Conder (Quarterly Statement P. E. F., July 1875, p. 10), asserts that the Bishop of Gaza bears the additional title of Mâr Jîryîs to the present day. Sophronius is the titular Archbishop of Gaza in 1913. He is non-resident.
[24] Of Mayoumas, or Constantia (so called from the son of Constantine), a city independent of Gaza, which from the time of Constantine the Great formed an episcopal see, six Bishops are named (Nea Sion, May and June 1907, p. 491). The name Mayoumas does not appear till Christian times. Keith explored the site in 1844, and found widespread traces of an extinct city.
[25] Neale's The Patriarchate of Antioch, pp. 163-4.
CHAPTER VIII
THIRTEEN MARTYRS AT GAZA
a.d. 304. Timotheus suffered martyrdom under Urban, the prefect of the province, in the second year of Diocletian's persecution.
a.d. 304. The Syriac version of the history of the martyrs in Palestine states that Thecla with Agapius was cast to the wild beasts in the year of Timotheus' martyrdom.
c. a.d. 308. Sylvanus, Bishop of Gaza, was a martyr in the persecution of Maximianus I. He was a Presbyter at the outbreak, and from the beginning he endured much suffering with fortitude. Shortly before his martyrdom, which was among the last in Palestine at that period, he obtained the Episcopate.
Eusebius speaks with admiration of his Christian endurance, saying he was "reserved until that time, that this might be the last seal of the whole conflict in Palestine."