Sophron Pétridès

“ It is probably the modern town of Biledjik, a station on the Hnidar-Pasha railway to Konia, with 10,000 inhabitants, 7000 of whom are Mussulmans, and 3000 Armenians, 600 of the Iatter being Catholics. It is an important centre for the cultivation of the silk-worm. ”

“ In the Diocese of Akra the greater part of the population is composed of Kurdish Mussulmans. There are also a small number of Jews, some Jacobites, some Chaldean Nestorians grouped in the 11 villages, and, finally, 1,000 Chaldean Catholics. ”

“ The see of a Greek metropolitan and of a Gregorian Armenian bishop, Adrianople is also the centre of a Bulgarian diocese, but it is not recognized and is deprived of a bishop. The city also has some Protestants. The Latin Catholics, foreigners for the most part, and not numerous, are dependents of the vicariate-apostolic of Constantinople. At Adrianople itself there are the parish of St. ”

“ Four Catholic archbishops govern the Melchites, the Syrians, the Armenians, and the Maronites. The Gregorian Armenians are administered by a Vartabet appointed by the Catholicos of Sis. The Orthodox Greeks are very rare in the town, but quite numerous in the surrounding country. ”

“ The city suffered greatly in 1905, from a conflagration. It then possessed about 80,000 inhabitants, of whom 30,000 were Mussulmans. (Turks and some Albanians, Tzigani, and Circassians) ; 22,000 Greeks, or those speaking Greek; 10,000 Bulgarians; 4;000 Armenians; 12,000 Jews ”