help in 1828 in mediating the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmanchay, ceding Armenia to Russia. In 1830 according to Shopen, Ejmiatsin housed the Katholikos, 12 archbishops and bishops, 26 archimandrites and monks, 14 archdeacons, 9 protodeacons, and eight acolytes, half the monastic population of the former Khanate of Yerevan. British Colonel Herbert Chermside visited Ejmiatsin in 1888 and wrote, "I heard great complaints as to the profligacy of the celibate Bishops and monks of Etchmiadzin. In Turkey the Armenians have a safeguard against this in their habit of surrounding and surprising houses where the ecclesiastics are supposed to be taking advantage of their privileges to debauch the women, but this species of lynch law is not allowed by the police in Russia."