Speech #670145275

With the exception of 17 absent persons. among whom the Metropolitan of Amasia. actually a member of the holy synod. the others were executed. Many notables and also prelates and other ecclesiastics are included in the list of victims. This testimony out of a Turkish source confirms the atrocities which the Ecumenical Patriarchate denounced from time to time since the armistice. and we do not hesitate now to make known to Your Excellency that. following the news emanating from all parts of the Black Sea littoral. the deportations and the wholesale executions of our Christian people continue and extend to a vast zone and that the women and the children are threatened in their turn by a wholesale massacre if no one comes to their assistance in time. It is beyond doubt a system of extermination of Greeks and Armealans to the last through the whole territory of Asia Minor. We may add that no military necessity. no political precaution of any kind. can justify or explain the barbarous treatment to which our unhappy deportees are submitted. we have no knowledge that the Mussulmans in the territories annexed to Greece or merely under Greek administration have gone through any suffering simply because their sympathies are with the Turks. We dare hope that the great powers will decide to take. even before it is too late. the necessary steps to put an end to these things so contrary to the general interest of Europe. no less than to the sentimnents animating the Governments of the great liberal nations. in whose name the loftiest principles were announced. but for the application of which the Christians of the East are still waiting. Under date of October 19. 1921. the Ecumenical Paitriarchate issued the following supplementary statement: It is impossible to expose the real situation brought about to the Christian communities of Asia Minor by the Kenmalist rdgime since the time of the armistice. especially during the present year. 1921. because it is impossible to communicate with these commiunities. for the reason that their spiritual heads have been dispersed and also because they are strictly isolated from any outside intercourse.