Compare with this condition of the Greek Raias of the Ottoman Empire that, for instance, of the Greek population of Chio under Genoese domination, as described by Genoese writers themselves, and quoted by Mr Fustel de Coulanges, where the unfortunate population, in addition to daily exactions and injustices, were compelled four times a year, at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and the Feast of the Circumcision, to attend a ceremony, best described as “a feast of humiliation,” at which their clergy and chief citizens were summoned to the palace of the Podesta, where a herald, mounted on a stand, with a wand in his hand, read four prayers for the Pope, the Emperor, the Republic of Genoa, and the family of the Justiniani, and obliged the assembled Chiotes, at the end of each prayer, to answer in responsive and quasi‐enthusiastic acclamations; these poor Chiotes being thus compelled to acclaim and pray for the Pope—their greatest enemy—the Emperor they knew nothing about, the Republic that had subjected them, and the family of the Justiniani whom they detested, representing as it did the “Maona” (a financial company) that ruthlessly pillaged them.
Take again the case of the Candiotes under the domination of the Venetians, in which the Greek population of the island did not hesitate to conspire with the Turkish besiegers in order to deliver their capital into their hands, and thus free themselves from the oppression of the Italian Republic.[3]
Even the Greeks of the Morea complained bitterly of the religious persecution of the Venetians, whereas, said they, “the Turks allowed us all the liberty we required.”[4]
These quotations, which could be multiplied ad infinitum, will probably suffice. It was indeed the universal cry of all the Christian population in the East, from the middle of the fifteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth—“A thousand times rather the Turks than the Latins.”
That corruptions gradually grew up in the land of the Osmanli; that perversions of the law crept into its practice, and that prejudices, engendered by ignorance, created abuses which in earlier days were sternly repressed, it is not intended here to deny. Indeed it is the contention of this book that such perversions, the causes of which it will be its purpose to trace, did spring up, as rank weeds, in the Ottoman system; but what is strenuously asserted, and what will, it is hoped, be proved, is that they formed no part or parcel of the original Ottoman Constitution, but were, on the contrary, excrescences in that system, violations of its spirit and essence; and further, that the efforts of the reforming party in the nation, from the days of Selim III. to the accession of Abdul Hamid II., through an apostolic succession of patriots and statesmen—including the Keuprulu Mehemets, the Reshids, the Aalis, the Fuads and the Midhats—were directed to the end of restoring the spirit of that Constitution, with such adaptation of it to the requirements of the day as the experience, science and political conditions of the world required.
Mehemet II., from the moment he sheathed his sword on victory being assured, manifested his determination that the lives and properties of the conquered populations should be respected, and, in order to give weight to his orders to that effect, took immediate measures to offer a conspicuous example of respect for the religion of his new subjects by his conduct as its hierarchical chief. He summoned the Greek Patriarch (Roum milleti patriki) to a solemn Divan, stepped down from his throne, and breaking through all established usage, advanced ten steps to meet him, took him by the hand, and seated him next to himself in the place of honour, delivering into his hands, as a symbol of power, a golden sceptre, which to this day is carried in processions on occasions of great ceremonies, investing him with unlimited authority over all Orthodox schools, monasteries and churches, and with judicial and administrative functions over all his co‐religionists.
Such a delegation of power was the nearest approach to the establishment of an imperium in imperio as is afforded in history, with, let it be added, all the weakness that attaches to such a régime, as was subsequently too clearly proved by the pernicious use made of these privileges by a foreign Power, in founding on them a claim to interfere in the internal affairs of the empire, and in using them as a lever to overthrow it.
But wise or unwise, such at any rate was the policy adopted by the Sultans of Turkey towards their Christian subjects, and the legend of conversion by the sword must be relegated, with so many similar fables with respect to Turkey, to the mythology of history.
From the foundation of the empire, and under the ægis of its government, the Hellenisation of the Raias, under the authority of the Patriarch of the Phanar, proceeded apace throughout the country. So effectually indeed was this taking place, that the very name of Slav, or Bulgarian, implying as it did an inferior social status, was gradually falling into disuse, and the prouder appellation of “Roum,” or Greek, substituted for it.