Mehmed the Conqueror and Gennadius II

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

[FONT=&quot]I understand that this topic can stir up bad feelings and I am sorry that it does. I just don't want to be resentful anymore.

When I was in college, a Turkish woman came to my history class, and during the Q and A session, I demanded she answer several times as to why the Greek and Armenian holocaust happened, as if one woman today could be responsible for the sins committed a hundred years ago. I realize now that I was wrong.

When she said that Greeks and Turks are so similar culturally that they are really like brothers who always get into fights, I realize now that she may have had a point.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Buddy, she didnt answer your question. She went off on a tangent. That is why you had to repeat your question. Her correct answer should be I accept the barbaric actions as genocide committed against Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]If a person, any person, commits a sin they must acknowledge it and repent in order to be resolved from it.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Was Mehmed good for the Armenians? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who put an end to Byzantine rule, allowed the foundation of the Armenian Patriarchate, an unprecedented move for the Armenians to whom he granted freedom of conscience and faith. The transformation of the Armenian Episcopate in Western Anatolia to the Istanbul Patriarchate, following a decree he issued in 1461, is clear evidence of the vision and tolerance displayed by Mehmed and of the subsequent Ottoman Sultans toward other faiths.

Following the reign of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, Turco-Armenian relations continued excellently until the end of the 19th century. In fact, Armenians were by far, the greatest beneficiaries of the opportunities offered by the Ottoman Empire to all industrious, efficient, honest and productive subjects of the non-muslim communities. Being exempted from the military service and to a great extent from taxation, the Armenians had the opportunity to make headway in trade, agriculture, craftsmanship and administration, and by reason of their loyalty to the Empire, as well as their ability to intermingle with other subjects, they had duely attained the title of 'loyal people'.
Turco-Armenian Relations[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]When Constantinople finally became a part of Ottoman Empire, financial support was given to Orthodox Armenians by the Sultan, so they could build their churches on the land of the Empire. Many of the Armenian churches in Anatolia and Istanbul, were built in 1453 or after reflecting tolerance of the Ottoman Empire to other ethnic groups and various religions living under their control during that time.
Armenians in Turkey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Well before Mehmet, the Armenians had their Kingdoms with their Patriarchs. The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, for example, had already the city of Ani, which was also named The City of 1001 Churches. Ani - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. These Churches today are used for artillery practice for the army. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Turks knew that the Armenian merchant class were a hard working bunch and that they would make money for the Empire (The word we are looking for is exploitation). By the way Western Anatolia contain the lands of historical Armenia. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Many of the Armenian churches in Anatolia and Istanbul, were built in 1453 or after reflecting tolerance of the Ottoman Empire to other ethnic groups and various religions living under their control during that time.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The Armenians had been building Churches in the Western Armenia (Anatolia) since the 5th century if not earlier. I have never read a credible historical source stating that many of the Armenian Churches were built in or after 1453.

Sorry if my post may sound aggressive, please understand that posts have no tone.
[/FONT]

buzuxi02 · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder777 said:
I am not saying you are wrong but I would honestly like to see scholarly evidence for this. If the majority of Turks are not of Mongol origin, how were they converted to Islam?

They converted to avoid paying the tax. You know the janniseries were in the millions?

This is not a secret. My maternal great grandfather was a muslim Turk from Greece. He converted back to Orthodoxy in the late 1800's as his family converted to Islam a few generations earler for political reasons.

This is so well known that many people believe that many Turks are crypto-christians (i dont believe this). And that if Instanbul returned under the greeks (or became fully secularized) 25% would return to christianity.

You do realize that any tourism brochure of Turkey depicts christian and byzantine churches, sites, and ruins? You dont think the entire anatolian population was moved out and mongols brought in?

This is obvious in all facets. Including culinary. Baklava is considered turkish, yet what turks consider baklava actually evolved from Anatolian greeks inventing phillo dough and the armenians adding spices to walnuts. Turkish cuisine is greek and armenian cuisine which were given turkish names.

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

Yeznik said:
[FONT=&quot]Buddy, she didnt answer your question. She went off on a tangent. That is why you had to repeat your question. Her correct answer should be I accept the barbaric actions as genocide committed against Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

I hope that we can both see the silliness and unfairness of expecting one person to accept responsibility for something her people may have done a hundred years ago. I, for example, don't accept white guilt, even if some people on my mother's side of the family may have owned slaves.

What is the current situation for Christians' rights in Turkey, compared to other Muslim countries? And didn't killing happen between Turks and Armenians from both sides?

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

buzuxi02 said:
They converted to avoid paying the tax. You know the janniseries were in the millions?

Why would they convert to avoid paying a tax? What were the consequences if they didn't pay a tax? Considering that the Greeks fought against the Turks in the Greek war of independence, I find it hard to accept at face value that Greeks would mass convert to Islam to avoid paying a tax. If the ethnic Turks were in the minority, even after the fall of Constantinople, wouldn't there have been more of a struggle against the non-Turkish majority accepting Islam?

