A History of Protestant missions in the near East

58 History of Protestant Missions in the Near East
Church.
We shall have later to deal with the Kussian annexation
of the Nestorian Church in Northwestern Persia. In
this account of the ceaseless activity of the Roman Church
aiming at ecclesiastical union, and of the Eussian State striving
for political aggrandizement, we have sketched the dark
background of Protestant mission work in the Near East.
6. The Position of Christians under Turkish Rule*
The position of Christians under Turkish rule has varied at
different times and in different places.
Especially in the times
immediately following the Turkish conquest, when the Muhammadan
power did not feel sufficiently established, or in districts
in which there was a large Christian majority evidently
in a position to claim a certain amount of protection from the
government, the lot of the Christians was tolerable. For instance,
in the Monophysitic Church in Egypt and in the Nestorian
Church in Persia conditions were so satisfactory, that
they enjoyed a period of prosperity. In all Muhammadan
lands the Christians enjoyed a greater or less degree of religious
liberty and political representation, since their rulers
were well aware that it was impossible for them to direct the
affairs of the Christian communities. Compared with the
autocratic ecclesiastical despotism under which the Orthodox
Greek Church had groaned, when subject to the Christian
emperors of Byzantium, this measure of autonomy in such matters
as marriage laws, and laws of inheritance, was a distinct
gain. To be sure only the Greek and Armenian Churches enjoyed
these privileges to the full, because the Osmanli Sultan,
Muhammad II, after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453,
appointed the Orthodox Greek Patriarch as " Official Administrator
of all orthodox subjects in the Turkish Empire," and
the Armenian Patriarch (in 1461) as " Head of all the Christians
in the Orient," i. e., of all non-" orthodox " Christians.
The rest of the Christian Churches had to be content to be
'This paragraph was written before the 24th of July, 1908, when the constitution
was granted by the Sultan. Cf. Chap. Ill, 7.