The Patriarchal Crisis of 1910 and Constitutional Logic: Ottoman Greeks' Dual Role in the Second Constitutional Politics

From January to March 1910, the Ottoman Greeks experienced severe internal strife and a major crisis due to circumstances surrounding elections for the Holy Synod. An analysis of this crisis reveals some important aspects of the political structure of Ottoman Greek society. The Greeks were split into two camps with Patriarch Joachim III, lay councilors, the Hellenic legation, and the urban masses on one side and the metropolitans, intellectuals, and "middle class" on the other. The clerics remained influential even after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Moreover, there were several points of conflict within the Greek Orthodox community-the Joachimist/anti-Joachimist split, the lay/clerical controversy, the existence of two national centers, and the relationship with the Bulgarians. Ottoman Greeks employed the logic of constitutionalism, the dominant legitimacy discourse after the Young Turk Revolution, in both intra- and inter-communal politics. Political maneuvering in the Second Constitutional Period and the Greeks' dual role therein must be re-examined with reference to the interaction of these complex political actors and arenas of conflict.