ABSTRACT
The Albanian mission then held an assembly in Boston on 25 March 1919 and officially elected Reverend Theofan as bishop. The establishment of the Albanian Church in the United States preceded similar efforts in Albania, where Prince Wied’s former prime minister, Turhan Pasha Përmeti, had been leading a provisional government, based in Durrës, since December 1918. The region, however, had no Greek-speaking population and the Albanian national movement was widespread, so Greece needed to create the proper preconditions for its annexation. The French authorities in Korça, however, fearing unrest in the local Albanian population, asked the Greeks to temporarily postpone the arrival of their troops – leaving Governor Kalevras stranded a few kilometres from the city in the town of Bilisht, in an area Greece had held since the start of the war. Iakovos managed to convince the French officials that Greek should replace Albanian as the language used in Orthodox religious services.
