In 1820, every Ottoman subject had a right to remain in his own sect and to think as his fathers thought before him. Muslim could remain Muslim, Greek remain Greek, Armenian Armenian, and Maronite Maronite. Each sect was a walled enclosure with gates bolted and barred, and the only possible egress from any was into the fold of Islam.
The appearance of an open Bible, the preaching of the Gospel, free schools and open discussion of religious questions threw all things into confusion. Not a few received the Gospel and claimed the right to think for themselves.... Anathemas, the major excommunication, stripes and imprisonment, intimidated some, but drove multitudes out of the Oriental Churches, and as the imperial laws regarded every man outside the traditional sects as an outlaw, exile, death, or recantation seemed their only possible fate.
But these storms of persecution developed some of the noblest types of Christian character. True heroic spirits, like Asaad esh Shidiak in Lebanon, preferred death to submission to the doctrines of a priestly hierarchy. The Maronite monastery of Connobîn, near the Cedars of Lebanon, where he was walled up in a cell under the overhanging cliff and starved to death, has become memorable in Syria as the scene of the first martyrdom for the evangelical faith in Turkey in modern times.
Scourging, imprisonment and exile have been the lot of multitudes who have stood steadfast amid their sufferings. Mr. Butrus Bistany, a young Maronite scholar, who found the truth as Luther found it, in a monastery, fled for his life to Beirut, and remained concealed for two years in the American Mission, fearing death at the hands of the spies of the Patriarch. But he was spared to be a pillar in the Protestant Church, a learned Arabic author, the assistant of Eli Smith in Bible translation, and the biographer of Asaad esh Shidiak....
Kamil Abdul Messiah, a youthful Syrian convert to Christianity from Islam, who died in Bussorah in June, 1892, seemed baptized by the Holy Spirit and divinely instructed in the Word of God. He grasped the vital truths of the Gospel as by a Heavenly instinct. He was a youth of pure life and lips, of faith and prayer, of courage and zeal, and he was mighty in the Scriptures. In Southern Arabia he preached in the streets of towns, in Arab camps, on the deck of coasting ships, and even in mosques. His journals read like chapters from the Acts. His early death was a loss to the Arab race, but his memory is fragrant with the aroma of a pure and godly life and example.
Time would fail us to recount the history of the able writers, the liberal Christian merchants, the faithful pastors and teachers, the godly physicians, the self-denying poor, the patient, loving, and exemplary women, who have been Christ’s witnesses during these years of toil and prayer in Syria.
In November, 1847, an Imperial decree recognized native Protestants as an independent community with a civil head.
In 1850 the Sultan gave a firman granting to Protestants all the privileges given to other Christian communities, and in 1853 another, declaring Christians before the law equal in all respects to Mohammedans, and the death penalty for apostasy from Islam was abolished. This Magna Charta of Protestant rights is the charter of liberty of conscience to all men in Turkey.
The Ottoman Government became to a great extent tolerant, and to-day, as compared with its Northern Muscovite neighbor, it is a model of toleration. There is no open legal persecution for conscience’s sake.
The Bible in its various languages is distributed throughout the Empire, with the imperial permit printed on the title page. There is not yet liberty to print controversial books touching the religion of Islam, although Islamic works attacking Christianity are distributed openly, with official approbation. The censorship of the press is rigid, but the existing Christian literature is rarely interfered with.