In the Ottoman Empire, in accordance with the Muslimdhimmi system, GreekChristians were guaranteed limited freedoms (such as the right to worship), but were treated assecond-class citizens. Christians andJews were not considered equals toMuslims: testimony against Muslims by Christians and Jews was inadmissible in courts of law. They were forbidden to carryweapons or ride atophorses, their houses could not overlook those of Muslims, and their religious practices would have to defer to those of Muslims, in addition to various other legal limitations.[1] Violation of these statutes could result in punishments ranging from the levying offines toexecution.
TheEcumenical Patriarch was recognized as the highest religious and political leader (millet-bashi, or ethnarch) of all Orthodox Christian subjects of the Sultan, though in certain periods some major powers, such asRussia (under theTreaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774) orGreat Britain, later theUnited Kingdom, claimed the rights of protection over the Ottoman Empire's Orthodox subjects.
The three major European powers, the United Kingdom,France and Russia (known as the Great Powers), took issue with the Ottoman Empire's treatment of its Christian population and increasingly pressured the Ottoman government (also known as theSublime Porte) to extend equal rights to all its citizens. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government implemented theTanzimat reforms to improve the situation of non-Muslims, although these would prove largely ineffective. In 1856, theHatt-ı Hümayun promised equality for all Ottoman citizens irrespective of their ethnicity and confession, widening the scope of the 1839Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane. The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, (orKanûn-ı Esâsî in Ottoman Turkish), which was promulgated on November 23, 1876. It established freedom of belief and equality of all citizens before the law.
A 1914 document showing the official figures from the 1914 population census of theOttoman Empire. The total population (sum of all themillets) was given at 20,975,345, and the Greek population was given at 1,792,206.
On July 24, 1908, Greeks' hopes for equality in the Ottoman Empire brightened with the removal of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) from power and restored the country back to a constitutional monarchy. TheCommittee of Union and Progress (more commonly called the Young Turks), a political party opposed to the absolute rule of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II, had led a rebellion against their ruler. The pro-reform Young Turks deposed the Sultan and replaced him with the ineffective SultanMehmed V (r. 1908–1918).
Before World War I, there were an estimated 1.8 million Greeks living in theOttoman Empire.[2] Some prominent Ottoman Greeks served as parliamentary deputies. In the 1908 Parliament, there were twenty-six (26) Ottoman Greek deputies but their number dropped to eighteen (18) by 1914.[3] It is estimated that the Greek population of the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor had 2,300 community schools, 200,000 students, 5,000 teachers, 2,000 Greek Orthodox churches, and 3,000 Greek Orthodox priests.[4]
After thefall of Constantinople in 1453, when theSultan virtually replaced theByzantine emperor among subjugated Christians, theEcumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was recognized by the Sultan as the religious and national leader (ethnarch) of theOrthodox population.[6] The Patriarchate earned a primary importance and occupied this key role among the Christians of the Ottoman Empire because the Ottomans did not legally distinguish between nationality and religion, and thus regarded all theOrthodox Christians of the Empire as a single entity.
The position of the Patriarchate in the Ottoman state encouraged projects of Greek renaissance, centered on the resurrection and revitalization of theByzantine Empire. The Patriarch and those church dignitaries around him constituted the first centre of power for the Greeks inside the Ottoman state, one which succeeded in infiltrating the structures of theOttoman Empire, while attracting the former Byzantine nobility.
The Greeks were a self-conscious group within the larger Christian Orthodox religious community established by the Ottoman Empire.[7] They distinguished themselves from their Orthodox co-religionists by retaining their Greek culture, customs, language, and tradition of education.[7][8] Throughout the post-Byzantine and Ottoman periods, Greeks, as members of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, declared themselves asGraikoi (Greek: Γραικοί, "Greeks") andRomaioi orRomioi (Greek: Ρωμαίοι/Ρωμηιοί, "Romans").[9][10][11]
Ethnic map ofAsia Minor in 1917. Black = Bulgars and Turks. Red = Greeks. Light yellow = Armenians. Blue = Kurds. Orange = Lazes. Dark Yellow = Arabs. Green = Nestorians.
Map depicting the ethnic composition of Ottoman territories in 1911.
Declaration of theConstitution; Muslim, Greek and Armenian leaders together.
^Lekka 2007, p. 136: "At the start of the war, the Greeks were a thriving community in Asia Minor, a land they had inhabited since the time of Homer. But things deteriorated quickly. Before the Turkish implementation of a nationalist policy, the Greek population was estimated at around 2.5 million, with 2,300 community schools, 200,000 pupils, 5,000 teachers, 2,000 Greek Orthodox churches, and 3,000 Greek Orthodox priests."
^abHarrison 2002, pp. 276–277: "The Greeks belonged to the community of the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan. But within that larger unity they formed a self-conscious group marked off from their fellow Orthodox by language and culture and by a tradition of education never entirely interrupted, which maintained their Greek identity."
^Volkan & Itzkowitz 1994, p. 85: "While living as amillet under the Ottoman Empire they retained their own religion, customs, and language, and the 'Greeks became the most important non-Turkish element in the Ottoman Empire'."
^Kakavas 2002, p. 29: "All the peoples belonging to the flock of the Ecumenical Patriarchate declared themselvesGraikoi (Greeks) orRomaioi (Romans - Rums)."
^Institute for Neohellenic Research 2005, p. 8: "The people we have named as Greeks (Hellenes in the Greek language) would not describe themselves as such – they are generally known asRomioi andGraikoi – but according to their context the meaning of these words broadens to include or exclude population groups of another language and, at the same time, ethnicity."
^Hopf 1873, "Epistola Theodori Zygomalae", p. 236: "...ησάν ποτε κύριοι Αθηνών, και ενωτίζοντο, ότι η νέων Ρωμαίων είτε Γραικών βασιλεία ασθενείν άρχεται..."
Lekka, Anastasia (2007). "Legislative Provisions of the Ottoman/Turkish Governments Regarding Minorities and Their Properties".Mediterranean Quarterly.18 (1):135–154.doi:10.1215/10474552-2006-038.
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