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The metropolitan of Tarso or large metropolitan of Tarso () was a metropolitan episcopal seat of the Church of the first millennium or of the Pentarchy within the patriarchy of Antioch. The metropolitan headquarters were in the city of Tarso, currently in Turkey. The Metropolate of Tarso existed until the Muslim Arab conquest of Syria (634-639), when Emperor Heraclio I evacuated the city and left it in no man's land between the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Caliphate.

Territory
Tarso was an ancient metropolitan seat in Roman and Byzantine times dating from apostolic times. From 72 it was the capital of the unified Roman province of Cilicia until its division (Circa 297), when it became the capital of Cilicia I in the civil diocese of the East. Tarso was the second metropolis before the patriarchy of Antioch.

According to the Antiochena Notitia, the only Episcopatuum Notitia of the Patriarchate of Antioch known, which is supposed to date from the second half of the and was prepared by the Patriarch Anastasio of Antioch (who ruled the Patriarchate twice between 559 and 570 and between 593 and 598) the Metropolitan of Tarso was extended by the coast of the Mediterranean Sea from the river of Adana to the river of Roso. This demarcation is in the Greek recension published in 1884 by Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus.

History
The historical origin of the diocese dates back to the times of the New Testament. The spread of Christianity in Tarso is certainly due to Paul of Tarso, who after his conversion that took place in the year 30 spent a time in the city where he was born. The Roman martyrology reminds of several saints and martyrs of Tarso: among them Pelagia, Julita and Quirico, Bishop Atanasio, Castor and Doroteo. A cave in Tarso is one of the many places that are said to be the location of the legend of the Seven Sleeping Ephesus, common to Christianity and Islam.

According to tradition, the erection of the diocese dates back to the first years of the expansion of the Christian religion, with the bishops Jason and Herodion, disciples of St. Paul, mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans (16.11-21). However, we have some information from some writings dating from the second half of the, in which the bishop of Cilicia Eleno is indicated as the administrator of some dioceses, which confirms that the headquarters of Tarso (capital of Cilicia) must have been a metropolitan bishopric. However, the city remained largely pagan until the time of Juliano the Apostle (r. 361-363), who reportedly planned to turn it into its capital and was then buried by the walls of the city.

The name of another bishop of Tarso, Theodore, appears in the minutes of the Council of Nicea of 325. An important personality for the diocese was Bishop Diodoro, who put an end to a dispute between his predecessor Silvano and the Aarrians after being exiled by the