the second cause of the continuance of the ottoman dominion has been less accidental. like the early caliphs, and indeed all able mussulman dynasties except the persian, the ruling house of turkey has for all these centuries maintained unbroken the principle that, apart from creed, ability is the only qualification for the highest service. outside the navy, a turkish grandee must be a mussulman; but that granted, there is no obstacle of birth, or cultivation, or position standing in any man’s path. even slavery is no barrier. over and over again, a sultan apparently at the end of his resources has stooped among the crowd, clutched a soldier, a slipper-bearer, a tobacconist, a renegade, given him his own limitless power, and asking of him nothing but success, has secured it in full measure. equality within the faith, which is a dogma of islam, and next to its belief in a “sultan of the sky,” its grand attraction to inferior races, has in turkey been a reality as it has been in no other empire on earth, and has provided its sovereigns—who, be it remembered, fear no rival unless he be a kinsman, an arab, or a “prophet”—with an endless supply of the kind of ability they need. the history of the grand viziers of turkey, were it ever written, would be the history of men who have risen by sheer force of ability—that is, by success in war or by statesmanship, or, in fewer instances, by that art of mastering an asiatic sovereign and his seraglio in which fools do not succeed. the sultans have rarely promoted, rarely even used, men of their own house,—which is the persian dynastic policy,—have hated, and at last destroyed, the few nobles of their empire; and capricious and cruel as they have been, have often shown a power of steadily upholding a great servant such as we all attribute to the founder of the new german empire. this equality, this chance of a career of great opportunities, great renown, and great luxury, brings to constantinople a crowd of intriguers, some of them matchless villains; but it also brings a great crowd of able and unscrupulous men, who understand how to “govern” in the turkish sense, and who have constantly succeeded in restoring a dominion which seemed hopelessly broken up. every pasha is a despot, an able despot is soon felt, and he has in carrying out the method of turkish government, which is simply the old tartar method of stamping out resistance, an advantage over europeans which is the third cause of the continuance of the ottoman empire. he is tormented with no hesitations in applying force as a cure for all things. the man who resists is to die, or purchase life by submission.
—meredith townsend
in “asia and europe.”
[pg 101]
the moral and religious condition of the people of turkey, especially the non-moslems, was, and still is, without a parallel in any country in the world.
since mohammedanism never encourages progress and education, and since the principles of moslem rule in all countries and in all times have been based upon force, ignorance and fanaticism, it is not difficult to judge of the condition of these subject peoples, especially after many generations of oppression.
the most of the races that refused to embrace islam and elected to pay a regular tribute for the privilege of continuing to live, were christians, such as the copts of egypt, the syrian christians of syria, the jacobites of mesopotamia, the armenians of armenia and sections of northern syria and asia minor, the greeks of asia minor, and the bulgarians of european turkey. while all these were christians by profession, they had no ecclesiastical relations with each other. each race and church stood by itself, entirely independent of all the rest, fostering no sympathy the one with the other except in a common cause against a dominant race.
under moslem rule all education among the so called rayas was discouraged, and some of the moslem customs, like the veiling of their women, were adopted. the low estimate placed upon womanhood by the conquerors was accepted in a measure by these races, and some of the worst of the vices of the moslems became common among the christians. [pg 102]
with these surroundings, the christianity of the earlier days so deteriorated that little remained except the name and the outward observances of the church. because of the absence of modern literature and general education, the spoken language of the common people changed to such a degree that the bible and the rituals of the church in the ancient language in which they were written became an unknown tongue to the masses. their religion became a religion of form, and the bible a closed and sealed book. surrounded as they were by all the vices of a moslem society, dominated by moslem rulers, the character of the christianity among them did not attract their mohammedan neighbors, while there was no hope for reform from within.
