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 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 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 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
complete as that of the Serbs and Bulgaria 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.