History of The Eastern Orthodox Church Under The Ottoman Empire - Religious Rights Under The Ottoman Empire

Religious Rights Under The Ottoman Empire

Further information: Dhimmitude and Millet (Ottoman Empire)

Islam not only recognized Jesus as a great prophet, but tolerated Christians as another People of the Book. As such, the Church was not extinguished nor was its canonical and hierarchical organization completely destroyed. In fact, the Orthodox Church was an accepted institution under the Ottomans, in contrast to Catholicism which was associated with enemy Austria, and actually grew in size during Ottoman rule. This included the building of churches and monasteries. Its administration continued to function though in lesser degree, no longer being the state religion. One of the first things that Mehmet the Conqueror did was to allow the Church to elect a new patriarch, Gennadius Scholarius. The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had been Christian churches for nearly a millennium were converted into mosques, yet most other churches, both in Constantinople and elsewhere, remained in Christian hands. They were endowed with civil as well as ecclesiastical power over all Christians in Ottoman territories. Because Islamic law makes no distinction between nationality and religion, all Christians, regardless of their language or nationality, were considered a single millet, or nation. The patriarch, as the highest ranking hierarch, was thus invested with civil and religious authority and made ethnarch, head of the entire Christian Orthodox population. Practically, this meant that all Orthodox Churches within Ottoman territory were under the control of Constantinople. Thus, the authority and jurisdictional frontiers of the patriarch were enormously enlarged.

Converts to Islam who returned to Orthodoxy were given three chances to reutrn to Islam. If they refused three times, males were put to death as apostates and females were imprisoned for life. Non-Muslims were not allowed to carry weapons or ride horses.

Many individual Christians were made martyrs for stating their faith or speaking negatively against Islam.