Asia Minor is the country which, more than all others, recalls the
highest development of Hellenic civilization. Its deeply indented coast
formed a chaplet of Hellenic democracies which reached out into the
interior and actually attacked the Persian civilization, upon which
they imposed their own stamp. These democracies constituted the first
rampart of the civilized world of that time, holding back Persian
barbarism. Their history is one of continual struggle between these
two civilizations, a struggle that was terminated at Salamis and at
Platæa, where the Persian ambitions were definitively buried and Greek
civilization saved.
The wise men, the thinkers, the philosophers, that these democracies
produced, were numerous, and the influence of their teachings was very
great. These even today are radiant with a sublimity that has never
been excelled.
It was in this Greek element and among the populations Hellenized by
them that Christianity first germinated. It was the Greeks of Asia
Minor who first offered their blood for the triumph of the new faith.
The foremost Church Fathers, John Chrysostom, Saint Basil and very many
others, were born there or taught there.
Throughout the Middle Ages the Byzantine-Greek civilization flourished
in these lands. It formed the most powerful barrier against the wave
of barbarism which threatened to inundate the civilized world. The
desperate resistance offered by Hellenism permitted the West, by its
contact with Byzantine Hellenism, to acquire those requisite elements
which have formed the basis of Western civilization.
When the powerful tide of Turkish invasion, coming after so many
other barbarian inroads, completely submerged Greek culture there,
the Hellenic idea which this element represented was so strong that
it survived everything. It was in vain that the fierce conquerors,
as the tradition states, cut out the tongues of the inhabitants in
order to cause this people to unlearn its language; it was in vain
that they carried away their children to make of them fierce and cruel
janissaries, who became exterminators of their own people. The Hellenic
idea, the attachment to national traditions, was never submerged.
As soon as the fury of the conqueror was somewhat appeased, and at
a time when that part of the Balkan Peninsula where Hellenism first
arose and from which later it radiated over the then known world all
the brilliance of its beauty was no longer showing any sign of life,
the Greeks of Asia Minor founded the first Greek school of modern
times, that of Cydonia (Aïvali). This school produced the first real
ecclesiastics, the first genuinely educated men. Smyrna, called by the
Turk himself “the infidel city,” because of its preponderant Greek
element, followed her example. The graduates of these schools formed
the nucleus from which the idea of the Greek renaissance sprang forth.
From this source have come the men that have sacrificed their lives and
their fortunes in order that Hellenic culture, which seemed forever to
have disappeared, might again be revived.
It is this country of which we are going to study the ethnological
composition.
Its boundaries are, on the north, the Black Sea; on the east, the
Russian frontier traversing the snow-covered mountain range of the
Taurus and Antitaurus and continuing to the Gulf of Alexandretta; on
the south, west and northwest, the Mediterranean, the Ægean Sea and the
Sea of Marmora.
Its area is 534,550 square kilometers; it is traversed by numerous
watercourses and is one of the richest countries in the world. If well
administered, it could support tens of millions of inhabitants.
It is divided for purposes of administration into eight provinces,
Sebastia, Trebizond, Kastamuni, Konia, Angora, Aïdin, Broussa, Adana
and four independent provinces, Chryssioupolis, Nicomedia, Balukiser,
Vizi or Dardanelles.
To determine the importance of the Greek element in the population let
us examine each archbishopric from the ecclesiastic as well as secular
point of view.
