History Of The Eastern Orthodox Church Under The Ottoman Empire
In AD 1453, the city of Constantinople, the capital and last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire.
By this time Egypt had been under Muslim control for some seven centuries. Jerusalem had been conquered by the Umayyad Muslims in 638, won back by Rome in 1099 under the First Crusade and then finally reconquered by the Ottoman Muslims in 1517.
Orthodoxy however was very strong in Russia which had recently acquired an autocephalous status; and thus Moscow called itself the Third Rome, as the cultural heir of Constantinople.
Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Church acquired power as an autonomous millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the entire "Greek Orthodox nation" (Ottoman administrative unit), which encompassed all the Eastern Orthodox subjects of the Empire.
The Janissary army corps consisted of young men who were brought to Constantinople as child-slaves (and were often from Christian households) who were converted, trained and later employed by the Sultan (the devshirme system).
Read more about History Of The Eastern Orthodox Church Under The Ottoman Empire: Isolation From The West, Religious Rights Under The Ottoman Empire, Corruption, Devshirmeh, Fall of The Ottoman Empire in The East, Persecution By The Young Turks, See Also
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