To Wayne Hart:

The Ottoman Turks were not "brutal and barbaric" in their relations with the
Orthodox Church nor did they "supress" it.    The Orthodox Church flourished
for 400 years under the Ottoman administration of places like Greece,
Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria.  Ethnic minorities (non-Moslems) were allowed to
keep speaking their languages and preserving their cultures,  unlike the
British Empire where the occupied peoples had to learn English and often had
to give up their traditions.(e.g., India).

Many Ottoman subjects of the Orthodox faith served in the Court (saray),
including
many, many famous musicians, ambassadors, and even the Patriach of the Church
was recognized as an official of the state.

In modern Turkey, per the Treaty of Lausanne and the population exchanges of
the 1920s, the Orthodox Patriach still is recognized as an official of the
state.  The Orthodox Church has been allowed to keep its historic center in
Fener on the Golden Horn.   The Turkish Prime Minister and other government
officials look to the the Orthodox Patriach as the head of the church and  he
is empowered to make important decisions that affect his religious community.

I learned these facts from both my Fulbright experience as a student at the
State Conservatory of Music in Istanbul, as well as from my dissertation
research on minorities in Ottoman Turkey and their musical styles, and
finally, from my own family.   The Ottoman Empire gave my Jewish ancestors
refuge from Spain, 500 years ago,  when Ferdinand and Isabella issued an
expulsion edict to non-Christian minorities. We left our home in Andalusia --
we still have the large iron key to that house, after all these years and we
kept speaking Spanish in the family. We lived well in Turkey, were treated
well, and even my great grandmother was a Lady of the Court during the period
of Abdul Hamid II.  My grandparents were both fluent in Greek and my
grandmother had Greek neighbors and servants in Balat, a neighborhood on the
Golden Horn.

It's sad that modern nationalism has given rise to a kind revisionist history
about
the Ottomans.   As the Middle East goes, they were very efficient
administrators and most importantly, they allowed all the minorities to keep
their cultures, their languages, and their religions.  How many other empires
can make that claim?

Many Greek churches still survive in Turkey and they are under the control of
the Patriachate.  On the islands in the Marmara Sea where my family had it's
summer houses, there were several Greek monasteries (as late as the 1980s when
I was a student in Turkey).

And yes, Ataturk did get rid of the fez -- he outlawed it in the 1920s as part
of  his modernization of Turkey which also included his excuting a number of
Moslem mullahs because he felt their brand of Islam was too backward and their
power base
was a threat to a modern, secular government.

Yiassou!

pamela sezgin