Part 4

The Jews are too well known in both ancient and modern history to demand space here. While they are found in considerable numbers in Syria, possibly as many as eighty thousand, they do not hold an important position in relation to the government of that country, or in the mission problems. While the Jews in Russia are always at the front, in Turkey they seldom appear. The Turks seem to have no fear that they will interfere in any way with the affairs of state.

They do not command the prominence commercially in Turkey that they do in most other countries. In the city of Constantinople it is estimated that there are seventy-five thousand Jews, and in the other large cities of the empire they exist in smaller numbers. They are an inoffensive people, attending to their own affairs and not interfering with the other races, all of whom look down upon them as inferior. In many places in the interior where they appear in small numbers they are, for the most part, extremely poor.

SYRIANS OR JACOBITES

There is probably no distinct race in Turkey that may be called Syrian. Dwelling in Syria and extending north into Mesopotamia and east towards Persia are Christian peoples who do not belong to any of the races mentioned, but who are the direct descendants of the early Christian Church. This country has been the great meeting-ground of nations, over which have swept from time to time Egyptians, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Mongols, Koords, and Europeans of every name and race. The presence of the sacred places of the Christian faith has called forth pilgrimages and given occasion for conflicts. It was here that the early Christian Church was named, and here have dwelt some of the greatest of the fathers of the early Greek Church, such as Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Jerome. In those earlier days missionary influences went out from that land to other regions and countries.

Under the special effort of Constantine and his mother, Helena, pilgrims began to turn their steps towards Palestine, and monasteries sprang up all over the country. When Chosroes of Persia swept over that land, he slaughtered Christian monks by the thousand. Then came the Arabs with Mohammedanism, who converted some of the churches into mosques, but left others for the service of the Christians. Many Syrians accepted Islam and the strength of the Church waned. At the time of the crusades there were not more than five hundred thousand Christians in the country, according to some estimates. To win these the Roman pontiff had made prodigious efforts, but for the most part they refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the pope.

The Syrian Church, therefore, is the remnant which remains from the conflicts and persecutions of the last eight centuries. It does not represent a single race or people, but is able to trace its pedigree as a church back to the very beginnings of Christianity. The remnants of this early church are found throughout Palestine and northern Syria, including Damascus. They are found also in Mosul, Mardin, and northern Mesopotamia in considerable numbers. In the northern regions they are sometimes called _Jacobites_. There are many strong men among them and in some places not a little of the pride and glory of the old church remains. Some of their old churches and monasteries contain valuable manuscripts in the Syriac language of ancient date. The spoken language of these people is now, for the most part, Arabic.

They have suffered much persecution from the Mohammedans, especially from the Suljuk Turks, which had much influence in arousing the knighthood of Europe to enter upon the crusades. After the failure of the crusades these Christians were again subject to Moslem misrule at the hands of the Mohammedan sultans of Egypt and invaders from Turkey. The whole land was conquered in 1517 by the Ottoman Turk, Selim I. Except for the brief period (1832-1841) when Syria was held by Ibrahim Pasha, this country and this church have been under the rule of the sultan who sat upon the throne in Constantinople.

As the manuscript Bibles, liturgy, and church books were in Syriac, while the common people spoke and understood only the Arabic, Christianity became largely a matter of form from which the spirit had departed. The same conditions prevailed here which we shall discuss later in the Gregorian Church.

THE GREEKS

The Greeks claim that they have the oldest Christian Church, since they are the heirs to the old Byzantine empire at Constantinople, and use even now in their worship the Greek of the apostles and the liturgy of the early fathers. They constituted the majority at the first seven ecumenical councils, dominating in no small degree by their philosophy and thought the doctrines there established. They contend with the Syrian Church over priority of origin. The political history of the Greek Church began with the conversion of Constantine in 312 A. D., when persecution ceased and Christianity became the state religion.

We do not need for our present purpose to trace the history of the Church of Constantinople down to its separation from the Church of Rome in 1054, and the capture of the city by the Turks in 1453.

During this period the Church conducted a vigorous missionary propaganda. Cyril and Methodius went into Thessalonica and Bulgaria and there did substantial fundamental Christian work. Russia was also reached from this center and the czar was baptized and the nation became Christian.

In government, the Greek Church is Episcopal. The temporal power centers in the patriarch. There are several of these, the chief of whom resides at Constantinople, although the patriarchs at Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem have nominally the same authority. Under Turkish rule the office of the patriarch has been exalted into practically the head of the Church, the bishops exercising spiritual authority alone. This arrangement is the same that exists in the Gregorian Church, as we shall see later. The general synod, made up of the bishops of the surrounding provinces, is presided over by the patriarchs, whom they are supposed to elect, but whose election must always be confirmed by the sultan of Turkey. The authority by which the patriarch acts comes from a firman or charter granted by the sultan.

