Osmanlı Devleti’nde Manastırbend Cezasının Tatbikinde Surp Nişan Ve Anna Manastırları Örnekleri

Abstract

The Christian rayah, who peacefully lived together with Muslim subjects in the Ottoman Empire for centuries, were organized within a structure called the Ottoman Millet (Nation) system managed by the patriarchs. Non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire had to follow their own spiritual leaders and obey the rules of their own millet in many legal areas including marriage, divorce, alimony, custody, wills, deceased estates, powers of attorney, and the establishment of foundations in non-Muslim subjects in the Ottoman Empire. The patriarchs, the highest ranking religious leaders among the clergy, could punish those from their own millet if they perpetrated a crime, however, the punishment could only be administered after approval by the padishah. Monastic confinement was one mode of punishment. This penalty was a kind of banishment and would sometimes include imprisonment in a tower. Built in Sivas in the 11th Century, the Monastery of Sourb Nshan was an important religious building which played host to the Sivas archbishopric of the Armenian Patriarch for hundreds of years. The Armenian Patriarch used this central building, along with the Anna Monastery of Tokat, for the monastic confinement of offenders from among the clergy. Based on documentary evidence, this study focuses on these two monasteries to shed light on monastic confinement, which was a kind of religious banishment in the Ottoman’s outer “tasra” regions, and attempts to explore the religious and social diversity witnessed in the Sivas Eyalet which was home to a significant Armenian population in the 19th Century. Keywords: Ottoman Empire, Non-Muslims, Monastic Confinement, Sourb Nshan Monastery of Sivas, Anna Monastery of Tokat.