The power of the Patriarch was so unlimited, that he could even levy taxes, punish any person with the bastinado, imprison, or send into exile.
National enthusiasm and the politic tolerance of their conquerors, in the course of time, led the Patriarchs into the abuse of their privileges.
Cloaked though they were under the mantle of religion, their despotism was not always exempt from impunity. For the people, long accustomed to regard the church apart from temporal authorities, could not brook such conduct in their high priest, and therefore there has always been a strife between them and the priesthood.
The government has sometimes sustained the popular will, and at others, the rights of the pontiff, as interest or policy required.
This community constitutes the very life of Turkey, for the Turks long accustomed to rule rather than serve, have relinquished to them all branches of industry. Hence the Armenians are the bankers, merchants, mechanics, and traders of all sorts in Turkey.
Besides, there exists a congeniality of sentiment and community of interest between them and the Mussulmans. For, being originally from the same region, they were alike in their habits and feelings; therefore, easily assimilating themselves to their conquerors, they gained their confidence, and became and still are the most influential of all the rayas. There is not a pasha, or a grandee, who is not indebted to them, either pecuniarily, or for his promotion, and the humblest peasant owes them the value of the very seed he sows; so that without them the Osmanlis could not survive a single day.
This is a fact so well attested, that Russia, with the design of undermining Turkey, always endeavored to gain over this part of the population, and in 1828, when she took possession of Erzeroum, she enticed the Armenians of that place to acts of violence and revenge against the Turks, so that when the Russians retired, the Armenians were obliged to emigrate with them.
Besides, in the demarcation of her boundaries with Turkey, she so managed as to embody Etchmiadzin, the see of the high pontiff of the Armenians, within her own territories, for the express purpose of governing them through their spiritual head.
Even the correspondent of the London Morning Post, in speaking of the corruptions of the country, in his ribaldry, termed the Armenians the cloaca of Turkey, accusing them of being the means through whom all the filth passed.
Naturally endowed with a brave and warlike spirit; of noble and intelligent appearance, and great athletic vigor, their services have ever been invaluable to the country; it has only been their protracted servitude which has reduced them to the timid and cautious temperament that they now possess.