Turkic Christians

Last updated
Gravestone from Kirgistan (thirteenth/fourteenth century) with Syriac Christian inscriptions Gravestone from Kirgistan.jpg
Gravestone from Kirgistan (thirteenth/fourteenth century) with Syriac Christian inscriptions

The Christian Turkic peoples represent an intersection of Turkic and Christian cultural and historical dynamics, particularly within the context of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Historically, the most prominent group within this category were the Bulgars. Currently, The major Christian-Turkic peoples include the Chuvash of Chuvashia, and the Gagauz (Gökoğuz) of Moldova and Yakuts of the Sakha Republic. The vast majority of Chuvash and the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians. [1] [2]

Contents

The Bulgars were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centuries. [3] They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers believe that their ethnic roots can be traced to Central Asia. [4] The Bulgars converted to Christianity during the early medieval period, around the 10th century. Under Khan Boris I (reigned 852–889), they officially adopted Christianity in 865 and embraced Eastern Orthodoxy in 879. [5] Their Christian identity was shaped by a blend of Byzantine and local Eastern Christian traditions, which significantly influenced their cultural and political relations with neighboring states. [5]

Between the 9th and 14th centuries, the Church of the East, often referred to as the Nestorian Church, had a notable presence among Turkic peoples, including the Naimans, a prominent Turkic tribe. Between the 9th and 14th centuries, it represented the world's largest Christian denomination in terms of geographical extent, and in the Middle Ages was one of the three major Christian powerhouses of Eurasia alongside Latin Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy. [6] It established dioceses and communities stretching from the Mediterranean Sea and today's Iraq and Iran, to India (the Saint Thomas Syrian Christians of Kerala), the Mongol kingdoms and Turkic tribes in Central Asia, and China during the Tang dynasty (7th–9th centuries). This period marked a significant expansion of the Church's influence into Central Asia and beyond. [7] It even revived in Gaochang and expanded in Xinjiang in the Yuan dynasty period. [8] [9] [10] The rise of Islam in the region and the decline of Mongol power contributed to the persecution and eventual disappearance of the Church of the East from Central Asia. [11] [12]

Christian-Turkic peoples

Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Gagauzia Komrat - Katedra Swietego Jana Chrzciciela.jpg
Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Gagauzia

Currently, The major Christian-Turkic peoples include the Chuvash of Chuvashia, and the Gagauz (Gökoğuz) of Moldova and Yakuts of the Sakha Republic. The vast majority of Chuvash and the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians. [1] [13] [2] The traditional religion of the Chuvash of Russia, while containing many ancient Turkic concepts, also shares some elements with Zoroastrianism, Khazar Judaism, and Islam. Most Chuvash converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the latter half of the 19th century, [13] leading to the alignment of their festivals and rites with Orthodox Christian observances and the replacement of traditional practices with Christian ones. Despite this, a minority of Chuvash continue to practice their ancestral faith. [14]

Kryashens are a sub-group of the Volga Tatars, with the vast majority being Orthodox Christians. [15] The Nağaybäk, an indigenous Turkic people in Russia, are predominantly Christian, having been largely converted to Christianity during the 18th century. [16] Many Volga Tatars were Christianized by Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century, and continued to Christianized under subsequent Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy up to the mid-eighteenth century. [17]

Turkophone Christian groups

An inscription in Karamanli Turkish on the entrance of the former Greek Orthodox church of Agia Eleni in Sille, near Konya Sille Agia Eleni Inscription.jpg
An inscription in Karamanli Turkish on the entrance of the former Greek Orthodox church of Agia Eleni in Sille, near Konya

The Karamanlides (Greek : Καραμανλήδες, romanized: Karamanlídes; Turkish : Karamanlılar), also known as Karamanli Greeks [18] [19] [20] or simply Karamanlis, are a traditionally Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to the region of Karaman in Anatolia. Some scholars traditionally regard Karamanlides as Turkish-speaking Greeks, [18] [21] [22] though their exact ethnic origin is disputed; they could either be descendants of Byzantine Greeks who were linguistically Turkified, or of Christian Turkic soldiers who settled in the region after the Turkic conquests, or even both. [23] The Karamanlides were forced to leave Anatolia during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Today, a majority of the population live in Greece and have fully integrated into Greek society.

