Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/37

28 at present at our disposal it seems impossible to decide how or when the town was founded. Μeletios, bishop of Athens, who lived from 1661 to 1714, says the town was commonly known as Avles, a statement doubted by Pouqueville. Leake says, "The Turkish makhala (quarter) of Greveno … is the chief place of Grevena, which in the plural number comprehends a great number of small Turkish villages and tjiftliks." Locally it is said that the town was once known as Avles, and that the particular quarter known by this name was inhabited by Christians near the Turkish posting station and stood, where there are now fields, near the centre of the town on the bank of the river. Opposite this on the south side of the river was another quarter called Tshakalia which was the part burnt by Zhakas. This Avles quarter was still in existence about a hundred and thirty years ago and was the Varoshi of those days. After the freedom of Greece Turks from Lala in the Peloponnese unable to live under a Christian government came and settled in Ghrevena and occupied the centre of the town. Then the movement of the Christians to the present Varoshi began. The Metropolis was built about 1837, and is dedicated to St George, St Demetrius and St Akhillios. Before then there was only a small church of St George on the hill top in the midst of a wood, and houses were first built round it about 1780. The principal mosque by the Turkish cemetery on the west of the town was once the church of St Akhillios, and the other mosque to the east the church of Ayia Paraskevi. These were taken over by the Turks from Lala and about the same time they destroyed, so it is said, three other churches in the town, St Demetrius, St Nicholas and St Athanasius. The bishop did not always live at Ghrevena, but at Kipurio, so they say locally, and he used to be known as, a name which never occurs in any of the documents relating to the bishopric referred to above. Still the little stream that comes down from Kira Kale and flows through the middle of the town is called Avliotis, and consequently the tale about the name Avles may possibly have some foundation and not be derived merely from a study of Meletios' geography.