The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople’s newly enthroned Metropolitan of Imvros and Tenedos, His Eminence Kirillos, arrived in the country this week for a series of meetings with top Greek leadership and groups of expatriates from the two northeast Aegean islands.
Imvros and Tenedos, home to an autochthonous Greek population for millennia, were granted to the newly founded Republic of Turkey in 1923. Various administrative and discriminatory measures by the Turkish state since then caused the near total displacement and ethnic cleansing of the Hellenic population on the two isles, although a modest resurgence is underway on larger Imvros.
On Thursday, His Eminence was in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where he met with members of the expatriate community of Imvros natives.
