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Topic ClosedThe orthodox Christians should be thankfull to the Ottomans

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Direct Link To This Post Topic: The orthodox Christians should be thankfull to the Ottomans
    Posted: 02-Feb-2005 at 10:11
And some of those occupied people (even if after centuries it tends to be more of a blend) were against the independence movements, like the curious case of the greek phanariotes in Constantinople (Istanbul). 
An nescite quantilla sapientia mundus regatur?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2005 at 14:04
Originally posted by Bosnjo

The first crusade was not against the Muslims, it wasagainst the Bogomils because they were a threat to the Pope, they spread too strong in W-Europe, but the crusaders defeated and killed them all, only on the Balkan Survived some.


The Bogomil religion was nearer to Islam then other Christians for example: T


hey were against the Cross, they saw in the cross a torture instrument, not more.


Cathars also believed that Jesus was not God's Son, only a Prophete.


They also believed that after Jesus would the last Prophet appear, and as the turks arrived with Mohamed, they saw in him this Prophet.




It wouldn't go that far to say that Bogomils or any other of the dualist sects were nearer to Islam than to Christianity from where they sprang from, but there is some truth about this. Islamic faith was certainly influenced by the two other earlier major monotheistic religions in the Middle East, Judaism and Christianity, in fact so far, that when it first appeared it was believed by many to be a Christian sect, just as a few hundred years before Christianity was regarded a Jewish sect.
These three religions are all variations of the great monotheistic "revolution" that took place in the Middle East over a period of a thousand years and their differences are not so much found in their fundamental beliefs but in the cultural expression of it.
Furthermore, the whole region was a vast playground for all sorts of religious movements (Manichaens, Nestorians,Paulicians and so on),which varied in sometimes only very minor points,and who all fought but also influenced each other over centuries.
Therefore, that Christian sects recognised significant elements of their belief in other religions, as in Islam, or vice versa is not terribly astonishing.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2005 at 16:47

Originally posted by Bosnjo

Getting a Yanissary, was not so bad, this Christian farmer sons  got  an opportunity to make career.

You can't sugar coat the fact. It is still stealing your son, and forcefully converting him,(in some minds that is a huge sin), and TAKING him away from your family to live and serve in an army your might be fighting against.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2005 at 17:59
There is a theory that the Islam itself is a reflection of the bogomils movemnat. Because of its theories.

Bulgaria at those days was more on north and not so south, and deffinitly not so west as it is today. So in that time, it was Macedonia. The bogomils were not under pressure and hunted just by Tzar Samuil, who is belived to be one of them.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2005 at 19:01

Originally posted by Christscrusader

You can't sugar coat the fact. It is still stealing your son, and forcefully converting him,(in some minds that is a huge sin), and TAKING him away from your family to live and serve in an army your might be fighting against.

To begin with, it usually wouldn't be an army you would fight against but rather fight along with. Children were taken from christian families but from those in Ottoman lands. You'd only fight your son if you were involved in some rebellion or such.

Secondly, it wasn't such a doom or demise for them. Janissaries became very important, and had a highly valoured status quo in ottoman society. One could move on in life through the Janissaries. Often families would gladly give their brightest son to the Janissaries. They knew he had a chance to progress in that way.

And to prove it, what once was a strictly christian child levy rapidly became accessible to muslim children through bribes. Muslim fathers and families wanted their sons to be in the Janissaries too. Later on, as you know, the Janissaries (who were supposed to serve only the sultan and to have no contact with the mundane world, such as to have outside businesses, wives, etc.) became a society within the society. Powerful as they were, they served as the spokesmen of the less favored and, more frequently, of their own personal interests, moving and removing sultans at their will.

Finally they were abolished in the XIX century, if I'm not mistaken, and many were killed. But the majority was simply absorbed by the society.

 

 



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Feb-2005 at 15:36
The Jannisary system was never that bad. Many ordinary people wanted their children to be taken as Janissaries as was pointed out. If they didn't want to, there were many nearby Muslims who wanted their children to be taken as well, so they would give them to the Christians (perhaps a slight fee either way, depending who was more desperate) who would pretend it was their own child when the collectors came.

Oops, Infidel seems to have pointed all that out.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 03:45

I write again:

-In 40 families,one boy was being taken.

