 Here he faced struggles not only against the Turks, but especially against the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee, whose members tried several times to assassinate him in 1905.Metropolitan Gregory remained in office until 1908, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate, following pressure by the Ottoman government, was compelled to transfer him on July 22, 1908, to the newly established Diocese of Cydoniae, in modern Ayvalik, Turkey, on the western coast of Anatolia.During his first years in office in Cydoniae he supported the expansion of educational and charity institutions in the region.