Thyatira

Thi´uh-ti´ruh

A city (modern Akhisar) about fifty-five miles northeast of Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey. It lay on the road between Pergamum and Sardis in Lydia (or at times in Mysia) on the Lycus River. Founded as a Hellenistic city by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BCE, it had developed many industrial and commercial guilds by the first century CE. According to (Acts 16:14-15), Paul’s first convert at Philippi was Lydia, “a dealer in purple cloth” from Thyatira. By the late first century, a sufficiently significant Christian community existed in Thyatira to merit the fourth and longest of the seven letters of Revelation (Rev 2:18-29).