-If a family had only one male child,the child wasn't being taken.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 05:03

Interesting discussion and some good points made by all involved. I do wish though to point out that I strongly disagree with Bonsjo on his basic premise that "Balkan - orthodox - christians should be thankfull to the ottomans". I find it rather distastefull to be told that I should be "thankfull" for 400 years of foreign occupation and rule (be it benevolent or utterly arbitrary and cruel, doesn't really matter) and the social, economical and cultural degeneration that ensued to our cultures (of course the Ottoman culture thrived, at least for two centuries after the conquest of Byzantium, but it wasn't our culture, was it?).

But there are some points that are not fully wrong. Like:

- The jannisary system. It sounds horrible, to be deprived of your kid so it can serve the Sultan, but in reality most christian families didn't mind to have their children taken, especially the poorer ones (imagine a 6 or 8 or 10 children family trying to live with the standards of the time... awful...). Infidel is right on that. A janissary did in many occassions keep contact with his family, and aid them survive (in times when survival was not a granted) and in few occassions, prosper as well. Janissaries hold high social status within the empire and they were highly influental as a social class. Lots of them remembered their heritage and remained crypto-christians throughout their lives.

- The Ottomans were conquerors, we should not forget that. No conqueror is "good" and no conquest is "a good thing", irregardles of who the conqueror and who the conquered is. The ottoman rule was not benevolent at all, although they did (barely...) tolerate with other religions. Of course, only after turning every major church into a mosque. And there is another explaination for the "tolerance" aspect. The "heathen" under ottoman rule were subject - additionally to the other taxes and obligations - to the "head tax", meaning 10% of whatever you made went into the imperial coffins. That tax was heathen-only, meaning if they turned all christians or jews into muslims, they'd lose that tax. Also, the "heathens" were valuable for the ottomans since that is where they recruited the Jannisaries and also the administrative class (most of the ottoman administration was run by Greeks in the whole span of their empire - the "fanariotes" are excactly that elite class of Greeks in ottoman service). BTW Infidel, the fanariotes (due to their status) have in a few occassions acted in favor of the ottomans, but one should not forget that the "Filiki eteria", the secret organization that organized and started the great revolution of 1821 that gave us our freedom back, was conceived, manned and financed by fanariotes.

- The population under ottoman control did rebel a lot. From 1702 to 1821, the Greeks rebelled more than 20 times (those are the "major" revolts. Minor revolts was everyday business). Crete was practically under constant rebellion from the mid 18th century to 1895 (when the "great powers" took things in their hands).

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 06:32

Judging past by today's norms?

it's comical when i see that some people judge the janissary system of 15.,16.centuries with today's mentality...it is like cursing the Roman Civilisation due to slavery..something today may seem anormal to us now but centuries ago it was what you would like to do.

Let me tell you guys not long ago ,100 years ago,mass demonstrations took place to protest the decision for women to enter the universities in the western countries.Decades ago,the black people were not even allowed to use the frontier seats in a bus in The U.S..Today it sounds incredible to us but it did take place and perceived as normal...

The Greeks supported and begged for  the Ottoman re-take over of Pelopennes from the Catholic Venetians when the Ottoman Empire seeked for a second-leg after Karlowitch at the beginning of 1700s.Simple as that.This example alone proves the thread started by bosnjo.

The Ottoman Empire,with its favours and mistakes,did indeed help both the Orthodox and The Protestant in many cases for centuries.Ignoring this but focusing only rebellions is just what we call in social psychology: Overconfidence Bias



Edited by TheDiplomat
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 07:42
Originally posted by TheDiplomat

The Greeks supported and begged for  the Ottoman re-take over of Pelopennes from the Catholic Venetians when the Ottoman Empire seeked for a second-leg after Karlowitch at the beginning of 1700s.Simple as that.This example alone proves the thread started by bosnjo.

 

This is highly incorrect, and I'd love to see your (non-Turkish) sources about such a dubious claim. Some of the locals (and they were not only Greeks, you know, many Turks, and a few Vlachs and Albanian also lived in Peloponese at the time) helped the Venetians, some the Ottomans, but most remained very neutral and frankly indifferent: it's just an exchange of conquerors, little difference for the conquered. But it seems the Venetian rule was not as bad as the ottoman rule:

Cretans until the day the regained their freedom from the ottomans, remembered the occupation of Crete by the Venetians (with all it's shortcomings and the occasional acts of brutality) as a time of prosperity, everyday freedom, religious tolerance and cultural progress. And of course saw their life under the ottomans as something completely different and definitely way, way worst.

