When these assemblies were established it became necessary to organise other Councils for the administration of the minor affairs of the nation.
But as the authority and duties of each national officer were not definitely defined, it was evident that these efforts to improve the state of affairs in the nation would be the occasion of continual misunderstanding in the different branches of the National Administration, as well as between that administration and the nation. This naturally would be the cause of many irregularities in the execution of justice for all concerned, and of confusion and disputes in the National Administration.
With the object of doing away with the causes of such confusion and dissension, and with the nuisance of the undue claims of different parties, the Imperial Government, with its paternal solicitude for all its subjects, deems it necessary to organise a National Mixed Committee in order to prepare a Constitution in accordance with the peculiar religious and political customs and long-established manners.
Now that Mixed Committee considers it proper according to the outline of the Constitution presented for confirmation to the Sublime Porte,
I. That the office of the Patriarch as the medium between the nation and the Sublime Porte should remain as it was in the old system,
II. That the organisation of the General Assembly should be reformed. The national delegates, instead of being elected by the Esnafs (Artisans)—since the condition of the Esnafs is no longer what it used to be—should be elected by the Committees of churches, that is, by different quarters, in a way that perhaps will be more regular and lawful than the one adopted by the Greeks.
And as Armenians living in the interior of the country rightly complain that they are altogether deprived of participation in the deliberations and decisions of the Patriarchate, a number of the delegates should be elected by the provinces to be added to the number of the delegates of the quarters or sections of Constantinople. The ecclesiastical members, twenty of them, should be elected by the clergy in Constantinople, so that the total number of the members of the General Assembly be 140; their term of office should last ten years, and once in every two years the tenth part should be changed, and new elections take place.
The General Assembly should nominate both the Patriarch and the members of the two Assemblies working under his presidency and should have the supervision of their acts,
III. The administration of religious affairs should belong to the Religious Assembly, the administration of Political affairs to the Political Assembly, and that of mixed affairs to the Mixed Assembly, which shall consist of the other two Assemblies together,
IV. The Religious and Political Assemblies should manage through the Sectional and other Councils all national affairs of the church communities (that is to say, the people of different sections or quarters) under their jurisdiction, and the affairs of the churches, schools, hospitals, monasteries, and other similar national institutions,