The Urums ( /ʊəˈruːm/ , /ʊˈruːm/ ; Greek : Ουρούμ, Urúm; Turkish and Crimean Tatar: Urum,IPA: [uˈɾum] ) are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths, with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity. [24]

Christian Turkic churches

Ahmet the Calligrapher a Christian saint Saint Ahmet the Calligrapher.jpg
Ahmet the Calligrapher a Christian saint

The Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (Turkish : Bağımsız Türk Ortodoks Patrikhanesi), also referred to as the Turkish Orthodox Church (Turkish : Türk Ortodoks Kilisesi), is an unrecognized autocephalous Eastern Orthodox organisation based in Turkey, descending from Turkish-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians. It was founded in Kayseri by Pavlos Karahisarithis, who became the patriarch and took the name of Papa Eftim I, in 1922. [25]

The start of the Patriarchate can be traced to the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). In 1922 a pro-Turkish Eastern Orthodox group, the General Congregation of the Anatolian Turkish Orthodox (Turkish : Umum Anadolu Türk Ortodoksları Cemaatleri), was set up with the support from the Orthodox bishop of Havza, as well as a number of other congregations [26] representing a genuine movement among the Turkish-speaking, Eastern Orthodox Christian population of Anatolia [25] who wished to remain both Eastern Orthodox and Turkish. [27] There were calls to establish a new Patriarchate with Turkish as the preferred language of Christian worship. [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkic languages</span> Language family of Eurasia

The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulgars</span> Turkic tribal confederation

The Bulgars were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centuries. They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers believe that their ethnic roots can be traced to Central Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkic peoples</span> Family of ethnic groups of Eurasia

The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rum (endonym)</span> Term referring to several things

Rūm, also romanized as Roum, is a derivative of Parthian (frwm) terms, ultimately derived from Greek Ῥωμαῖοι. Both terms are endonyms of the pre-Islamic inhabitants of Anatolia, the Middle East and the Balkans and date to when those regions were parts of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The Gagauz are a Turkic ethnic group native to southern Moldova and southwestern Ukraine (Budjak). Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians. The term Gagauz is also often used as a collective naming of Turkic people living in the Balkans, speaking the Gagauz language, a language separated from Balkan Gagauz Turkish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volga Bulgaria</span> 900s–1200s Bulgar state on the Volga River

Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state with large numbers of Bulgars, Finno-Ugrians, Varangians, and East Slavs. Its strategic position allowed it to create a local trade monopoly with Norse, Cumans, and Pannonian Avars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuvash people</span> Turkic people of Eastern Europe and Central Asia

The Chuvash people are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of the Ogurs, native to an area stretching from the Idel-Ural (Volga-Ural) region to Siberia.

Bulgar is an extinct Oghuric Turkic language spoken by the Bulgars.

The Onoghurs, Onoğurs, or Oğurs were a group of Turkic nomadic equestrians who flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between 5th and 7th century, and spoke an Oghuric language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulgarian Orthodox Church</span> Autocephalous jurisdiction of the Eastern Orthodox Church

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction based in Bulgaria. It is the first medieval recognised patriarchate outside the Pentarchy and the oldest Slavic Orthodox church, with some 6 million members in Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2 million members in a number of other European countries, Asia, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. It was recognized as autocephalous in 1945 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karamanlides</span> Greek Orthodox Turkish-speaking ethnic group

The Karamanlides, also known as Karamanli Greeks or simply Karamanlis, are a traditionally Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to the region of Karaman in Anatolia.

Karamanlis or Karamanli may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate</span> Christian Orthodox Church based in Turkey

The Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate, also referred to as the Turkish Orthodox Church, is an unrecognized autocephalous Eastern Orthodox organisation based in Turkey, descending from Turkish-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians. It was founded in Kayseri by Pavlos Karahisarithis, who became the patriarch and took the name of Papa Eftim I, in 1922.

The Urums are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths, with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Eastern Orthodox Church under the Ottoman Empire</span>

In AD 1453, the city of Constantinople, the capital and last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire. By this time Egypt had been under Muslim control for some eight centuries. Jerusalem had been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate Muslims in 638, won back by Rome in 1099 under the First Crusade and then reconquered by Saladin's forces during the siege of Jerusalem in 1187. Later in the seventh Crusade, it was briefly taken back by the Catholics once again. It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517. Orthodoxy, however, was very strong in Russia which had recently acquired an autocephalous status; and thus Moscow called itself the Third Rome, as the cultural heir of Constantinople. Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Church acquired power as an autonomous millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the entire "Greek Orthodox nation", which encompassed all the Eastern Orthodox subjects of the Empire.