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

buzuxi02 said:
They converted to avoid paying the tax. You know the janniseries were in the millions?

This is not a secret. My maternal great grandfather was a muslim Turk from Greece. He converted back to Orthodoxy in the late 1800's as his family converted to Islam a few generations earler for political reasons.

This is so well known that many people believe that many Turks are crypto-christians (i dont believe this). And that if Instanbul returned under the greeks (or became fully secularized) 25% would return to christianity.

You do realize that any tourism brochure of Turkey depicts christian and byzantine churches, sites, and ruins? You dont think the entire anatolian population was moved out and mongols brought in?

This is obvious in all facets. Including culinary. Baklava is considered turkish, yet what turks consider baklava actually evolved from Anatolian greeks inventing phillo dough and the armenians adding spices to walnuts. Turkish cuisine is greek and armenian cuisine which were given turkish names.

Regarding the crypto-christians, I have read that Muslim Armenians are converting back to Christianity at the rate of 60-70 people a year.

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

buzuxi02 said:
Early on the armenians were primarily under the Sassanid Empire. In the 8th century there were no armenian lands under the Empire just a colony or two, most Armenians during this time actually migrated as refugees into the empire. In fact a few of these Armenians were of a heretical sect called the Paulicians, they were persecuted less in byzantine lands.

The whole point is that the empire was very multiracial The precense of Armenian generals in the army of the byzantines was impressive. There was also emperors of armenian origins. Armenians once again came under byzantine rule in the 9th-11 centuries, where again they held prominent positions.

Establishing an armenian patriarch in Constantinople would have been uncanonical as there is a canonical patriarchate alrady established.

The Turks gave them a Patriarchate not because they needed one but because to manipulate and cause tensions between the two religious communities. The title 'Patriarch' was legally established by Justinian to denote the largest centers of Chalcedonian christianity within the empire. Under the turkish yoke establishing some new legal status fr an ecclesiaistical group didnt matter, nor did it mean anything.

Just a quick note there were autonomous Armenian kingdoms under the ruling Empires (whether Persian or Byzantine). Armenia was split into two regions, Greater Armenia and Lesser Armenia around the 5th to 6th centuries. One side fell under Byzantine rule the other under Persian. The Armenians were the largest minority on both sides. Majority of those who accepted Chalcedonian Christianity were fully assimilated into the Hellenistic culture.

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

Yeznik said:
Just a quick note there were autonomous Armenian kingdoms under the ruling Empires (whether Persian or Byzantine). Armenia was split into two regions, Greater Armenia and Lesser Armenia around the 5th to 6th centuries. One side fell under Byzantine rule the other under Persian. The Armenians were the largest minority on both sides. Majority of those who accepted Chalcedonian Christianity were fully assimilated into the Hellenistic culture.

Are you saying that that Mehmed and other Turkish leaders did nothing good for the Armenians compared to what the Byzantines had done?

buzuxi02 · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder777 said:
I hope that we can both see the silliness and unfairness of expecting one person to accept responsibility for something her people may have done a hundred years ago. I, for example, don't accept white guilt, even if some people on my mother's side of the family may have owned slaves.

What is the current situation for Christians' rights in Turkey, compared to other Muslim countries? And didn't killing happen between Turks and Armenians from both sides?

Certainly you are right, you cant blame one generation for the behavior of another. Not to mention its simply ridiculous as no people or tribe are really sinless. Whole thing about casting the first stone.

I would though like for Turkey to reach out and welcome back the thousands who fled the 1950's pogroms and their property returned to them. Remember these people were indigenous to the area before Turkey ever existed and they never legally sold or gave away there property or homes.

Turkey should not have a say as to which nationality the ecumenical patriarch should originate from. And if the Patriarchate wants some of the thousands of abandoned churches or properties back, he should. If he wants to publish theological books he should be allowed to operate a printing press.

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

buzuxi02 said:
The majority of turks are not mongols. In the late 1800's almost 40% of turkey's population were christian. Turks are the janisseries of christian parents and the rest are converts to Islam mostly greeks and armenians (but some are of other Orthodox origins). This is a fact. The grand mosques of Instanbul was built by a Orthodox christian of serbian origin who had to convert.

