I refer to the special and exceptional position held by the Greeks in
the Turkish dominions. Though the Moslems had possessed themselves of
the Greek Empire from the Bosphorus to the Danube, Greek domination
still survived as an intellectual, ecclesiastical, and commercial
force. The nature and effects of that supremacy, and its results upon
the fortunes of other Balkan nations, we must now proceed to consider.
The Turkish government classifies its subjects not on the basis of
nationality but on the basis of religion. A homogeneous religious
group is designated a millet or nation. Thus the Moslems form the
millet of Islam. And at the present time there are among others a
Greek millet, a Catholic millet, and a Jewish millet. But from the
first days of the Ottoman conquest until very recent times all the
Christian population, irrespective of denominational differences, was
assigned by the Sultans to the {17} Greek millet, of which the
patriarch of Constantinople was the head. The members of this millet
were all called Greeks; the bishops and higher clergy were exclusively
Greek; and the language of their churches and schools was Greek, which
was also the language of literature, commerce, and polite society. But
the jurisdiction of the patriarch was not restricted even to
ecclesiastical and educational matters. It extended to a considerable
part of civil law--notably to questions of marriage, divorce, and
inheritance when they concerned Christians only.
It is obvious that the possession by the Greek patriarch of
Constantinople of this enormous power over the Christian subjects of
the Turks enabled him to carry on a propaganda of hellenization. The
disappearance for three centuries of the national consciousness in
Servia and Bulgaria was not the sole work of the Moslem invader; a more
fatal blight to the national languages and culture were the Greek
bishops {18} and clergy who conducted their churches and schools. And
if Kinglake knew nothing of Bulgaria as late as 1834 it was because
every educated person in that country called himself a Greek. For it
cannot be too strongly emphasized that until comparatively recent times
all Christians of whatever nation or sect were officially recognized by
the Turks as members of the Greek millet and were therefore designated
Greeks.
The hostility of the Slavonic peoples in the Balkans, and especially of
the Bulgarians, to the Greeks, grows out of the ecclesiastical and
educational domination which the Greek clergy and bishops so long and
so relentlessly exercised over them. Of course the Turkish Sultans are
responsible for the arrangement. But there is no evidence that they
had any other intention than to rid themselves of a disagreeable task.
For the rest they regarded Greeks and Slavs with equal contempt. But
the Greeks quickly recognized the racial advantage of their {19}
ecclesiastical hegemony. And it was not in human nature to give it up
without a struggle. The patriarchate retained its exclusive
jurisdiction over all orthodox populations till 1870, when the Sultan
issued a firman establishing the Bulgarian exarchate.
There were two other spheres in which Greek influence was paramount in
the Turkish Empire. The Turk is a soldier and farmer; the Greek is
pre-eminent as a trader, and his ability secured him a disproportionate
share of the trade of the empire. Again, the Greeks of Constantinople
and other large cities gradually won the confidence of the Turks and
attained political importance. During the eighteenth century the
highest officials in the empire were invariably Phanariots, as the
Constantinople Greeks were termed from the quarter of the city in which
they resided.
In speaking of the Greeks I have not had in mind the inhabitants of the
present kingdom of Greece. Their subjection by the Turks was as {20}
complete as that of the Serbs and Bulgarians, though of course they
were exempt from ecclesiastical domination at the hands of an alien
clergy speaking a foreign language. The enmity of the Bulgarians may
to-day be visited upon the subjects of King Constantine, but it was not
their ancestors who imposed upon Bulgaria foreign schools and churches
but the Greeks of Constantinople and Thrace, over whom the government
of Athens has never had jurisdiction.