Sudak

History

It is believed that the city was founded in 212 CE by Alani settlers on the territory of the Bosporan Kingdom. Merchants from the Roman Empire founded Sougdaea, in Greek Σουγδαία (a reference to Sogdia) in the 3rd century. In the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I ordered the construction of a fortress. The Khazars attacked in the 7th century, giving it the name Suğdaq. The Life of St. Stefan of Surozh (Russian: св. Стефан Сурожский) describes the 8th-century town as a dependency of the Byzantine Empire. Around the start of the 9th century, it was supposedly attacked by the Rus' chieftain, Bravlin. It is thought that the Khazars retained the town from the early 9th century until 1016, when the Byzantines finally defeated the Khazar warlord Georgeios Tsulo. Afterwards, the town seems to have preserved some sort of autonomy within the Byzantine Empire.

From the 9th century until around the 12th century, there were important trade exchanges between the then Surozh and the Kievan Rus'.

It became an important location for trading on the Silk Road in the 12th and 13th centuries, despite attacks by the Cumans-Kipchaks in the 11th century and further damages inflicted by the Tatars (in 1223, but also in 1239). The city was controlled by the Cumans-Kipchaks, as reported by Ibn al-Air, who said "city of the Qifjaq from which (flow) their material possessions. It is on the Khazar Sea. Ships come to it bearing clothes. The Qifjiqs buy from them and sell them slaves. Burtas furs, beaver, squirrels ..." The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum army and fleet from Sinop held and fortified Sudak in 1224. Whereupon, the Sultan of Rum, Kayqubad I, built a mosque in 1225.

The Venetians also came to Sudak at the beginning of the 13th century to take their share, naming the fortress Soldaia, before ceding it to Genoese control in 1365. The Ottomans took control of Soldaia and all other Genoese colonies, as well as the Principality of Theodoro in 1475. Although Sudak was the strategical center of a qadılıq, the smallest administrative unit in the Ottoman Empire, the town lost much of its military and commercial importance, until the Crimean Khanate took over.

In 1771, Sudak was occupied by Rumyantsev's army. In 1783, it definitively passed to the Russian Empire, with the rest of Crimea. Though sometimes contested, it seems that a mass emigration occurred as a result of the ensuing instability in that period. Even Potemkin ordered in 1778 the eviction of the Christian population from Crimea. The town rapidly turned into a small village, and according to the 1805 census, Sudak had just 33 inhabitants.

In 1804, the first Russian school of viticulture was opened there.

The present status of the town was acquired in 1982.

Ecclesiastical History

In the Roman era, Sugdaea was the Metropolitan Archbishopric of a Crimean ecclesiastical province named Zechia for the Bosporan client kingdom, whose suffragans included Soldaia, also on Sudak's territory.

See Russian Orthodox Diocese of Surozh for Surozh, the old name of the city as an episcopal see in the Russian Orthodox Church, is now transferred to the Russian Orthodox Diocese in Great Britain and Ireland.

Under Venetian/Genoese rule, a Latin Catholic diocese of Soldaia was established in 1390, which was suppressed circa 1500. No incumbents available.

Latin titular Metropolitan see of Sugdaea

In 1933 the Ancient see was nominally restored as Titular bishopric of Sugdæa (Sugdaea), which was promoted in 1948 to Metropolitan titular archbishopric.

It is vacant for decades, having had a single incumbent of the fitting Metropolitan archiepiscopal (highest) rank :

Latin titular Episcopal see of Soldaia

In 1933 the diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric.

It is vacant for decades, having had a single incumbent of the fitting episcopal (lowest) rank :