Armenian millet

The Armenian millet (Turkish: Ermeni milleti, Millet-i Ermeniyân) or the Armenian Gregorian Millet was the Ottoman millet (autonomous ethnoreligious community) of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It initially included not just Armenians in the Ottoman Empire but members of other Oriental Orthodox and Nestorian churches including the Coptic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East,[1] although most of these groups obtained their own millet in the nineteenth century.[2] The Armenian Catholic and Armenian Protestants also obtained their own millets in 1831 and 1850 respectively.[3]

Mehmet II separated the Armenian millet from the Greek Orthodox millet because of the disagreements that they had over orthodoxy. [4] By establishing a new Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople, members of the millet were not only able to handle things autonomously, they had the legal status to bring a case to the Islamic courts.[5] The Armenian millet did not have the ability to hold authority over the many people they were supposed to, as the majority of the Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia was far from Constantinople.[4] This Patriarchate proved to be more powerful than the Catholicosates of Sis and Etchmiadzin. Ottoman Armenians had institutions such as courts of law, schools, prisons, and hospitals for their own community.

The Tanzimat era saw reformers, Ottoman statesmen and non-Muslim reformers alike, attempt to codify the law under the principle of the doctrine of equality. Secular law codes were promulgated in both the Porte and the Patriarchate which saw laity increase in power at the expense of the clergy. This was none more exemplified with the Armenian National Constitution. In 1915 the Tehcir Law marked the beginning of the Armenian genocide. In 1918 the Armenian Patriarchate announced its relationship with the Ottoman Empire to be terminated, though it now has a relationship with the Republic of Turkey. Armenians are a recognized minority according to the Treaty of Lausanne, but do not receive funding from the Directorate of Religious Affairs.

  1. ^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.
  2. ^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They can live in the desert but nowhere else" : a history of the Armenian genocide. Princeton. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1. OCLC 903685759.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ Sharkey, Heather (November 2018). "History Rhymes? Late Ottoman Millets and Post-Ottoman Minorities in the Middle East". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 50 (4): 760–764 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ a b Sharkey, Heather J. (2017). A history of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge, United Kingdom. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-521-76937-2. OCLC 995805601.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ ed., Greene, Molly. (2013). Minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-55876-228-2. OCLC 1154080153. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)