Although numerous modern genetic studies have indicated that the historical Anatolian groups are the primary source of the present-day Turkish population,[25] [26][27][28][29][30][31] the first Turkic people lived in a region extending from Central Asia to Siberia and were palpable after the 6th Century BC.[32] Seventh century Chinese sources preserve the origins of the Turks stating that they were a branch of the Hsiung-nu (Huns) and living near the "West Sea", perhaps the Caspian Sea.[33] Modern sources tends to indicate that the Turks' ancestors lived within the state of the Hsiung-nu in the Transbaikal area and that they later, during the fifth century, migrated to the southern Altay.[33]
Demographics of Turkey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nevertheless, today's Turkish people are more closely related with the Balkan populations than to the Central Asian populations,[8][18] and a study looking into allele frequencies suggested that there was a lack of genetic relationship between the Mongols and the Turks, despite the historical relationship of their languages (The Turks and Germans were equally distant to all three Mongolian populations).[19] In addition, another study looking into HLA genes allele distributions indicated that Anatolians did not significantly differ from other Mediterranean populations.[10] Multiple studies suggested an elite cultural dominance-driven linguistic replacement model to explain the adoption of Turkish language by Anatolian indigenous inhabitants.[2][7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_the_Turkish_people

Are you saying that the Anatolian people were primarily Christians?

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder777 said:
I hope that we can both see the silliness and unfairness of expecting one person to accept responsibility for something her people may have done a hundred years ago. I, for example, don't accept white guilt, even if some people on my mother's side of the family may have owned slaves.

Let me give you a different perspective. If a German or even Germany denied the Holocaust, should the Jews sweep it under the rug since it happened a long time ago? Would you as a person be okay with another person who would deny the Holocaust?
In regards to “white guilt”, the issue with the Turks is denial for nearly a hundred years.

Yoder777 said:
What is the current situation for Christians' rights in Turkey, compared to other Muslim countries? And didn't killing happen between Turks and Armenians from both sides?

Generally bad, you can’t use Istanbul as the measuring stick for the rest of the country.
I don’t think you understand difference between killing and genocide. The Turks committed genocide.
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural.
This means to completely wipe out every man, women and child regardless of age.

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

Yeznik said:
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural.
This means to completely wipe out every man, women and child regardless of age.

Is this not what Greek soldiers did in predominately Turkish villages? Were Armenians ever responsible for this kind of slaughter as well?

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder777 said:
Are you saying that the Anatolian people were primarily Christians?

Yes. They were Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. The Gospel was spread in the region since the time of the Apostles. The Turks didn't show up in the area until about the 10th century.

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder777 said:
Is this not what Greek soldiers did in predominately Turkish villages? Were Armenians ever responsible for this kind of slaughter as well?

I wouldn't be able to tell you about the Greeks. I really haven't read that part of history. The Armenians fought back, if the opportunity presented itself. The Turkish government had a systematic plan to wipe out all Armenians, big difference.

Yeznik · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder777 said:
Are you saying that that Mehmed and other Turkish leaders did nothing good for the Armenians compared to what the Byzantines had done?

Are you putting the Turks and the Byzantines on the same level?

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

Yeznik said:
I wouldn't be able to tell you about the Greeks. I really haven't read that part of history. The Armenians fought back, if the opportunity presented itself. The Turkish government had a systematic plan to wipe out all Armenians, big difference.

Was it the Turkish government or the "young Turk" revolutionaries?

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

Yeznik said:
Are you putting the Turks and the Byzantines on the same level?

No, I am just asking who gave the Armenians more freedom, the Byzantines or Mehmed?

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

Yeznik said:
Yes. They were Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. The Gospel was spread in the region since the time of the Apostles. The Turks didn't show up in the area until about the 10th century.

If that is true, and I am not doubting that it is, what were the main causes of them converting from Christianity to Islam?

buzuxi02 · Feb 25, 2013

Yoder,

Non-muslims had to pay a higher tax. Muslim men intermarried with christian women making their offspring muslims. non-muslim men could not marry muslim.

The janiseries were christian children taken from their families and raised as muslim orphans for the military. Some families offered their sons to the janiisary in return for favors such as being exempt from paying the tax or the possibility of moving up the economic ladder.

Wiki Janissary

Yoder777 · Feb 25, 2013

buzuxi02 said:
Yoder,

Non-muslims had to pay a higher tax. Muslim men intermarried with christian women making their offspring muslims. non-muslim men could not marry muslim.

The janiseries were christian children taken from their families and raised as muslim orphans for the military. Some families offered their sons to the janiisary in return for favors such as being exempt from paying the tax or the possibility of moving up the economic ladder.

Wiki Janissary

And you are saying for certain that a majority of them were Christian and not some other religion before converting to Islam?

buzuxi02 · Feb 25, 2013

The area was overwhelmingly christian. There were jews and actually some of them converted. I forgot the name, but there was a rabbi who was believed to have been the promised messiah. When he converted to Islam many of his jewish followers also converted. But the area was overwhelmigly christian, all albanians were christians at that time. Bosnian muslims were Serbs, but once they converted the serbs would not refer to them as serbian muslims. Same with the greeks, being muslim and being turkish was synonomous. If a greek converted to Islam he no longer was of the dhimmi Roum.

Mehmed the Conqueror and Gennadius II

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