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Theriso is a historic village and the birthplace of the mother of Eleftherios Venizelos. In 1905, Venizelos organised the Revolutionary Assembly in the village that ousted Prince George of Greece and precipitated the independence of Crete and its union with Greece.

The municipality of Theriso extends from the outer suburbs of Chania, principally Perivolia and the village and agricultural prison at Agia, up the gorge beyond Theriso itself into the White Mountains (Lefka Ori). The head town of the municipality is Vamvakopoulo by Chania. The municipality also includes Theriso, Agia and Varipetro.

The Theriso revolt, an episode in the history of Crete, was an insurrection that broke out in March 1905 against the government of Crete, then an autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty. The revolt was led by the Cretan politician Eleftherios Venizelos, and is named from his mother’s native village, Theriso (or Therisos, Therissos), the focal point of the revolt.

The revolt stemmed from the dispute between Venizelos and the island's ruler, Prince George of Greece, over the island's future, in particular over the question of Cretan union with Greece. Its origin can be traced to 1901, when Prince George dismissed Venizelos from the government. The hostility between Venizelos and the prince was precipitated by the latter's attitude toward foreign relations and by his refusal to engage in dialogue with his advisers over the island's internal affairs. After a prolongued political struggle, Venizelos and his followers decided upon an armed uprising, with the goals of uniting Crete with Greece and ushering in a more democratic government for the island.

The Theriso revolt established Venizelos not only as the leading politician in Crete, but also brought him to the attention of the wider Greek world. His reputation would lead in 1909 to his call to Greece, where he became Prime Minister.

In February 1905, Venizelos organised an assembly at Theriso with a group of seventeen other Cretan leaders who became the core of his movement. At first they were joined by 300 armed Cretans who, although not posing a significant military threat, would prove very difficult to remove, hidden in the Theriso gorge. The impact of this act was important: within twenty days, some 7,000 sympathisers had flocked to Theriso. Venizelos chose the village of Theriso for its strategic position 14 km from Chania, its naturally defenses at the foothills of the White Mountains, and its easy access to other villages and valleys, around Chania as well as toward Sfakia.[10] The passage toward Theriso was defended by narrow gorges, easy for the insurgents to control. Moreover, these gorges concealed numerous grottoes and caverns that served as natural shelters for the insurgents who converged around Theriso. The village was already a symbol of resistance before 1905: in 1821, during the Greek War of Independence, several hundred Greeks there had routed an army of 21,000 Ottomans.[11]

The rebellion broke out officially in broad daylight on 23 March [O.S. 10 March] 1905, when some 1,500 Cretans met at Theriso, which thenceforth became the centre of the revolt. Venizelos and other prominent critics of the Prince formed the core of the revolt, along with around a thousand men, of whom only half were armed. From the first moments, skirmishes took place between the gendarmerie and the rebels.

Aside from a general dissatisfaction with the Prince's authoritarian government, the assembled rebels fervently supported union with Greece. On the first day of the uprising, Venizelos declared that Enosis was impossible as long as Prince George remained the island's High Commissioner. The following declaration was approved by the insurgents and read in St. George's Church at Theriso on 10 March: "The Cretan people, meeting in a general assembly at Theriso in Kydonia, today, 11/24 March 1905, proclaims its political union with the Kingdom of Greece, in a single free and constitutional state".