In 1833 the branch of the Greek Church now included in the kingdom of Greece severed itself from primary dependence upon the patriarch at Constantinople. The Church of Russia, up to the middle of the seventeenth century, was holden to the Constantinople patriarch to confirm the primate of Moscow. Peter the Great in 1712 curtailed the authority of this primate, putting in his place the Holy Synod, over which the czar is supreme. These changes left the patriarch at Constantinople with authority over only the Greek churches within the bounds of the Turkish empire. The Greek Church of Roumania and Servia soon became independent and in 1870 the Church of Bulgaria withdrew and reunited under one chief bishop called the Bulgarian exarch.

One prominent fact that must be constantly kept in mind is that after these churches had separated from the mother Church and become independent of her control, they constituted what is virtually another Church. Relations one with the other were completely severed, and often violent hostility prevailed. In 1905 a severe and bloody conflict was waged in Macedonia between officers of the Greek Church who claimed allegiance to the Synod at Athens, and officers of the same Church who recognized as their head the Bulgarian exarch. Hostility was as severe and bloody as between Moslems and Christians. Church buildings were captured, the one from the other, and loyal subjects fought to the death in resistance of these attacks. This is a fact that must be taken into consideration as the various Churches and Christian sects in that part of the world are studied and their relation to Mohammedanism and the Turkish empire weighed.

We are not especially concerned here with the peculiar beliefs of this Church. We are not dealing with the question from a theological standpoint, but from the general standpoint of its relations to the government of Turkey and to the other coreligionists within the empire.

The most of the adherents of the Greek Church within the Turkish empire are Greeks. They are a strong, hardy, vigorous and intelligent race. Many of them are direct descendants, without doubt, of mighty men of valor who held their own in the face of overpowering odds in the early days of Greek chivalry. In Constantinople, where some 175,000 live to-day, they stand first among the bankers and leading merchants. Greeks figure largely in Smyrna and in fact in all of the cities of western Asia Minor, while they are found as far in the interior as Marsovan, Cæsarea and Sivas. As one goes still farther east, Greeks for the most part disappear and their place in trade and commerce is taken by Armenians. It is an interesting fact that along the upper Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where mines exist, in many instances there is a colony of Greeks close by. Tradition reports that these are descendants of the men left behind in the famous retreat of the Ten Thousand across that country to Trebizond upon the Black Sea.

These Greeks, while citizens of Turkey, it may be, for fifty generations, not infrequently refer to the king of Greece as “our king George.” Along the borders of Macedonia towards Greece they cause the sultan much trouble by their sympathy with that kingdom rather than with him. For the most part, throughout Turkey they are quiet and give little trouble by revolutionary propagandism.

In educational institutions the Greek youth show superior intellectual ability and unusual eagerness. In commercial affairs they rank second to no other race and as merchants they have already gone into all the earth. Destitute of the intense national feeling of the Armenians, they have not given the Turkish government the trouble and anxiety that the Armenians have caused. As their fatherland is outside the borders of the present Turkish empire there is no fear upon the part of the Turkish rulers that they will attempt to set up an independent government. They have not, therefore, suffered the persecution that has been laid upon the Armenians.

VI. THE ARMENIANS

When I was in Constantinople I felt the restless tossings of long enthralled nationalities awaking to the new destinies that might be theirs—Armenians thirsting for their lost country and dispersed people; Bulgarians panting and striving for freedom in a Greater Bulgaria; Egyptians claiming independence; Jews praying for a return to the land of David and Solomon; Greeks dreaming strange dreams of a greater and united Greece, yes, even of an eastern empire restored to them, with Constantinople as its centre. I saw the Turk, still defiant but apprehensive, dimly conscious that the end is near at hand, lamenting the sins of his people—such sins as that the women do not wholly veil their faces, that the men do not slay the infidels. I discerned the subtle plotting of diplomacy to guard or gain the Queen City, and so the empire of the East. Everything seemed then, as now, uncertain. It might be peace, it might be war; but all were sure that the old was breaking up, whether to make way for inrushing floods of destruction, or for better days and nobler nations, none could tell. Then I went to the most sacred and vital spot of Stamboul, not to St. Sophia, which, with all the lights and prayers of Ramazan, testified only to the degradation and defeat of the purer by a coarser faith, which had become God’s scourge. I went to the Bible House, and there first, while all was shaking about, I felt that I stood upon a rock, the very Rock of Ages. The old city had fallen because it was built upon a shut Bible; this city was about to fall because it was built upon the Koran. But here on the open Bible was being reared a city which hath a foundation whose builder and maker is God. —EDWARD A. LAWRENCE in “Modern Missions in the East.”

