ARMENIAN - Erevangala500
ARMENIAN - Erevangala500
ARMENIAN - Erevangala500
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The Nineteenth Century:<br />
A Golden Age for Armenians and<br />
Ottomans, in Spite of the<br />
Beginnings of Nationalistic<br />
Agitating from Abroad<br />
After the conquest o f Istanbul, Sultan Mehmed Fatih strove to<br />
establish a good working relationship with all the peoples subject<br />
to him and to grant wide-ranging autonomy. (It would<br />
actually be more correct to speak o f religious communities<br />
instead o f "peoples". Ethnic and racial concepts hardly existed<br />
at the time.) Just eight years after the conquest o f Istanbul,<br />
Sultan Mehmed Fatih summoned the Armenian Orthodox archbishop<br />
of Bursa, Hovakim, to Istanbul. He had been chosen by<br />
the Ottomans, and the Sultan named him patriarch.<br />
Patriarch Hovakim became the spiritual (and to a large extent<br />
also the secular) leader of all non-Islamic, non-Greek Orthodox<br />
inhabitants o f the Ottoman Empire. His power greatly surpassed<br />
that o f the Armenian Catholicoses of Echmiadzin and<br />
Sis. Never in the history o f the Armenian people had an<br />
Armenian possessed as much power and authority as Patriarch<br />
Hovakim (and his successors until well into the nineteenth century).<br />
The Armenians always got along better with the Ottoman<br />
Sultans than did the Greeks. The Greek Orthodox patriarchs of<br />
Constantinople, such as Gennadios II Scholarios, Isidores II<br />
Xanthotiulos, and Sophro-nios I Syropolos, came and went so<br />
fast that they seemed to be developing a revolving-door patriarchate.<br />
The Armenians, on the other hand, found the right tone<br />
for dealing with the Ottomans from the start, and their power<br />
grew ever greater.<br />
Photos: His Beatitude the Armenian Orthodox Patriarch of<br />
Istanbul Snork Kalutsyan; scenes from the 29th o f May, the<br />
anniversary o f the conquest o f Constantinople in 1453.<br />
44<br />
A golden age for Ottoman-Armenian cooperation. From<br />
the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, the Armenians are<br />
the Sultan's "loyal millet", and the Armenian Patriarchate<br />
of Istanbul is the Sultan-Caliph's very own creation.