CHRISTIANS IN THE OSMANIC EMPIRE
Wlodzimierz Redzioch
Sunday – Catholic Weekly, Poland
Dec 6 2006
In the 7th century the caliphates were created in the Near East (a
caliphate is a kind of political-social organization of the Muslim
society; Muslim state with a caliph as its head): first Umayyad
dynasty in Damascus as its capital (661-750), then the caliphate of
Abbasids with its centre in Baghdad (750-1258). In Asia Minor there
was the Seljuks and later the Ottoman Empire. Its troops conquered
Constantinople, wonderful capital of the Byzantine Empire, in 1453.
The Turks renamed it to Istanbul and made it the capital of their
empire. Thus the Islamic empire conquered the lands where the Church
originated in the first centuries after Christ’s birth: three out
of four ancient Patriarchates (Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria),
together with their numerous believers were under the Muslim rules.
In that situation the problem of the existence of the Christian
communities within the framework of the so-called Umma (followers
of Islam define themselves as ‘Umma’ – Community of true believers)
was raised.
Islam is not only a religion but also a social-political system. And
that’s why, it defines the status of Christians in the Islamic
society. It was Muhammad that established the rules of co-existence
between Muslims, Christians and Jews living on the Arab Peninsula when
he organised the first Muslim communities (Islam regards Christianity
and Judaism as the so-called religions of the Book). The status of
Christians was described as ‘dimmi’, which means ‘protected people’. In
fact, they were tolerated, were free to practice their religion and
keep their traditions. However, they had a lower social and legal
position, and they had to pay a special tax.
The situation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, in spite of
the above-mentioned legal rules, was satisfactory because of the
implemented millet system (literally the word means ‘nation’).
Actually, various denominations were awarded a special status of
‘nation-community’. Naturally, particular millets did not identify
themselves with any territory but with the religion and culture of
their inhabitants. At first there were four millets: Muslim, Hebrew,
Greek Orthodox and Armenian. The highest religious authority of the
given group represented the millet before the sultan.
The tolerance of the sultans and close Christians’ contacts with
Europe made the Christian communities grow dynamically, not only
on the religious and cultural levels but also on the social and
economic ones. Thanks to the modern schools the Christians were
the best-educated social group in the empire. But the liberal
European ideas that spread in that environment caused that in the
19th century the millet of the Eastern Catholics and their specific
religious-cultural situation was recognised. The result of the reforms
was the legal recognition of equality of all communities. At the
beginning of the 20th century the Christians constituted considerable
part of the society (24%). Their demographic situation gradually got
worse after the government of the so-called Young Turks seized power,
commencing with the massacre of the Armenian Christians in the years
1915-16 (it is estimated that about 1.5 million Armenians were killed
for various reasons).
"Niedziel" 49/2006
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