was liberated from Ottoman rule on 29 January 1878. Demographics According to the 2021 census, the population of Kyustendil is 37,799 people. Ethnic linguistic and religious composition According to the 2011 census data, people who chose to declare their ethnic identity were distributed as follows: Bulgarians: 36,732 (82.5%) Roma: 5,179 (11.6%) Turks: 2 (0.0%) Others: 143 (0.3%) Indefinable: 296 (0.7%) Undeclared: 2,161 (4.9%) Total: 44,513 Roma people are mainly concentrated within the town limits. In the meantime, about a fourth of Bulgarians live in the surrounding villages, also part of the Municipality of Kyustendil. Religion Kyustendil today belongs to the Sofia diocese in regards of Orthodox church-administrative structure. The city is the center of the vicarage and the Kyustendil Eparchy; in the past, Kyustendil was the seat of the diocese, that latter was closed in 1884. The majority of the urban population profess the Orthodox faith today. There are several Christian denominations associated with Protestantism and a small Jewish community. During Ottoman rule Kyustendil had mostly Turkish population professing Islam, but of the many mosques of the time, now only two remain. Today the city has only Christian churches operating. In Antiquity, Pautalia was a bishopric in the Roman province of Dacia Mediterranea, suffragan to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Sardica, in the sway of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Its only recorded residential bishop was Evangelius, who was summoned to Constantinople by Byzantine emperor Anastasius I Dicorus in 516 during the controversy against Monophysitism. During the brief Late Medieval period, when the Bulgarian Church entered in full communion with Rome (instead of Orthodox Constantinople), one of its three 'Uniate Catholic' (equivalent to modern Eastern Catholic) sees was Velebusdus, which was even raised to a Metropolitan Latin Archbishopric as Pope Innocent III sent its incumbent Athanasius the archiepiscopal pallium on 25 February 1204. Latin Titular see The archdiocese was nominally restored in 1933 as Latin Metropolitan Titular archbishopric of Velebusdus (Latin) / Velebusdo (Curiate Italian) / Velesdien(sis) (Latin adjective). It has had the following incumbents, so far of the fitting Metropolitan (highest; perhaps some merely of intermediary Archiepiscopal) rank : (1953.12.07 – death 1956.07.31) as emeritate and promotion; formerly Titular Bishop of Dadima (1927.02.25 – 1927.04.26) as Auxiliary Bishop of Diocese of Seckau (Austria) (1927.02.25 – 1927.04.26), succeeded as Bishop of Seckau (1927.04.26 – 1953.12.07) Aston Sebastian Joseph Chichester, Jesuit Order (S.J.) (1956.11.23 – death 1962.10.24) as emeritate, formerly Titular Bishop of