The designation "Greek" refers to the use of Koine Greek in liturgy, not to ethnicity; most Antiochian Greek Christians identify themselves as native to the Arabic-speaking Levant region. However, they were included as Greeks in an ethnographic study published by French historian and ethnographer Alexander Synvet in 1878. According to Greek historian Pavlos Karolidis writing in 1908, they are a mixture of ancient Greek settlers and particularly Macedonians (Greek), Roman-era Greeks, and Byzantine Greeks ("Rûm"), as well as indigenous Levantines. Karolidis was attempting to refute the Russian claims that they were of Aramaic origin. During the First Crusade era, most of them were referred to as Syriacs ethnically and Greeks only in regard to religious affinity: only the inhabitants of Antioch city were thought to be Greek ethnically.