Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923

396 Pages·2006·7.26 MB·English

by  Charles A. Frazee

Catholics and Sultans

CATHOLICS
AND
SULTANS
The church and the Ottoman Empire
CHARLES A. FRAZEE
Professor of History, California State University, Fullerton
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1983
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no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1983
This digitally printed first paperback version 2006
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 82—4562
ISBN-13 978-0-521-24676-7 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-24676-8 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-02700-7 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-02700-4 paperback
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction i
PART I AFTER THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE
1 Ottoman gains and the Catholic response 5
2 The Ottoman attack upon Catholics in the Balkans
and Greece 31
3 The Catholics of Armenia and Syria come under
Ottoman rule 46
4 The Ottoman advance into Palestine and Egypt 59
PART n THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE MISSIONS
5 The growth of French influence in Istanbul 67
6 The missions come under the Congregation for the
Propagation of the Faith 88
7 The Balkans and Greece 103
8 The Orient and the Latin missions 127
9 Palestine, Egypt and North Africa 145
PART in THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
10 The eighteenth century in Istanbul 153
11 The Balkans after the Peace of Karlowitz 167
12 The Catholic Armenians 178
13 The Near Eastern churches 190
14 Palestine and Egypt 214
vi Contents
PART IV FROM EXPANSION TO DISASTER
15 The Catholics of Istanbul from the nineteenth
century to the proclamation of the Turkish
Republic 223
16 The Vatican Council, the Eastern churches and
the papacy 232
17 The Balkan churches 239
18 The Armenian Catholic community 256
19 The Maronites after the reign of Mahmut II 275
20 The Catholic Melkites 284
21 Syrian Catholics and the Chaldean church 293
22 The Catholics of the Holy Land and Egypt 304
Conclusion 312
Notes 314
Bibliography 345
Index 377
Acknowledgments
Many people have assisted me in the composition of this study.
First of all I should like to thank Dorothea Kenny and Jackson
Putnam who read the manuscript in its early stages and made many
helpful suggestions. Other contributors include my graduate assist-
ants: Albert Mueller, Joy Pedroja, and Barbara Maroze, and those
who helped with the preparation of the manuscript: Kathleen
Frazee, Maria Snelson, Millie Thompson, Lee Gilbert, Paulette
Woodward and Cheryl Perreira.
I am indebted to the American Philosophical Society and the
California State University Fullerton Foundation for research grants.
Vll

Introduction
The collapse of the Byzantine state in May 1453 not only ended one
of the world's most enduring empires, but also prepared the way
for a new confrontation between European Catholics and Ottoman
Turks. In one sense, this contest was but a continuation of the
Christian-Muslim struggle which began with the Crusades, yet it
had aspects which made it unique, since the areas which the Turks
had occupied prior to the conquest were inhabited principally by
Greek and other Eastern Christians.
Latin Catholics and Greek Orthodox had long been at odds over
doctrinal, liturgical, and administrative issues, so that some Western
observers saw the Byzantine defeat as God's judgment on heretics,
but the majority of Western Christians regarded the Greek collapse
and the occupation of 'New Rome' as an unmitigated disaster.
Nearly everyone in the West feared that Mehmet II might suppress
the Orthodox church just as he had the Byzantine state, but the
contrary proved true. Mehmet made the church part of his ad-
ministration and assured that its leadership, which he controlled,
should be noted for its hostility towards Latin Catholicism. The
Turkish conquest further alienated the two Christian churches by
removing forever the emperors who had often befriended the papacy
despite that policy's unpopularity. It also eliminated the influence of
the small Greek party which favoured church union, who now had
no choice but to live in impotent exile in Italy. The results of the
Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453 resembled those of the
Fourth Crusade, for both events shattered the hopes of those who
sought a single Greek and Latin Christian church, even though this
union would not have included the Slavic or Arab-speaking churches
and would have created a new schism within Eastern Christendom.
The period of overt hostility between the Turks and the papacy
following Constantinople's fall was remarkably short-lived; within
2 Introduction
fifty years the Curia and the Porte had entered into negotiations and,
in the sixteenth century, when the French and Turks sealed an
alliance against the Habsburgs, the position of Ottoman Catholics
was secured. Thereafter, a permanent French embassy, established
in Istanbul, provided a sheltering wing for Western missionaries
mating their way into the Ottoman world.
The Catholic community of Istanbul had almost disappeared by
the time the missionaries arrived. It soon became evident that these
newcomers were not content to serve as chaplains to the Catholic
diplomatic and merchant communities, but intended to proselytize
actively among the Orthodox and Eastern Christians throughout the
Empire. Latin missionaries, at heroic costs and often under very
difficult circumstances, laboured at this task until several Near
Eastern churches were formed in communion with Rome. Local
clergy, who often welcomed the Western religious orders when they
first appeared, became hostile once they realized separate and rival
ecclesiastical organizations were being created.
The latter part of the eighteenth century was a period of decline
due to the suppression of the Jesuits and the rationalist attitudes of
the Enlightenment. Then came the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic era which further disrupted the Catholic communities
of the East. But once these years passed the nineteenth-century
Catholic revival joined to papal initiatives provoked new interest in
the Orient. Missionaries again poured into the Ottoman Empire
to regain what was lost so that, by 1900, the church and its institu-
tions had never been stronger. Yet, the best of times was making
way for the worst. The First World War crushed both empire and
church. When the Turkish Republic was proclaimed in 1923 there
were few Catholics left to cheer.