The millet system under Ottoman law experienced significant modifications and changes in the 1860s, following the Treaty of Paris of 1856. Nineteenth century legal reforms regarding relations of different religious groups to the Ottoman state were not only the result of outside influences and pressure exerted by the European Powers regarding the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects. The Ottomans themselves had seen the need for internal reforms and some elites from both the Christian and Jewish communities were advocating for change. In 1861, for example, the Italian Jewish Community petitioned to separate from the Jewish millet, a legal structure that recognized Judeo-Spanish Sephardic Jewish authorities as the legal representatives of an extremely diverse community. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch was the authority over most Orthodox Christians with the Armenians being the exception, until the Bulgarian church broke away in 1870 with the Sublime Porte’s recognition of the Bulgarian Exarch. The Armenians were divided among at least three faith communities, and elites in Istanbul represented vast numbers of their community in Anatolia. This paper explores the modernization of the millet system as it was applied to Greeks, Jews and Armenians. The 1860s were a time of increasing community participation in the creation of new legal structures that were recognized by the Ottoman state for non-Muslims. The Armenian Constitution of 1863 was iconic in its formation of both a religious superstructure and civic council of lay leadership. The idea of having a dual communal structure between religious authorities and elite business leaders is still present in Modern Turkey in the Greek, Armenian and Jewish communities, today, as an extra-legal structure. This communal structure was articulated by the Ottoman state authorities with the participation of non-Muslim leadership in the 1860s and incorporated into the Constitution of 1876. Today, this communal structure is recognized by the contemporary Turkish state in Ankara, but it is no longer part of the constitution, as Christians and Jews are regular citizens without any special, official or separate legal status.