Of all the races and sects of the Ottoman empire, none except the Turks are so closely identified with the country, its progress and present conditions, as the Armenians. They have been preeminently the means and occasion for prosecuting missionary work there, and the Armenian question has been discussed in the parliaments of all Europe and even now is far from solution.

The Armenians constitute one of the two distinct Christian peoples in the empire, the other being the Greeks. They stand with the Greeks, a keen rival for the honors of antiquity, while from the Christian standpoint they hold a position entirely unique. Their antiquity, racial strength, intellectual alertness, large numbers, and importance in that empire all demand a more extended consideration.

There are two distinct sources from which account of them comes,—one, their own historians, and the other, contemporary historians. According to the former, they are the direct descendants from Noah through Japheth, who was the father of Gomer, the father of Togarmah, who begat Haig, the father of the Armenian race. It is a fact to be noted here that they always refer to themselves not as Armenians but as Haiks, and to their country as Haiasdan. They find no little difficulty in pronouncing the word “Armenia.” The name “Armenians” was applied to the race by outside nations because of the exploits of one Aram, the king of Haiasdan, the seventh removed from Haik, who made many conquests and impressed the power of his arms upon the weaker people about him. To these people the Haiks were the followers of Aram and so were called Armenians. The Armenians claim that their present language, except for the changes that have crept in through the centuries, was spoken in the ark. Their traditions blend in the third and fourth centuries before Christ with many facts of Assyrian, Median, and Greek history, so it is impossible to differentiate precisely where legend ends and history begins.

There is no doubt that during the Assyrian and Median period there was in Armenia, which included the mountains of Ararat, and the upper Araxes, Euphrates and Tigris rivers, centering perhaps in the region of Lake Van, a well-organized and powerful monarchy. The ancient Assyrian records show that this people had to be reckoned with in all plans for campaigns in the Ararat country, and not infrequently the invaders were compelled to retire in apparent haste. Well-preserved inscriptions are found upon the cliffs at Van and in the same language across the country six hundred miles or more to the east, which show the presence there (700 B. C.) of a powerful and warlike people. Whether these were the progenitors of the present Armenian race or whether they were conquered by some stronger invading force, which completely dominated the country, is not as yet clear.

The last of the Haig dynasty, Vahe, formed an alliance with Darius III against the Macedonians. He was defeated by the forces under Alexander and was slain. The people were without a leader for one hundred and thirty years, and were trampled upon and plundered by invading armies from every side. About 190 B. C. two Armenian nobles arose who divided the kingdom and ruled over it. This divided kingdom was again united under Tigranes (Dickran II) in 89 B. C. In 67 B. C. the Armenians became an ally of Rome, and in 30 B. C. were made tributary. For two and a half centuries thereafter the entire country was again in turmoil and political disorder. From that time to the present the Armenians have never represented a political power that needed to be reckoned with. Their people were scattered with no uniting force, without a commanding leader or a distinctive country.

A little Armenian kingdom in Cilicia in the Taurus Mountains maintained an existence until 1375 A. D. Since that time Armenians have had no political existence whatever. They have been, and are still, a people without a country, a nation without a government.

As soon as the Mohammedan invasion took place they had no alternative but to yield to their conquerors or die. It was but natural that they should scatter from the old ancestral haunts to all points of the compass, in search of more liberty and a better opportunity to secure a living. They have gone into every city, if not into nearly every village of size in the empire. Before the massacre of 1895-96 there were nearly a quarter of a million Armenians in Constantinople alone. Their energy and enterprise and industry give them prominence in trade, in the professions, and in the cultivation of the soil. They have gone far beyond the borders of Turkey, and are found to-day in nearly every country in the world. Many hold high and honorable positions in foreign lands.

Armenians exist in larger numbers still in their old haunts about Lake Van, where they constitute perhaps a majority of the population. In all the cities of Eastern Turkey, extending from the Black Sea south into northern Mesopotamia, westward to the Euphrates river, and beyond, they hold a prominent place, although they are upon the whole a minority. The rest of the population are mostly Turks, the ruling body, and the Koords. These races, especially the Turks and Armenians, live in the same towns, but never intermarry. The Koords live more by themselves in the mountains. As we pass on into Asia Minor, the Armenians decrease while the Greeks increase in numbers and in the importance of the positions they command.