A major factor in the reality that Crete was the most rebellious land under ottoman rule, was that the Cretans previously lived under the Venetians, from which the ottomans snatched Crete 200 years after the fall of Constantinople.

And, a little question to you and Bosnjo: Crete and 1/3 of the Aegean islands, remained under Latin rule (mostly Venetian, but not only) for many years. Crete belonged to Venice for a full 400 years, for instance.

How come the Catholics didn't bring in the inquisition and didn't turn a single Cretan into catholic? On the contrary, the Venetians that survived the ottoman conquest and remained, became orthodox?

And in 400 years too? I think the ottomans didn't rule Crete so they couldn't protect us from the baaaad catholics

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 10:03

I think that saying that Ottomans turned every church into a mosque is an overstatement. The religious communities thrived on and even weren't separated from each other. In many cities what was supposed to be a christian neighborhood had christians and muslims living in it; what was a muslim neighborhood the same thing. Social mobility and intermarriage was common.

Of course that being an islamic based state, the muslims would have more previledges, a priori, than the others (I don't recall us giving many previledges to muslims when we conquered Ceuta in Morocco! - It's a natural thing). But even that was changing with later reforms, where it was intended to put every ottoman subject equal to the eyes of the Sultan, their sovereign.

I mean, I'm not saying that living during the ottoman ages was a bed of roses. It was a medieval time. Deaths, persecutions, famine and rebelions were part of the menu. What I'm saying is that after the long and slow decline of the Empire, many of its heritage has been demonized, with practical concerns.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 11:32
Originally posted by Aristoteles

Originally posted by TheDiplomat

The Greeks supported and begged for  the Ottoman re-take over of Pelopennes from the Catholic Venetians when the Ottoman Empire seeked for a second-leg after Karlowitch at the beginning of 1700s.Simple as that.This example alone proves the thread started by bosnjo.

 

This is highly incorrect, and I'd love to see your (non-Turkish) sources about such a dubious claim. Some of the locals (and they were not only Greeks, you know, many Turks, and a few Vlachs and Albanian also lived in Peloponese at the time) helped the Venetians, some the Ottomans, but most remained very neutral and frankly indifferent: it's just an exchange of conquerors, little difference for the conquered. But it seems the Venetian rule was not as bad as the ottoman rule:

Cretans until the day the regained their freedom from the ottomans, remembered the occupation of Crete by the Venetians (with all it's shortcomings and the occasional acts of brutality) as a time of prosperity, everyday freedom, religious tolerance and cultural progress. And of course saw their life under the ottomans as something completely different and definitely way, way worst.

A major factor in the reality that Crete was the most rebellious land under ottoman rule, was that the Cretans previously lived under the Venetians, from which the ottomans snatched Crete 200 years after the fall of Constantinople.

And, a little question to you and Bosnjo: Crete and 1/3 of the Aegean islands, remained under Latin rule (mostly Venetian, but not only) for many years. Crete belonged to Venice for a full 400 years, for instance.

How come the Catholics didn't bring in the inquisition and didn't turn a single Cretan into catholic? On the contrary, the Venetians that survived the ottoman conquest and remained, became orthodox?

And in 400 years too? I think the ottomans didn't rule Crete so they couldn't protect us from the baaaad catholics

Inccorrect is to judge past with today's norms.!

The Greek Beys of Fener,and ottoman greeks in bureacracy used their power to persuade the ottoman empire to declare war on the venetians.

Dont be too sure that no any ''single'' cretan didnt convert.history doesnt give such complete info.

Please!dont put words in my mouth....Niether bojno nor me nor anyother claims to depict a catholic,an orthodox or a protestant bad.we all are people created by God.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 11:35
Originally posted by Infidel

 

Of course that being an islamic based state, the muslims would have more previledges, a priori, than the others (I don't recall us giving many previledges to muslims when we conquered Ceuta in Morocco! - It's a natural thing).

Hear ,Hear!



Edited by TheDiplomat
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Feb-2005 at 15:59
I don't think this map is good enough, because it shows the European part of Constantinople, and the European part of modern Turkey as 100% Orthodox Christian, which is obviously not true.
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