya), in eastern Turkey.

Bishops of Qlaudia
Fourteen bishops of Qlaudia are mentioned in the lists of Michael the Syrian.

The bishop Dionysius of Qlaudia is mentioned in several sources for the middle decades of the thirteenth century.

In 1283, according to Bar Hebraeus, the diocese of Qlaudia and the other suffragan dioceses of the province of Melitene were ruined:

Even if I wanted to be patriarch, as many others do, what is there to covet in the appointment, since so many dioceses of the East have been devastated? Should I set my heart on Antioch, where sighs and groans will meet me? Or the holy diocese of Gumal, where nobody is left to piss against a wall? Or Aleppo, or Mabbugh, or Callinicus, or Edessa, or Harran, all deserted? Or Laqabin, ʿArqa, Qlisura, Semha, Gubos, Qlaudia and Gargar—the seven dioceses around Melitene—where not a soul remains?

Despite the gloomy testimony of Bar Hebraeus, there is evidence that the diocese of Qlaudia continued to exist at this period. According to the colophon of a contemporary manuscript, the metropolitan Ignatius 'of Qlaudia, which is Qust', was among the fifteen bishops consecrated by the patriarch Philoxenus Nemrud (1283–92).

The diocese of Qlaudia is not mentioned in any later source, and probably lapsed around the end of the thirteenth century.