Sprung from the ranks of the people, and belonging to a poor and obscure family of Tokat,[248] Avedick[249] had been early admitted into the number of _vertahieds_, or doctors charged with preserving and teaching the doctrines of the Armenian Church. Quickly becoming bishop, and then archbishop, he had distinguished himself by his firmness, which Ferriol terms impudence, in supporting the interests of his co-religionists. The commencement of his long struggle with the French ambassador, in which the one showed a becoming loftiness and the other an extreme violence, and which was to terminate for Avedick by a terrible catastrophe, dates from a period earlier than the arrival of Ferriol as ambassador at Constantinople. The latter being in Hungary in the Turkish camp, and having heard of some disrespectful speeches of Avedick with reference to Louis XIV., had used his influence with the Grand Vizier to get the daring archbishop exiled.[250] But in December, 1701, the excessive rigour of this punishment was made amends for in a striking manner. The Grand Mufti, Feizoulah Effendi, nominally charged with spiritual affairs, but who in reality governed the entire Ottoman empire, by means of his ascendancy over the Sultan Mustapha II.,[251] was formerly, while at Erzeroum, where he had been Cadi, intimately acquainted with Avedick, like himself an inhabitant of this town. Sufficiently powerful to make and overthrow Grand Viziers, this chief dignitary of the Mussulman faith was able to create his friend “Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and of Jerusalem.” In vain did Ferriol demand from the Grand Chancellor of the empire and from the Kiaya of the Grand Vizier the confirmation of Avedick’s exile. These two high personages answered the French ambassador[252] that the Mufti’s power was supreme, his will in this instance irrevocable, and that it was as useless to wish to offer opposition to his determination, as any endeavour to shake his credit would be dangerous.