The Armenians are also numerous in northern Syria, especially in the region near their last Cilician kingdom. Adana, Tarsus, Marash, Aintab, Hadjin, Oorfa and many other cities in that region have a large Armenian population. Their language is Turanian, constructed upon the Greek model, and is especially rich in its power of expressing Christian truths and sentiments. The most of the Armenians speak this tongue, but some in the mountains of Koordistan speak only Koordish, while the Armenians in northern Syria use the Turkish language. Turkish is spoken by nearly all Armenians, as well as by all the races north of Syria.

Religiously, the history of the Armenians is full of interest. Their histories claim that at the time of Christ their king Abgar, called by Tacitus the king of the Arabs, resided at Urfa in northern Mesopotamia. He is reported to have had some communication with Christ, who, at his death, through the apostle Thomas, sent Thaddeus to preach to the Armenians. The king and his court were baptized. His successor apostatized from the faith, and so Christianity was lost to the race until the fourth century. At the beginning of this century St. Gregory the Illuminator preached at the court of Armenia with such effect that from that period to this Christianity has been the national religion. The Church has held the race together. It is known as the Gregorian Church, after St. Gregory, while the people themselves always refer to their church as Loosavorchagan, derived from Loosavorich, meaning “The Illuminator.” As this is the national Church, all Armenian children are baptized in infancy and become members.

At first the Gregorian Church took part in the ecumenical conferences, but for some reason they had no representatives in the council which met at Chalcedon in 451 A. D. In a synod of Armenian bishops in 491 the decisions of the council of Chalcedon were rejected, and at a later synod they declared openly for the Monophysite doctrine. This led to their complete separation from the Greek Church.

Their church government is Episcopal, with the same form of patriarchal control which dominates the Greek Church in Turkey. The bishop of the main body of the Armenians resides at Etchmiadzin, their holy city, now in Russia, not far from the Turkish borders. There is also a bishop on the island of Octamar in the lake of Van, and another at Cis in Cilicia, each with a small following. The bishops have authority over the spiritual affairs of the Church, like the ordaining of priests and vartabeds, while the two patriarchs, one at Jerusalem and one at Constantinople, control its temporal affairs. As these patriarchs, and especially the one at Constantinople, are in a measure the appointees of the sultan, and as he represents his people in all their government matters, the office is largely political and secular. The importance as well as the delicacy of the position is greatly increased during the times of political unrest.

At its beginning, the Church was as pure in doctrine and practise as was the Greek Church at Constantinople. It was an important branch of the Church of Christ on earth. The location of the unprotected Armenians, in a country swept by invasion and persecutors of every kind, made the position of the Church a most trying one. As illiteracy increased, the spoken language of the people underwent marked changes. The Church possessed most sacredly guarded manuscript copies of the Scriptures and beautiful liturgies, all in the then spoken language of the people. These were read at all church services and sermons were preached by the officiating clergy. As the spoken language changed during the last ten centuries, under the blasting influence of Mohammedan rule, the sacred books of the Church ceased to speak to the people. The priests read the words of the ritual, but neither they nor the people understood it. The church was too holy a place in which to make use of the vulgar vernacular, so the sermon was discontinued because there was no one to preach in the classic tongue of the race.

Under these conditions the Christianity of the Gregorian Church became, for the most part, a religion of form, from which the spirit had departed. Thus bereft of the true power of Christianity and subject to the temptations and persecutions of the Moslems among whom they dwelt, it is not strange that the Christianity of the Gregorian Church lost its vital power.

VII. MOSLEM PEOPLES

What was said above concerning Islam as the hereditary faith of the Ottoman Turk does not hold true of the other Moslem races of Turkey. Koords, Circassians, Albanians—nearly half as many, all together, as the Turks—are, at best, but half Mohammedan. To a large extent the profession of Islam by Koords and Circassians is purely outward and formal, while their esoteric faith is a mixture of Mohammedanism, Christianity and heathenism. In grouping and generalization we cannot go farther than the statement just made. Take the Koords alone. There is almost infinite variety in their religious beliefs and superstitions. It is well known that there are whole villages among them ready to declare themselves Christians, could they be assured of protection in so doing. The Moslem Albanians—somewhat more than half the race—are more bigoted and violent Mohammedans than the Turks, just as the Janissaries, likewise of Christian origin, who were compelled from childhood to embrace Islam, out-Heroded Herod in the fanaticism of their anti-Christian zeal.

With the exception of the Albanians, Islam has, in all the centuries of the reign of the Ottoman Power over these lands, made very slight gains from the Christian races. The number of Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Servian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin Mohammedans is insignificant. Of these seven races, for hundreds of years under Moslem sway, the number to-day free from Ottoman control is nearly equal to the entire population, Moslem and Christian, now directly under Turkish domination. —From “The Mohammedan World of To-day.”