The following table presents statistics as to the numbers of churches,
priests, schools, etc., supported by the Greeks of Asia Minor:
================+========+=======+=======+========+=======+=======+========+======
Metropolis |Churches|Priests| Boys’ |Teachers| Pupils| Girls’| Women |Pupils
| | |Schools| | |Schools|Teachers|
————————————————+————————+———————+——————-+————————+——————-+——————-+————————+——————
1. Smyrna | 40 | 114 | 35 | 241 | 11,055| 27 | 202 | 7,651
2. Crine | 46 | 75 | 34 | 65 | 3,965| 14 | 32 | 2,055
3. Heliopolis | 53 | 77 | 41 | 100 | 4,360| 19 | 49 | 2,120
4. Pisidia | 46 | 54 | 18 | 53 | 2,685| 10 | 31 | 1,235
5. Philadelphia| 20 | 22 | 15 | 26 | 1,060| 8 | 16 | 723
6. {Ephesus } | | | | | | | |
{Magnesia} | 126 | 177 | 100 | 286 | 15,940| 65 | 150 |10,150
7. Cydonia } | | | | | | | |
8. Broussa | 24 | 27 | 13 | 40 | 2,975| 7 | 20 | 1,045
9. Nicæa | 29 | 41 | 23 | 63 | 3,155| 8 | 25 | 1,210
10. Chalcedon | 43 | 100 | 28 | 99 | 6,970| 25 | 70 | 4,230
11. Nicomedia | 76 | 75 | 77 | 83 | 3,479| 6 | 20 | 1,120
12. Cyzicus | 81 | 128 | 72 | 195 | 8,115| 25 | 67 | 2,630
13. Proconnesos | 26 | 33 | 13 | 48 | 2,280| 8 | 19 | 790
14. Amassia | 330 | 441 | 286 | 586 | 17,000| 69 | 87 | 3,910
15. Ancyra | 8 | 13 | 5 | 20 | 840| 2 | 7 | 260
16. Iconium | 50 | 102 | 42 | 159 | 6,915| 23 | 50 | 2,070
17. Cæsarea | 44 | 98 | 58 | 133 | 5,075| 16 | 49 | 1,778
18. Rhodopolis | 65 | 86 | 57 | 120 | 3,300| | |
19. Chaldia | 211 | 259 | 189 | 380 | 9,705| 2 | 5 | 160
20. Trapezus | 250 | 161 | 95 | 203 | 8,535| 11 | 35 | 1,679
21. Colonia | 120 | 140 | 93 | 182 | 3,840| | |
22. Neocæsarea | 300 | 400 | 150 | 300 | 11,300| 15 | 36 | 2,100
| ——- | ——- | ——- | ——- | ———-——| —- | —- | —————
|1,988 |2,523 |1,444 | 3,382 |132,549| 360 | 970 |46,916
================+========+=======+=======+========+=======+=======+========+======
The administration of the Greek Orthodox Church is in the hands
of twenty-two Metropolitans, or Archbishops, having under them a
proportionate number of bishops and priests. The Metropoles, or
Archbishoprics, are the following: Smyrna, Crine, Heliopolis, Pisidia,
Philadelphia, Ephesus and Magnesia, Cydonia, Broussa, Nicæa, Chalcedon,
Nicomedia, Cyzicus, Proconnesos, Amassia, Ancyra, Iconium, Cæsarea,
Rhodopolis, Chaldia, Trapezus, Colonia and Neocæsarea, under the
authority of the Œcumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[1]
The number of Greek inhabitants is probably above 2,000,000. The
Hellenic populations are chiefly concentrated in the provinces of Aïdin
and Broussa, where out of a population of approximately 3,000,000 the
Greek element is about 1,300,000, the coast regions, however, being
inhabited almost purely by Greeks. The non-Greek inhabitants are
largely Catholics, Armenians, Turks and Jews. On the coasts of the
Black Sea, too, the Greeks are largely in the majority. It is to be
noticed that in many villages of this region the inhabitants speak a
language closely approaching the ancient Greek, from the point of view
of syntax as well as of verb-formation.
For their religious needs they have 1,988 churches and 2,523 priests,
and for the instruction of their children they maintain 1,444 schools
for boys with 3,382 teachers and 132,549 pupils, and 360 schools for
girls with 970 women teachers and 46,916 pupils.
