This paper attempts to analyse political fragmentation of the Orthodox Christian communities along the ethnic lines in the late Ottoman Balkans during the Patriarchist-Exarchist confrontation. Throughout the Ottoman Empire, people known as Rums comprised the urban élites of the Orthodox Christian communities in the cities as well as skilled shopkeepers and artisans of regional market centres, and peasants in the villages and fishing towns. These people regarded themselves neither Greek nor Bulgarian, but heirs of the Roman Empire; and Orthodox Christianity played an important role in their identity-formation. After the recognition of the Bulgarian millet distinct from the millet-i Rum by the Sublime Porte in March 1870, Greek and Bulgarian national identities competing with each other started to be constructed by the nationalist intelligentsias. Following the establishment of the Bulgarian Principality in 1878, the Bulgarian Exarchate became an apparatus of the nation-state. Sought for aid and protection from the nation-state, the Exarchate, in return, supported the régime and its national ideals in the Principality and autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia. In other words, this nationalized church became an instrument of the Bulgarian nationalism; however, the Patriarchate’s vision remained closer to that of the Ottoman reformers of the Tanzimat. Besides, establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate prepared the ground for the Macedonian Question, a series of political and military conflict, in the late Ottoman period. The most sinister effects of this nationalist conflict under the guise of an ecclesiastical rivalry between the Patriarchists and Exarchists were felt in the regions with mixed populations in Macedonia. As nationhood was articulated as a normative standard in the 19th century, the new notions of secular statehood and nationality disrupted religiously-defined collective identities and Orthodox ecumenism in the south-eastern edge of Europe. At long last, the shared past of the Orthodox peoples, which prevailed over a chiliad, were shattered by the rival nationalisms of the nascent nation-states.

The close cultural interaction and coexistence in Anatolia was disrupted during the ten years of war starting with the Balkan Wars up until the end of the Greco-Turkish War. The change in attitudes came towards the Christian population, who were stigmatized as the “enemy within”. Different measures were applied in different regions for different communities all ultimately aimed at the same goal: the “cancerous element on the body of the sick man” needed to be removed. For example, unlike the Aegean Greeks who were subjected to religious conversion, the Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians of Anatolia were tried to be homogenized with a “Turkish Church”. Despite not being supported by the ‘external power’ (Greece), they were still seen as unacceptable for the security of the state as long as they belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church. With a Turkish Church, their connection with the Patriarchate would have been broken and so they would have been tolerated. It was a non-violent Turkification method for the Turkish state to separate them from the sphere of the Greek Orthodox Church rather than assimilating them into Turksihness. On the other hand, for the Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians, who did not have any faith in a return to peaceful coexistence in Anatolia, it was ‘abandonment of faith’ to avoid deportation by finding a modus vivendi with the Turkish authorities. In other words, the Turkish Orthodox Church was an attempt to accommodate the Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians as an alternative to elimination. In fact, other methods were also tried, for example, the Ankara government asked the Vatican for the mass conversion of the Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians to Catholicism. This paper investigates the case of the Turkish Orthodox Church by framing it in the homogenization policies of Turkey in the early 20th century in the light of British and Ottoman archival sources and with an analysis of the newspapers of the period.

The socio-cultural development assisted the Arab Orthodox Christians in shaping their spirit of nationalism and desire to liberate their Church from the Greek hegemony. In contrast to the old habit of nominating a Greek patriarch to the Throne of Antioch by the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Arab prelates sought for the election of a compatriot to the vacant throne after the death of Patriarch Iirotheos in 1885. The Russians were ready to assist the Arabs in their demand and promoted a pro-Russian cleric for the patriarchate. The Arab prelates neglected the Russians recommendation. Without the Russian support, they could not face the Greeks and the Ottomans’ tendency to elect Gerasimos, from the Church of Jerusalem, to the Throne of Antioch. In 1891, Gerasimos was transferred to the Church of Jerusalem. The Arab Orthodox tried to seize the opportunity to elect a native patriarch. Yet again, they failed without the Russian support and the consent of the Ottomans. The election of Spyridon was another Greek victory over the natives. However, his election did not turn out well for the Greeks. Spyridon’s troubles pushed him towards cooperation with the Russians through the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. Eventually, this cooperation turned the Church of Antioch into a Russophile center that spread education, the spirit of nationalism and fortified the Russo-Arab relationship. With the instigation and support of the Russians, Spyridon was deposed, and the Arabs succeeded in electing Meletios Dumani, the first Arab patriarch since the 17th century, in 1899. In contrast to their coreligionists in the Balkans, the Arab Orthodox did not seek their political independence from the Ottomans. Instead, they strove for their ecclesiastical independence from the Greek hegemony. However, the election of Patriarch Meletios is considered to be the first step of Arab nationalism against Ottoman rule, by the ideologist of Arab nationalism Sāṭiʿ al-Ḥuṣrī. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, many of the Orthodox patriarchs have been famous for their Arab national dispositions. This paper highlights the interaction between ecclesiastical authority and Arab nationalism. How the resistance against the Greek hierarchy interact with the development of Arab nationalism.

The political changes brought by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 marked the emergence of a Turkish nationalism based on the idea of a shared language: whoever could speak Turkish, was considered as a Turkish citizen, non-Muslim minorities included. Soon after, in 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne recognized the same civil and political rights to all Turkish citizens without making any religious distinction (Bulut 2017). This included freedom of language in religious practices such as the mass. As a result, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul maintained Greek as official liturgical language. The Orthodox-Christians of Turkey retained their relations with their fellow believers abroad, thus preserving the trans-national character of their religious community. Concerning the latter, as stated by Myhill (2006) and Arslan (1995), there was little consensus around the use of Turkish as the official worship language of the Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate among the Orthodox-Christians of Turkey. This suggests the role played by a sacred language in shaping the spiritual communion and the cultural identity of a religious community. Linguistical debates concerning the use of Turkish as official language of the Autocephalous Orthodox Patriarchate were held on Anadolu’da Ortodoksluk Sadası (The voice of Orthodoxy in Anatolia), Turkish (Vatan, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, Tanin) and English (Times) newspapers between 1922-1924. Through an analysis of this debate, the aim of this research is to outline the socio-linguistical aspects of the liturgical language identified by Crystal (1964) and their role defining the cultural, political and spiritual identity of the Orthodox Christian religious community.