page_title: Lazaros Tsamis
section_title: Participation in IMRO and the first assassination attempt
hierarchical_section_title: Lazaros Tsamis / Struggle for Macedonia / Participation in IMRO and the first assassination attempt
caption_attribution_description: Български: Портрет на гъркоманските братя Лазарос и Ставрос Цамис. Ελληνικά: Ο Λάζαρος (Λάζος) Τσάμης με τον αδελφό του και ιερέα Σταύρο Τσάμη.
context_page_description: Lazaros or Lazos Tsamis, was a Greek merchant of Vlach origin, who participated in the Macedonian Struggle and later as volunteer leader in the struggle for Northern Epirus.
context_section_description: One of the first committees to protect villages was that of Pisoderi, which one of the founding members was Lazaros Tsamis.
  His contacts with wealthy Muslim merchants and Albanian politicians and military officials in the regions of Korestia, Prespa and Korçë, quickly made him a valuable, trusted and passionate partner of Germanos Karavaggelis, Bishop of Kastoria, and the Greek Consulate of Bitola. Lazarus, along with his brother Papastavros, organized a dense network information in the Prespa region based on personal and business contacts.
  In the village of Agios Germanos, members of the network were Evangelos Dimoulas, Mountousis, Paraskevaidis, Papanaum in the village Laimos Prespa Traikos Vassilopoulos, in the village Platy families Michaelides and Karidas, in the village of Kallithea Prespa Petridis in the village Pixos family Papadopoulos, in the village of Psarades Prespa Papastefanos, in the village of Karyes Prespa family Anastasiou and in the village Antartiko Traikos Lantzakis. At the instigation of Bishop Germanos Karavaggelis and with the consent of the Greek Consul of Monastiri Stamatios Kiouze Peza, Lazaros joined the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) along with his brother priest Stavros and other members of Pisoderi committee with the sole purpose of gathering information about the movements and activities of the Bulgarian revolutionary committee (pp. IMRO).
  Through his participation in the IMRO and the information he gathered informed the Bishop Karavaggelis that an envoy of the Bulgarian revolutionary committee would attempt, to cross the Greek-Turkish border in  Thessaly, to go to Athens to procure weapons for equipping the Bulgarian rebel forces, in view of the impending revolutionary movement who were preparing to Macedonia and Thrace. In the next update, Lazaros informed the Bishop of Kastoria that the envoy of IMRO would be the capable and passionate voivod Vasil Tsakalarof, who has excellent knowledge of the Greek language from the village Krystallopigi (Smardesi) of Florina.
  Tsakalarof, despite the information they had at their disposal the Greek authorities, managed to cross the Greek-Turkish border and arrived in Athens, where he visited the factory arms "Bros Maltsinioti" pretending to be Arvanitis from Ioannina and falsely stated that he wanted to buy weapons to equip Albanian rebels against Ottoman domination. He agreed to a price of 17 drachmas per rifle, he paid 220 golden coins [of 20 francs each] and soon began the shipments of arms through Greek customs office of Tirnavos, whose Greek Customs Officer was cheated (he thought that the rifles destined for Albanian rebels) and was bribed to keep quiet about the clandestine export to Macedonia thousand rifles.
  Lazaros learned about the success of the Bulgarian operation business for the equipment of Bulgarian guerrilla groups and immediately informed the Bishop Germanos Karavaggelis for the smuggle of the weapons and the inertia of the Greek Authorities. Then Bishop Karavaggelis sent two members of his organization in Athens,  George Gkiamos and the priest Elias Papadimitriou from Chalara (Podovista) Kastoria with a mission to identify Vasil Tsakalarof and to designate him to the Greek police. During the unsuccessfully police operation Tsakalarof managed to escape after recognizing the two people who had to inform against Greek Police.
  In May 1902, Tsakalarof entered the village of Chalara (Podovista), arrested them and after torturing them got the names of Karavaggeli’s associates Greeks who had infiltrated the Bulgarian organization IMRO and murdered George Gkiamos and the priest Elias Papadimitriou. After these revelations, began the killings of the disclosed partners from a list compiled by Tsakalarof. After running the first five killings that were marked on the list, was the first assassination attempt against Lazaros Tsamis, but he escaped because he was informed about the murders and was prepared. On August 19, 1902 near the village of Trigono (Ostima) becomes decisive battle lasting eight hours bet
caption: Tsamis brothers from Pisoderi, Florina
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