1461- The Founding of the Armenian Millet-Patriarchate in Constantinople
6 - Why the Roman (Ottoman) Empire under Süleyman the Great was more tolerant than under the Roman Byzantine) Empire under Justinian the Great : The case of Armenia, one of the founder nations of the Ottoman Ecumenical Empire
(I just received the following letter from a good friend and distinguished Armenian (as well as American and Greek), Diran Majarian, mourning today the death of Charles Aznavour, at the age of 94. Aznavour was an Armenian like Diran and a Frenchman like myself. Dimitri Kitsikis)
Dimitris: This morning we celebrated Agios
Grigorios in church. The Armenian Church separated from the other
churches from the 4th Ecumenical Council. In fact, the
Armenians were at war with the Persians, who wanted to force them to abandon
their Christianity to become Zoroastrians like they were. They were
unable to send any representative. The Byzantines would forbid any
Armenian Churches in Constantinople for centuries thereafter. The
Armenians occupying key positions in Byzantium were largely Hayirum like
myself – they belonged to the Byzantine Church.
After the fall of Constantinople,
the agreement with Gennadios led to the Greek Millet. The Greeks
correctly preferring the Ottomans to the West to keep the Orthodox faith
intact. The Turks called the Armenians and offered to them a similar
arrangement. The first Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople was Hovakim
I (Ἰωακείμ Α΄), who was at the time the Metropolitan of Bursa. In 1461, he was brought to
Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II and established as the Armenian Patriarch of
Constantinople. Armenians were permitted freely to build their churches
that the Byzantines had forbidden.
The current Armenia - which is
Eastern Armenia - was part of Persia until the 1828, when the Russians
conquered the space along with Azerbaijan from the Persians. They had taken the
space earlier from the Ottomans. Ever since the Armenians have had a very
close relation with the Russians. The Russians recruited heavily
Armenians to fight the Ottomans in WW1 and the biggest, bloodiest Ottoman
defeat was the Battle of Sarıkamış by a Russian-Armenian army. This
disastrous defeat under mainly Armenians enraged the three Pashas and is one of
the basic factors - never discussed - in the Armenian Genocide.
The Bolshevik revolution financed
and supported by the Germans resulted in Brest Litovsk. This was a
disaster for the Ottoman Greeks and Armenians stranded with the Russian
withdrawal. Eventually Lenin recognizing and arming Kemal that led to the
defeat of the Greeks in Asia Minor.
I will never understand why the
Greeks love so much the Bolsheviks, the KKE, etc. I have enormous respect
for the Russians, who survived the Bolsheviks, restored their Orthodox
Christianity and national identity. The Greeks have done the opposite
with the EU and surrendered national identity, ironically under a SYRIZA
government who are successors of the Bolsheviks. They are as culturally Greek
as Jehovah’s witnesses have any relation to Orthodox Christianity. A
major reason in my mind why Greece in its current state could never play the
elder father to the Russians. The Russians would never take them
seriously, especially with a government of Orthodox apostates and declared
Atheists totally beholden to the EU as a protectorate. Not exactly as
basis for respect that Ioannis Metaxas considered so important in international
relations.
Currently in Istanbul, there are
at least 5 to 10 times more Armenians than Greeks as well as an enormous number
of Armenian migrants. The current Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan
suffers Alzheimer disease and is incapacitated. In his place was
appointed a caretaker Aram Ateşyan. The Armenian Synod decided to retire
the Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan on October 26, 2016 and to organize an
election for a new patriarch, which the Turkish State under Erdogan has been
blocking. Erdogan prefers Ateşyan, with whom he has extremely good
relations and does not want him to leave.In essence, the Millet system
remains in part and Erdogan acts accordingly.
Diran Majarian October 1, 2018
Towards the end of the 20th century, Greeks had forgotten their fellow compatriots,the Armenians,with whom they have lived in peace for centuries under the Ecumenical Roman-Ottoman Empire and embraced for a while mountainers Kurds, mostly responsible for the Armenian genocide of 1915.They switched to the Kurds with whom they had no notable friendship in the past, in favor of a clumsy anti-Turk foreign policy and finally betrayed them by turning over to the Turkish authorities, their leader, Ocalan. Miserable Greek State! Dimitri Kitsikis
ΑπάντησηΔιαγραφήΠολύ ωραίο το άρθρο, εξαιρετικές οι πληροφορίες."I will never understand why the Greeks love so much the Bolsheviks, the KKE, etc.". Δυστυχώς για εμάς έτσι μας μάθανε κύριε Ντιράν.Πάντως η γυναίκα μου η Αρμένισσα δε συμπαθησε ποτέ ούτε τους Ρώσους ούτε τον κομμουνισμό.
