Ultramontane Efforts in the Ottoman Empire during the 1860s and 1870s

Abstract

The attempts of Pope Pius IX to restrict the ecclesiastical rights of the Armenian Catholics with his bull Reversurus (1867) led to the Armenian schism in 1871. A factor which was decisive for the development of the relationship between the Armenian Catholic Church and the Ottoman empire, under whose rule the Church existed, was the influence of other powers. This article analyses the background of this relationship and its significance for the Armenian schism. For this purpose, first, the ecclesiastical rights of the Armenian Catholic Church during the period before the publication of Reversurus and their relation to the internal policy of the Ottoman empire are outlined. Second, the influence of the domestic and foreign policy of the Ottoman state on its relationship with its Armenian Catholic subjects is elucidated. In this way, it is shown that the historical background of the Armenian Catholic Church and the internal political circumstances of the Ottoman empire were intertwined and shaped the relationship between the Armenian Catholics and the Ottoman state. Despite this, relations between the Ottoman empire, the Holy See and other European empires came to exercise a predominant influence, leading by the end of the 1870s to the Armenian Catholic Church's enforced acquiescence in ecclesiastical change.