jealousies and discords sprang up between the christians of various sects whenever they came into contact, like that between the greeks and bulgarians in macedonia, and the greeks and armenians in asia minor, and the syrians and armenians in northern syria. the reigning sultans have not been slow to note these jealousies and to take advantage of them in dealing with the various sects. had the christians of turkey during the last century been united, they might have accomplished much by way of securing privileges for themselves. but even the people of a single national church have not been able to agree upon many important questions, so that the sultan and his subordinates have not found it hard to control these superior races, superior in themselves in many respects to their masters. if any one seemed to be giving more trouble than usual, methods were found to divide still more, and so weaken and subdue them. the same methods have been constantly employed with the various religious bodies of his empire that have been successfully used [pg 103] with the european nations who have caused him trouble by interfering with his peculiar views of government or unjust methods of administration. he has usually succeeded in playing off the jealousies and cupidity of one against another so that concerted action became impossible and he has been left to work his own will in his own way. while the sultan has learned cunning by these conditions and gained no little advantage to himself, neither the subject christian races of his empire nor the european nations outside have seemed to learn a lesson which is of service to them in changing existing conditions.
under these circumstances, religion to most of the people of the country became but a form and a mark of nationality. no conversion, in the ordinary sense of the word, was required for admission to the greek, armenian, bulgarian, or any of the oriental churches. all children were baptized in infancy and so grew up within the church, with no religious instruction except as to fast and feast days and the proper forms to be employed in the ritual observed in the churches. in all services the language used was no more understood by the people as a whole than latin would be comprehended by an ordinary country audience in england or america. there was no educational or moral test for the priests except that they should be able to pronounce the words of the regular church services and find the proper places from which to read. the writer once asked an armenian priest where he studied. he said he was a baker and when he decided to become a priest he went to a monastery and studied for forty days. that comprised all of his schooling, except that he knew how to read simple narrative when he began. i asked him if he understood the ritual and the scriptures that he read. he replied, “how should i know? this is the ancient armenian.” [pg 104] even as late as fifteen years ago it would have been difficult to find a christian priest of any kind or class in the interior districts who clearly understood the ritual of the church or the scripture read in the service. ordinarily the selection of priests was not based upon special ability, education, or moral worth. there were, of course, noble exceptions to this most general rule.
the priests being such, and some of them most grossly ignorant and unfit, and there being in the churches no religious instruction, it is easy to understand how the moral tone of these oriental churches sank rapidly under the rule of the turk, with no power in themselves to rise above these conditions and institute a reform. a church without a bible, with an ignorant priesthood, with a ritual beautiful in itself but dead to the people, with no religious instruction and no test for church-membership, could not be expected in any land or in any age to keep itself unspotted from the world. under these conditions christianity came to be largely a name and the practises of religion only a form.
the resisting power of the oriental churches in turkey was largely vitiated by the lack of the true spirit of christianity within. at the same time, it was surrounded by evil influences and by open persecutions heavy to bear even by a living, vitalized church. the pressure of the mohammedans, both individually and as a government, was directed to force all professing christians to abandon their ancestral faith and become moslems. the heavy hand of the government was constantly upon them, while faithful moslems were not slow to let the persecuted ones know that, should they become mohammedans, their burdens would become lighter. under these conditions there has [pg 105] constantly been more or less apostatizing from christianity. in times of unusual persecution the number of these has increased.
at the same time, in order to avoid attention and thereby avert conflict, the christians, in many cases, conformed to the outward practises of their moslem masters. their women veiled themselves when in public and covered their mouths at all times. efforts to provide a general education for their children were largely abandoned and wide-spread illiteracy prevailed. the vices of the mohammedans, some of them the vilest known to men, were practised by many of the christians, and falsehood was so common that truth came to be almost a curiosity. to cheat or deceive a turk was considered in itself almost a christian virtue. in the conflict with islam, christianity, in its ignorance, was driven to the wall and lost nearly everything except its ancient bible and most excellent ritual, with houses of worship, a hierarchy and a form to which it adhered with most commendable tenacity.
these untoward conditions were aggravated by the fact that, in turkey, the church came to be a political organization, presided over by an appointee of the sultan, who was capable of being dismissed by him if he chose to exercise his power. each church with its political patriarch at constantinople constituted a little state within a state. every church represented a separate race or nation whose rights within the empire were vested in the rights of the church, directed by the patriarch. at the patriarchate were recorded—and it is true to-day—all births, marriages and deaths. individual existence in the empire was recognized only through the church. the christian’s sole representative at constantinople to speak for him in case of injustice, or to secure a privilege, or to obtain his legal rights, was the patriarch of his own peculiar church. [pg 106]
the political organization extended down through the different provinces and included in its last analysis each individual church. under the injustice endured by the christians of turkey during the past five hundred years, it is most natural that not a few of the members of the church, if not a great majority, should look upon the organization, not primarily as a spiritual temple, but as a means of securing redress for wrongs suffered, or for obtaining privileges from the porte. under the laws of turkey the church must exercise political functions. under the practise of the people, it came to be primarily political, the spiritual being relegated to the background.
