| Total population |
|---|
| 22,000[1] |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Istanbul, Adıyaman, Mardin, Diyarbakır, Elâzığ, Şırnak |
| Languages |
|
Turkish and/or Arabic. Minority speaks the Turoyo dialect of Neo-Aramaic as a first language. |
| Religion |
|
Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, Chaldean Catholic, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East |
| Related ethnic groups |
Assyrians in Turkey (Turkish: Süryaniler) were once a large ethnic minority in the Ottoman Empire, but following the Syriac Genocide, many were murdered or emigrated. Now, they live in small numbers in eastern Turkey and Istanbul.
Contents |
The Ottoman Empire had an elaborate system of administering the non-Muslim "People of the Book." That is, they made allowances for accepted monotheists with a scriptural tradition and distinguished them from people they defined as pagans. (Buddhists and Hindus as well as some African groups were the ones with which they came in contact.) As People of the Book (or dhimmi), Jews, Christians and Mandaeans (in some cases Zoroastrians) received second-class treatment but were tolerated.
In the Ottoman Empire, this religious status became systematized as the "millet" administrative pattern. Each religious minority answered to the government through its chief religious representative. The Christians that the Ottomans conquered gradually but definitively with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 were already divided into many ethnic groups and denominations, usually organized into a hierarchy of bishops headed by a patriarch.
The Syriac Orthodox under the Ottomans started out under the Armenian patriarchate but petitioned the Sublime Porte for separate status, mainly as western contacts allowed them a voice of their own. Thus the Syriac Orthodox received recognition as a separate community "millet" as did the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. The last was the most remote of the Churches in distance from the Porte (in Istanbul).
The interest of Tsarist Russia and the western powers in the fate of the Christians of the Middle East, especially in the Maronites of Lebanon, gradually brought an elevation in culture during the 19th century, while at the same time causing schisms in denominational affiliation. The economic, educational and professional advancement of the Syriacs aroused the envy of their Muslim neighbors, especially the Kurds. Although not fanatically inclined as some Muslims, the Kurds have used their Islamic status to justify the attack on Syriacs in Tur Abdin, in Iran, in Iraq and in Turkey.
Those who had converted to Protestantism did not want to pay an annual tribute to the older churches through local bishops who then passed some of it up to the Patriarch who then passed some of it to the Porte in the form of taxes. They wanted to deal directly with the Porte, across ethnic lines (even if through a Muslim administrator), in order to have their own voice and not be subjected to the rule of the Patriarchal system. This general Protestant charter was granted in 1850.[2])
Turkish nationalists in the Young Turk (or C.U.P.) movement, in control of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, began their systematic elimination of Christian minorities, beginning with the deportation of Greeks from eastern Thrace in January 1914.
In 1915, Assyrians/Syriacs, like Armenians and Greeks, were massacred by the Turks in the cities and villages of the Ottoman Empire; mainly the Hakkari region in southeastern Anatolia and the Urmia region in northwestern Iran. To justify its massacres, Turkey wrongly accused Christians of having thrown themselves under the protection of the British, who had forces in the field in Iraq and Syria. Such propaganda, publicized in Istanbul newspapers as confirmation of Christian treachery, contributed to the butchery. Thousands fled into exile. By the middle of 1915 the deportations and killings were in full swing.
At the turn of the century and at the post-WWI international conferences where the future map of Western Asia ("Near East") was redrawn among European powers while various "national committees" lobbyed each in favour of one's own "homeland", several Assyrian/Syriac committees were formed to foster the idea of a "Mesopotamian" state, later named "Beth Nahrain", whose claimed territory was included in the revendications of several other similar committees.
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