Radu Dipratu: The ʿarżuḥāls of Sylvester, Patriarch of Antioch

Radu Dipratu, "The ʿarżuḥāls of Sylvester, Patriarch of Antioch: Negotiating church affairs with the sublime porte in the first half of the 18th Century."

 

Abstract

While persecutions endured by non-Muslims under the “Turkish yoke” still represent a common trope both in the public perception and in certain academic circles in Orthodox-majority countries today, recent scholarly work has offered more nuanced approaches to the history of the Orthodox Churches under Ottoman rule. Making use of the rich information provided by Ottoman archival sources, this paper examines several unpublished documents from the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, representing petitions (ʿarżuḥāl ) submitted by Sylvester, the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch (1724–1766). It is no surprise that an important theme of these petitions concerned the conflict between the Orthodox and Catholic factions in Greater Syria, the latter being recently energised by the election of a separate patriarch in 1724, in the person of Cyril VI, and the establishment of an independent Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate. While previous studies have highlighted the crucial help that Sylvester received from the other Orthodox Patriarchs in Istanbul and Jerusalem in having his seat recognised by Ottoman authorities, the ʿarżuḥāls examined in this paper showcase Sylvester’s own agency in negotiating Church affairs with the Porte. Either demanding imperial commands to reinforce his election as patriarch or to prevent Orthodox Christians from converting to Catholicism and imprisoning his rivals, Sylvester made full use of his position in the Ottoman administrative apparatus by using state-sanctioned practices to solve inter-confessional struggles. The paper argues that the Ottoman Empire provided a legal and administrative framework in which Orthodox Churches were not merely compelled to function under duress, but one which they found advantageous and from which they sought legitimisation for their own factional struggles.

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