ized according to their various "nations." By millet (nation) the Turk means simply religion. This use of this word alone shows their whole attitude. The subject-nations then were (and are): first, and by far the largest, the Roman nation (rum millet). And the Roman nation (strange survival of the name of the dead Empire) is nothing else than the Orthodox Church, under the Patriarch of Constantinople. Every Orthodox Rayah in Turkey, no m.atter of what descent, belongs to the Roman nation. Next in size come the Armenian nation (ermeni millet), who are the Monophysite (Gregorian) Armenians and the Armenian Catholic nation (ermeni katulik millet), that is the Uniates. The other Monophysites (Jacobites, Copts, and a few Abyssinians) are represented by the Armenian Monophysite Patriarch of Constantinople, all other Uniates (katulik) by the Armenian Catholic Patriarch. Then comes the Jewish nation (yahudi millet), nearly all Sephardim from Spain,[1] and lastly the Latin nation (latin millet). Catholics of the Latin rite.[2] The few native Protestants (mostly converted Armenians and a very few Syrians) are not a millet. The Porte will not allow them to be one, and they form a small irregular organization under the Minister of Police.[3] In this way, then, all the Rayahs were classified and arranged in groups. Since each "nation" is a religious body, it is natural that, when the Porte looked for responsible heads and representatives of the nations under it, it should have fixed on their ecclesiastical superiors. This quite agrees with the view of the Moslems, who always confuse civil and spiritual authority; and indeed there was no one else to
- ↑ Under the Chacham bashi (Chief Rabbi).
- ↑ The Turk uses the word katulik for Uniates and latin for Latin Catholics.
- ↑ The difficulty in organizing these Protestants is that they have no hierarchy and so the Porte does not know how to arrange them.
proclaimed at the gates of the city (cf. Job v. 4, Is. xxix. 21, Prov. xxii. 22), also the strength of a city was in its high strong gates. The metaphor of keys for authority is the same idea. The "Holy and True one" has the key of David "to open and no one shall shut, to shut and no one shall open" (Apoc. iii. 7), and our Lord gives St. Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Mt. xvi. 19), that is, supreme authority in his Church. The High Gate (al-Bāb al-‘āli) then in Arabic means simply the Supreme Government, and the Turks have taken this expression, like almost every idea they have, from the Arabs.
