Agios Vartholomaios

Agios Vartholomaios (Greek: Άγιος Βαρθολομαίος, before 1926: Βαρθολώμ – Vartholom,^[2][3] between 1926–1928: Βαρθολομαίος – Vartholomaios)^[4][3] is a village in Florina regional unit, Western Macedonia, Greece. The village has an altitude of 667 m (2,188 ft).^[5]

French soldiers in front of village mosque (WWI).

Agios Vartholomaios
Community
Agios Vartholomaios village church
Agios Vartholomaios
Coordinates: 40°45′39″N 21°31′40″E
Country	Greece
Geographic region	Macedonia
Administrative region	Western Macedonia
Regional unit	Florina
Municipality	Florina
Municipal unit	Perasma
Population  (2021)[1]
• Community	157
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)

In the late 15th century, the village was recorded as a timar holding with 26 families and as a settlement with a mixed population of Muslims and Christians.^[6] Later, as a Muslim populated village it belonged to the kaza (district) of Florina.^[6] According to the statistics of Vasil Kanchov ("Macedonia, Ethnography and Statistics"), 360 Muslim Albanians lived in the village in 1900.^[7] The village was populated by 460 Muslims in 1912.^[6] The 1920 Greek census recorded 487 people in the village, and 447 inhabitants (80 families) were Muslim in 1923.^[8]

Following the Greek–Turkish population exchange, Muslim villagers left and Christian refugees in 1924 from mainly Pontus and the Caucasus settled in the village.^[6] Greek refugee families in Vartholom were from Asia Minor (3), Pontus (41) and the Caucasus (51) in 1926.^[8] The 1928 Greek census recorded 219 village inhabitants.^[8] In 1928, the refugee families numbered 94 (353 people).^[8] The village mosque with a tall minaret was destroyed.^[9] Since 1928, the inhabitants from the village are all from a Greek refugee origin.^[6] The population of Agios Vartholomaios was 828 in 1940.^[5] In the Greek Civil War, the village was occupied by the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG).^[10] The inhabitants numbered 757 in 1951, 601 in 1961^[5] and 200 in 1981.^[11]

In fieldwork done by anthropologist Riki Van Boeschoten in late 1993, Agios Vartholomaios was populated by a Greek population descended from Anatolian Greek refugees who arrived during the population exchange.^[11] Pontic Greek was spoken by people over 60, mainly in private.^[11]