Colossae

Colossae was an ancient city in the Lycus River valley of the Roman province of Phrygia (modern southwestern Turkey), situated approximately one hundred miles east of Ephesus. Once a significant city known for its distinctive purple-dyed wool, Colossae had declined in importance by the first century AD relative to its neighbors Laodicea and Hierapolis. The Christian community there appears to have been founded not by Paul himself but by Epaphras, a native of Colossae (Colossians 4:12), probably during Paul's extended ministry at Ephesus.

Paul's letter to the Colossians (Colossians 1:2), written while he was imprisoned, addresses a theological error threatening the church — sometimes called the Colossian heresy — which combined elements of Jewish observance, angel worship, and a proto-Gnostic demotion of Christ's supremacy. Paul responds with an exalted Christology: Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things hold together. Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake around AD 60–61, and the city was never rebuilt to its former size, which may explain why no archaeological excavation of the site has yet been undertaken.