The official Hellenic Republic Ministry of Agriculture / General Directorate of Exchange declaration form for Lazaros’s compensation claim under the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange that followed the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Dated February 22, 1925 — five days before the Refugee Compensation Committee’s formal property assessment at 3,330 Turkish gold lira.
Letterhead and form fields
ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ (HELLENIC REPUBLIC) ΥΠΟΥΡΓΕΙΟΝ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΑΣ (MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE) ΓΕΝΙΚΗ ΔΙΕΥΘΥΝΣΙΣ ΑΝΤΑΛΛΑΓΗΣ (GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF EXCHANGE)
ΕΚΤΙΜΗΤΙΚΗ ΕΠΙΤΡΟΠΗ της Κοινότητος ΣΩΜΑ της Εκκλ. Επαρχίας ΕΦΕΣΟΥ (Assessment Committee of the Community of Soma of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ephesus)
ΠΡΑΞΙΣ (Act)
Αριθ. πρωτ. δηλώσεως: 18136 (Declaration protocol number) Χρονολογία πρωτ. δηλώσεως: 22/2/1925 (Date of declaration) Αριθ. πράξεως: 296 (Act number) Ονοματεπώνυμον δηλούντος: ΛΑΖΑΡΟΥ ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΟΥ ΓΙΑΝΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ (Declarant’s full name)
A handwritten annotation in the center-left margin reads “Η οικογένεια θα εγραφή εις την Πέρμαμον” — “The family will be registered in Pergamon” — consistent with Eftyhia’s separate Pergamos-side refugee registration form.
Why this document is a citizenship-case cornerstone
This is Hellenic Republic primary-source state recognition of Lazaros as a Greek refugee from Soma — issued by the ministry that administered the population exchange. Four facts are documentary:
- The form is from the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Agriculture — the highest level of Greek state administration that handled the post-Lausanne population exchange. Not a local parish certificate, not a community testimonial — a national-government document.
- Lazaros is named in his full Greek tripartite form: Λαζάρου Παναγιώτου Γιαννοπούλου — “of Lazaros, son of Panagiotis, Yannopoulos” (genitive case). This is the first primary-source document explicitly recording Lazaros’s patronymic as Panagiotis — confirming the 1939 NYC death-certificate informant statement (Eftyhia named Lazaros’s father as Panagiotis).
- Soma is identified as “of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ephesus” — locating the town within the Greek Orthodox canonical territory.
- Declaration protocol number 18136, Act number 296, dated 22/2/1925 — an official Greek-state register entry that can be archived and looked up in the Hellenic State Archives’ Population Exchange records to this day.
Sequencing with the February 27, 1925 Compensation Committee assessment
This declaration of February 22, 1925 is Act No. 296 opening Lazaros’s case before the Soma Assessment Committee. Five days later, on February 27, 1925, the Refugee Compensation Committee in Thessaloniki ruled that Lazaros had abandoned property worth approximately 3,330 Turkish gold lira — about 22 kg of pure gold, or roughly $2.5 million in today’s money at the current gold price. The two documents form the official Greek-state record of his Soma estate — opened by this Act, concluded by the assessment ruling, and amounting to a quantifiable measure of what 1922 had cost him.
The Greek tripartite name
Greek civil naming convention places the patronymic (father’s first name) between the given name and surname. Λάζαρος Παναγιώτου Γιαννόπουλος = Lazaros, son of Panagiotis, Yannopoulos. The genitive form on this Act (“Λαζάρου Παναγιώτου Γιαννοπούλου”) is the standard Greek civil-document form for a male in administrative declarations. Each generation in the patriline carries the previous generation’s first name as patronymic: Panagiotis → Lazaros (Panagiotou) → Constantine (Lazarou) → Peter (Konstantinou) → Alex (Petrou) → Mia (Alexandrou).
For the Greek citizenship dossier, this document is among the most direct primary-source Greek-state attestations of Lazaros’s Greek refugee status — issued, signed, sealed, and registered by the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Agriculture itself.
