Ankara : The Department of History, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, 2011.Thesis (Ph. D.) -- Bilkent University, 2011.Includes bibliographical references leaves 259-280.In the eighteenth century, the Rum Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul
underwent a series of changes that were the result of eighteenth-century economic
and social developments in Ottoman society. This study investigates the changing
fortunes of the Patriarchate in the eighteenth century through a contextualization of
these events in their Ottoman background. Despite the conclusions of previous
historiography, the patriarch appears as more than a mere mültezim or a milletbaşı /
ethnarch, functioning instead more as a religious leader of the Ottoman Orthodox
community who acted according to the Ottoman principles of nizam [order] and the
safety of the mal-ı miri. These two principles were an important part of the discourse
of negotiations between the Patriarchate and the Porte in the eighteenth century, and
were used efficiently by both sides. Many internal and external actors were involved in the events, including archons, Catholics, Protestants, the esnaf, and merchants
both Muslim and non-Muslim. A case study of the mid-eighteenth-century Patriarch
Kyrillos V Karakallos demonstrates how one patriarch effectively struggled to
consolidate his authority vis-à-vis his opponents. Following the patriarchal term of
Karakallos, the system of gerondismos was established, as a result of which the
Patriarchate had come, by 1763, to be represented before the Porte as a collective
identity. Overall, far from being a static entity, the Patriarchate appears to have been
an active subject in the urban setting of the imperial city, engaged in a relationship
with the financial and social networks of Ottoman society.Tellan, Elif BayraktarPh.D
