Catholic Missionary Activity in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire from the Perspectives of State and Convert

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Catholic Church efforts to convert Christians of the Ottoman Empire accelerated in the early seventeenth century after the establishment of the "Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith" ( Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide ) in 1622, and in the remainder of the century missionaries would be particularly successful in winning converts among Ottoman Armenians. This success gradually led to intra-Armenian conflict between Apostolic Armenians and those with Catholic sympathies. This article argues that the topic of Apostolic/Catholic Armenian confessional conflicts is ripe ground for research that builds connections between Ottoman Turkish archival documentation and Armenian narratives sources, many of which remain unpublished. While most previous research has examined the topic from European, Ottoman, or Armenian perspectives, here we present images of Catholic-Apostolic conflict using both Ottoman archival sources and the unpublished Armenian manuscript of an Armenian convert, showing the potential for further integrated studies on the spread of Catholicism among Ottoman Armenians of the early modern period.