Daybreak in Turkey / Second Edition

by James L. Barton

Another influence had been operating at the capital leading towards this same end. When Jonas King left Syria he wrote a farewell letter dwelling at length upon the needs of reform in the Oriental churches, with many Scriptural references to prove his position. An Armenian bishop, Dionysius, translated this letter into Armenian, and in 1827 a manuscript copy was sent by him to some of the more influential Armenians in Constantinople. The effect of it was remarkable. A meeting was called in the Armenian Patriarchal Church at which the letter was read and the Scriptures referred to examined. By common consent it was there agreed that the Church needed reforming. The well known school of Pashtimaljian was the direct outgrowth of that meeting. It was there decided that no Armenian priest should be ordained in Constantinople who had not completed a regular course of study in that school.

This school exerted a strong influence in preparing the minds of a large body of young men to receive the truth and later to become leaders in the movement towards reform. Pashtimaljian himself was an Armenian of remarkable ability and strength. He was an accurate scholar and a critical student of the Armenian language and literature, and, although a layman, was well versed in Eastern theology and Church history. He was equally accurate and thorough in his study of the Bible. His leadership was recognized by the Armenians. He was a friend of the missionaries, but for fear of exciting the suspicions of his race carried on his work independently of them. While evangelical in his beliefs and thoughts he did not, to the day of his death, in 1837, openly declare himself to be an evangelical. But up to that time there had been no break with the old Church and no persecution of those who were studying the Word of God.

In all cases where the word “Evangelical” is used in connection with the Armenians, Greeks or Syrians it refers to those who are recognized as regular readers of the New Testament in the vernacular. The “Evangelicals” among the Armenians were those who persisted in adhering to their right to read the New Testament and to follow its manifest teachings even in the face of the disapproval of their ecclesiastics. Under the fire of anathemas and persecution the word came to be applied to those who were cast out of the Gregorian Church because they would not discontinue the practise. In Turkey the word has only its original meaning, derived from the “Evangel” of Christ.

In 1833 the missionaries at Constantinople were invited to be present in the Patriarchal Church at the ordination of fifteen Armenian priests, trained in Pashtimaljian’s school. These men were largely emancipated from the superstitions of the old Church and alert to the needs of radical reform. When the break between the Gregorians and the Evangelicals actually took place, several years later, the leaders of the Protestants were for the most part men who had received their training under Pashtimaljian, who was always independent of missionary supervision and who was highly esteemed and honored by the ecclesiastics of the Gregorian Church.

With all these forces at work upon this able and alert people, advanced ideas rapidly spread among all classes at the capital, and through constant intercourse with the chief cities in the interior, aroused there also the spirit of inquiry. The patriarch at Constantinople and some of the bishops in interior towns seemed in hearty accord with the revival of Biblical study and of true learning. The missionaries endeavored to have the Armenians themselves open and conduct all the schools, and ventured themselves to do anything of the kind only when they failed to get the people to act.

The steady progress of the reform movement was hindered by great fires in the city, by cholera and plague, and by civil war. Even to the present these distracting and disintegrating forces have always been present in some parts of the Turkish fields, presenting many obstacles to continuous advance.

The Roman Catholics were openly opposed to the circulation of the Bible among the people, and used their influence to check the movement for a revival of righteousness and learning. By constant effort, even in the days of Pashtimaljian, they cast suspicion upon the movement into the minds of some of the leaders among the old Church people. An anti-reform party was gradually formed, led largely by uneducated ecclesiastics, who saw that if only educated men were to be ordained to the priesthood and were to exercise a leading influence in the Church, their power would soon be destroyed. They succeeded in exalting to patriarchal power in 1839 an astute and bigoted man from the interior of the country. He began at once to arrest and throw into prison some of the leading men in the evangelical movement. Some even were banished into the interior for the sole crime of reading the Bible.

The Armenian Evangelical Union, a secret organization, had in 1839 some twenty-two members. It was an organized company of intelligent, advanced thinkers, who came together to plan and pray for the reformation of their Church and of the country, and for Bible study. They carried on secret correspondence with men of enlightenment throughout the empire. None of them were separated from the Church nor did they contemplate such a step nor encourage it in others. They were planning solely for the salvation of the Gregorian Church. These unions were continued and multiplied in the country, but not as a secret society after the organization of the Protestant churches.

On the third of March, 1839, a patriarchal bull was issued by Hagopos, adjunct patriarch, forbidding the reading of all books printed or circulated by the missionaries, and all who possessed such books were ordered to deliver them up. A few days later the sympathetic and gentle patriarch Stepan was deposed and Hagopos was installed in his place. Spurred on by the same Romanists, the Greek patriarch issued a similar bull to all Greeks against the books of the missionaries. The reign of terror thus begun raged in the capital and throughout the interior of the country for many years. April 28th, 1839, the Armenian patriarch issued a new bull threatening terrible anathemas, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, against all who should be found communicating with the missionaries or reading their books. Arrests and imprisonments were of constant occurrence. The native evangelicals were at their wits’ end and the missionaries could see no way of deliverance.

Most fortunately for them, at that time the sultan was at war with Mohammed Ali of Egypt, and he called upon all the patriarchs to provide him with recruits for his broken army. The defeat of the sultan, his death, and the succession of his son, Abdul Medjid, with the loss of the Turkish fleet, threw all into consternation and made the most violent bigots forget for the moment to persecute. A fire in Pera which destroyed between three thousand and four thousand Armenian houses tended to produce a softening of heart against the persecuted.