general education never existed in that country, but under the sway of the moslem all education was discouraged. the schools of the moslems consisted of classes in reading the koran in arabic, accompanied by traditional stories of mohammed and comments upon his teachings. among the christians there was little except the instruction of a few youths in monasterial schools where men were trained for church orders. it is true that now and then among the greeks and armenians some bright and inquiring mind far exceeded the ordinary bounds of indigenous scholarship and became conspicuous for learning. but these were rare exceptions. the masses of the people of all classes and religions were in gross ignorance. even within the last twenty-five years the writer has been in many armenian villages in which not a person except the priest knew how to read and write, and even his accomplishments ceased with the bare ability to read the ritual of the church. a leading priest once asked a student who had studied one year in a mission school, “what remains for you to learn after studying an entire year?” under such a leadership in the church, and with open opposition to [pg 107] general education among the turks, it is not surprising that ignorance among the masses became almost universal, with little or no impulse to change.
if the above is true with reference to the education of the men, what could be expected for the girls and women? it is natural that, among the mohammedans, who accord to women a low place in society and religion, it should have come to be believed in wide areas in the interior of turkey that women were incapable of learning to read. among them the vital question calling for early discussion was not, “shall education be afforded to girls?” but it was, “can girls learn to read?” this question has been hotly discussed within the last fifty years in the interior of turkey, with the missionary contending that they can, while leading men of the country have contended with vehemence that the idea was too preposterous to consider. conviction came only by actual demonstration.
under such circumstances it is not difficult to imagine the general conditions of society and the deplorable life of the church. these conditions were more or less modified in the large coast cities like constantinople and smyrna, but even in these places, while more educated men were found than in the interior, there was dense ignorance among the masses, and no provision for the education of girls. the entire empire had few newspapers or periodicals of any kind in any language, and the state of education stimulated the production of no great literature, even had there been those capable of producing it. the beginning of the nineteenth century, apart from the revival of learning among the greeks of the west, may be called the dark age for literature, learning, and religion in the turkish empire.
constantinople and syria were the two centers for christian work in [pg 108] turkey among the oriental churches, because these were the centers of control for all of these churches. the chief patriarch resided at the porte and was in close touch with his majesty the sultan, while the secondary patriarch resided at jerusalem, cooperating with his superior at the capital. these churches could best be reached and influenced for evangelical christianity from the same points.
missionaries were sent to the ancient churches, not to attack them either in their doctrines or in their practises, but to cooperate with their leaders in organizing a system of education and in creating a sentiment that should demand for the church an educated and morally upright clergy. it was expected that the church would accept the modern version of its own scriptures and encourage its circulation among the people. for the best conduct of a work of this character, the missionaries needed to be in close contact with the centers of ecclesiastical power in all of these churches, that from them the ordinary lines of communication might be utilized in reaching the remote interior districts.
in order that misunderstandings may be cleared up, it should be stated here that missionaries to the armenians and greeks were not sent to divide the churches or to separate out those who should accept education and read the bible in the vernacular. their one supreme endeavor was to help the armenians and greeks work out a quiet but genuine reform in their respective churches. the missionaries made no attacks upon the churches, their customs, or beliefs, but strove by positive, quiet effort to show the leaders how much they lacked and to help them bring about the necessary changes.
for twenty-six years this quiet work went on with no separation, in [pg 109] accordance with the desire of the missionaries, as well as in harmony with the purposes of the board. when the separation did come, it was in spite of every effort of the missionaries to prevent it. for the successful accomplishment of such a purpose only the centers of ecclesiastical power and influence were available. only their own leaders could be expected to inaugurate and carry into execution a reform movement which would permeate the church throughout the empire.