We must remember that the churches and schools are maintained at the
expense of the Greeks themselves, since the Turkish Government only
intervenes in order to impede and destroy. Reckoning at $500 a year
the pay of a priest or teacher, man or woman, we arrive at the sum of
$5,000,000 a year, which must be multiplied by three in order to cover
the expenses of the construction of churches and schools, their repair
and upkeep, and the salaries of the inferior employees of all these
establishments.
The number of pupils of both sexes constitutes nearly nine per cent
of the whole Greek population (179,465 boys and girls). This is due
to the fact that many of the Greeks, not included in the preceding
enumeration, who live mingled with other populations, whether Armenian
or Turk, and who do not possess the means of supporting schools of
their own, send their children from great distances, in spite of the
difficult communications, in order to attend these schools. Often the
parents, who have lived for generations among the Turks, have lost the
knowledge of their national language, but their national consciousness
is nevertheless so strong that they expose their children to countless
dangers in order to permit them to learn the language of their
ancestors. These Turkish-speaking Greeks live chiefly in the interior
of the country, even as far as the Persian frontier, and the greater
part of these, lost among other more numerous peoples, are not included
in the above statistics.
These numbers show that the people are loyally devoted to their
language, their traditions and their religion, for the tremendous
sacrifices to which they subject themselves for the sake of the
maintenance of Hellenic culture evidence the tenacity with which they
cling to their national sentiments.
They show equally that this people is eager for progress in
civilization, for the number of educational establishments that it
maintains and the large number of children that attend them, show that
it wishes to acquire a higher civilization and thus become an agent
of progress for the peoples whom the fate of conquest has established
among them.
Sober, industrious, intelligent and honest, it demands only liberty in
order to be able to give scope to its activity. Though conquered by the
Turk, the Greek, in his turn, won the upper hand by his intellectual
superiority. The Turk, who has become accustomed to the Greek way of
living and thinking, and has adopted many of his habits, among the
most prominent of which is the respect for woman and the sanctity of
the home, will be happy to live under the administration of his Greek
compatriot, with whom he was perfectly satisfied when the Turkish
Government, before the chauvinistic Young Turk party had established
its fierce tyranny, renounced the services of the Greek functionaries.
An interesting side of this dwelling together of Greek and Turk is the
respect that the Anatolian Turk habitually professes for the Orthodox
religion. Sometimes the Mussulman even has recourse to the offices of
the Greek priest, either to have a mass chanted, or in order to touch
the holy sacraments, the saints’ pictures, etc., so as to be cured of
some illness, or to obtain some benefit which his ascetic religion does
not afford him.
If the Turkish Government by its misrule had not provoked the driving
out of the Mussulman populations of Europe (a course which has
gradually reduced the territory of the Ottoman Empire), the uprisings
experienced periodically would not have been so frequent. These
numerous fanatics who had lived since the time of the conquest by
exploiting the Christian populations, transported their methods to Asia
Minor, and, seconded by a government whose materialism knew no limits,
they undertook the extermination of the Christian populations of Asia
Minor in order to rob them of their property.
When one realizes that, under an administration which existed only to
mulct the worker by taxation, these populations have succeeded, in
spite of numberless persecutions, in making so formidable an effort
in order to secure their spiritual needs, it is easy to imagine what
progress in civilization and wealth awaits this country, when an
era of liberty and security shall be introduced under a paternal
administration.
The Anatolian Mussulmans will be the first to profit by this. Patient
workers, loving the land, and living in harmony with their Christian
compatriots, they will be happy to secure the product of their labor,
of which the Turkish functionary constantly robbed them, so that he
finally made them dislike all labor, and urged them on into the path of
crime.
This living together as friends, on a footing of equality, will perhaps
make Christianity flourish anew in this land which was the first to be
saved from paganism, and whose fruits, transplanted to the rest of the
world, have caused the springing forth of that glorious civilization
which Prussian megalomania is now staining with blood.