page_title: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire / Background
caption_attribution_description: Painting of an Armenian in the Ottoman Empire, 1779.
context_page_description: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire mostly belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. They were part of the Armenian millet until the Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century equalized all Ottoman citizens before the law.
context_section_description: The Ottomans introduced a number of unique approaches to governing into the traditions of Islam. Islamic culture did not separate religious and secular matters. At first, the Sultan was the highest power in the land and had control over almost everything. However, a state organization began to take a more definite shape in the first half of the sixteenth century under Suleyman I, also known as "Lawgiver." The Ottomans visualized two separate "establishments" to share state power, one responsible for governing a nation's citizens and the other its military. "The Ottomans left civic control to the civic institutions. Historians often label the Ottoman sociopolitical construct the "Ottoman System. Noteworthy, however, the term "Ottoman System" conveys a sense of structural rigidity that probably was nonexistent throughout the Ottoman period.
  The Armenian population's integration was partly due to the nonexistent structural rigidity throughout the initial period. Armenian people, related to the issues of their own internal affairs were administered by the civil administration. Townspeople, villagers and farmers formed a class called the reaya, including Armenian reaya. Civil and judicial administration was carried out under a separate parallel system of small municipal or rural units called kazas. The civil system was considered a check on the military system since beys, who represented executive authority on reaya, could not carry out punishment without a sentence from the religious leader of the person. Also, Sultan was beyond the mentioned control. Ecumenical Patriarchate was the leader of the Armenian People. This whole structure was named Armenian case Armenian Millet.
  During the Byzantine period, the Armenian Church was not allowed to operate in Constantinople, because the Greek Orthodox Church regarded the Armenian Church as heretical. With the establishment of Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Armenians became religious leaders, and bureaucrats under the Ottoman Empire became more influential than just their own community. The idea that two separate "establishments" shared state power gave people a chance to occupy important positions, administrative, the religious-legal, and the social-economic.
  Armenians occupied important posts within the Ottoman Empire, Artin Dadyan Pasha, who served as minister of foreign affairs from 1876 to 1901, is one of many examples of Armenian citizens who played a fundamental role in the sociopolitical sphere of the Ottoman Empire.
caption: An "Armenian bey", the executive authority on Armenian reaya. The bey was part of civil administration.
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