ΑπάντησηΔιαγραφήCommunism in general tends to attract mainly the youth of Greece, primarily because its blood is "boiling" with a revolutionary desire and secondarily due to Greek self-assessment as part of the third world. These two reasons along with a wider need for the youngsters to seek peers their age of similar political views, desires and interests, makes the Communist Youth the most organised and attractive political community of young people in today's Greece. Furthermore, this movement has solidified a constant and continuous political representation of itself, even if nominal in character, through KKE (Kommounistiko Komma Ellados, Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδος) inside the Greek Parliament. Moreover, it has branded itself as a form of opposition to the Greek bourgeois state and class, even if most KKE youngsters follow Western-imposed bourgeois norms and habits.
ΔιαγραφήThis exaplains, at least in a nutshell, the main reasons why Communism as both a communal and revolutionary "flame" attracts large numbers of young Greek people into its ranks.
The arguments may be extended a bit to include a feeling of "Unabhängigkeitskampf", i.e. a fight for National Sovereignty, Greece's pastural and rural background as well as socio-political remnants of the Greek Civil War 70 years ago. The latter tend to manifest themselves as either Communist or Leftist burst of "revenge", as in the case of PASOK and Syriza.
As far as spiritual mentorship and religious guidance are concerned, modern-day Russians, if genuinely interested in pursuing an ascetic path, they could very easily find their fair share of high-level deeply sophisticated spirituality inside the various monasteries of Mount-Athos, not on the streets of Athens. Inside a modern Western capitalist socio-economic framework, such as the modern Greek one, it is very very difficult, almost impossible to achieve a society fully comprised of monks, priests and righteous individuals. Modern-Greece was created as a distorted negative photographic image of Ancient Greece and her prestigious, superior level of both material and spiritual civilization. It was never meant for this small Western-dependent state to accomplish such a tremendous and magnificent task as the resurrection of the Byzantine Empire. It could never be materialized, despite requiring a huge amount of human and material resources for it.
As long as the Western world exists and prevails, it is almost impossible for the central, core power axis of the Intermediate Region to be reconstructed and revived. In my opinion, Turkey and Russia are two cases much more difficult to manage than the small yet ethno-culturally compact (at least for the time being...), Greek state. Russia has a monolithic oil-and-gas economy, hosts too many ethnic and religious minorities inside her vast territories and is solely dependant on the hyper-centralized one-man power of Vladimir Putin, for its survival. Had it not been for its military might, of very crucial by the way nature, and the vitally important political figure of Vladimir Putin, Russia would have already collapsed like a huge effigy made of glass with fragile foundations, as it almost did during Yeltsin's era. Some say it is just a matter of time before we see Russia's dismantlement with the only "true" Russian remnant, being a Muscovan state roughly covering the area of the respective old Russian duchy in the Middle Ages as Siberia would forge her own Eurasian path, with the Caucasus under a wider American hegemonic wing.
ΔιαγραφήTurkey is roughly the same case. On one hand the rich and vibrant former Greek asia minor coast, with Smyrna-Izmir and Constantiniple as her economic and cultural powerhouses. On the other hand, the vast, arid Anatolian plateau, stretching from Ankara to Erzurum and Diryarbakir, inhabited by many linguistically diverse ethnic groups (Zazas, Kurds, Yöruks, Laz people, Arabs, Turkmen, etc) very backward, undeveloped and poor. The image of Turkey reminds me of a snail, Izmir and Istanbul are doomed to carry this heaviest of burdens on their backs, dragging the whole of Asia Minor and Turkish Kurdistan like a hamal would drag a sack of rocks. They resemble a rich and progressive man, carrying his whole ancestral family on a horse wagon.
As I said, Greece is much more manageble and compact as a country, not in the need to feed tens of millions of poor rural uneducated populace, but lacks national unity, vision, leadership, an educated and independent political and economic bourgeois class, the so-called "elites", and essentially, hope. A totalitarian state or at least one cenralized around an authority figure, say around Panos Kammenos for instance, would successfully revive the Greek state and transform it into a competent and vibrant regional power, very quickly. Greece does not lack the foundations, neither the resources, neither human capital nor the "brains" for such an accomplishment. It merely lacks a strong, righteous, patriotic and determined political will.