Karaman is a town in south central Turkey, the provincial capital of Karaman Province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papa Eftim I</span> Patriarch of the Turkish Orthodox Church

Papa Eftim I, born Pavlos Karahisaridis, was a Karamanlı Turkish bishop, who was the first Turkish Orthodox Patriarch of the Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate, an unrecognised Orthodox Christian denomination that he founded. Eftim I had strong influences from Turkish nationalist ideology. He ruled as Patriarch from 1923 until 1962, when he resigned due to ill health. Keeping the title of honorary patriarch, he ordained his younger son as patriarch assuming the name Papa Eftim II.

The Cappadocian Greeks, or simply Cappadocians, are an ethnic Greek community native to the geographical region of Cappadocia in central-eastern Anatolia; roughly the Nevşehir and Kayseri provinces and their surroundings in modern-day Turkey. There had been a continuous Greek presence in Cappadocia since antiquity, and the indigenous populations of Cappadocia, some of whose Indo-European languages may have been closely related to Greek became entirely Greek-speaking by at least the 5th century CE.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Karamania was an exonym used by Europeans for the southern (Mediterranean) coast of Anatolia, then part of the Ottoman Empire. It can also refer to the general south central Anatolian region, whose name is reflected on the modern town of Karaman. It is also the namesake of the larger Karaman Province of Turkey, the historical Karaman Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire, the medieval Turkish Karamanids dynasty and state from the region, and the Karamanlides, a Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christian group originally from the area.

References

  1. 1 2 Menz, Astrid. (2007). The Gagauz Between Christianity and Turkishness. 10.5771/9783956506925-123.
  2. 1 2 Lipka, Michael (22 May 2022). "The Gagauz: 'Christian Turks' between two worlds". TRT World.
  3. ↑ Gi︠u︡zelev, Vasil (1979). The Proto-Bulgarians: Pre-history of Asparouhian Bulgaria text. pp. 15, 33, 38.
  4. ↑ Hyun Jin Kim (2013). The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe. Cambridge University Press. pp. 58–59, 150–155, 168, 204, 243. ISBN   9781107009066.
  5. 1 2 Waldman, Carl; Mason, Catherine (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. Infobase Publishing. p. 108. ISBN   9781438129181.
  6. ↑ Winkler, Dietmar (2009). Hidden Treasures And Intercultural Encounters: Studies On East Syriac Christianity In China And Central Asia. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN   978-3-643-50045-8.
  7. ↑ "景教艺术在西域之发现" . Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  8. ↑ 高昌回鹘与环塔里木多元文化的融合 Archived 17 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "唐代中围景教与景教本部教会的关系" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 November 2011.
  10. ↑ "景教在西域的传播". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  11. ↑ "新闻_星岛环球网". Archived from the original on 30 October 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  12. ↑ "7–11 世紀景教在陸上絲綢之路的傳播" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 December 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  13. 1 2 Cole, Jeffrey (2011). Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 74. ISBN   978-1-59884-302-6.
  14. ↑ Guide to Russia:Chuvash Archived 1 May 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ↑ Akiner, Shirin (1986). Islamic peoples of the Soviet Union: with an appendix on the non-Muslim Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union: an historical and statistical handbook (2nd ed.). London: KPI. pp. 431–432. ISBN   0-7103-0188-X.<
  16. ↑ Akiner, Shirin (1986). Islamic Peoples Of The Soviet Union. Routledge. p. 100. ISBN   978-1-136-14274-1.
  17. ↑ Yemelianova, Galina M. (2002). Russia and Islam: A Historical Survey . Palgrave. pp.  36–41. ISBN   0-333-68354-4.
  18. 1 2 Ilıcak & Varjabedian 2021 , p. 23: "Turkophone Greeks are called Karamanli Greeks or Karamanlides, and their language and literature is called Karamanli Turkish or Karamanlidika, but the scholarly literature has no equivalent terms for Turkophone Armenians."
  19. ↑ Erol, Merih (2015). Greek Orthodox Music in Ottoman Istanbul: Nation and Community in the Era of Reform. Indiana University Press. p. 6. ISBN   978-0-253-01842-7. In the bilingual and bi-musical song anthologies published by the Karamanli Greeks of Anatolia, Turkish melodies were transcribed in the reformed Byzantine notation, and Turkish texts were printed in Greek script.
  20. ↑ Yildirim, Onur (2007). Diplomacy and Displacement: Reconsidering the Turco-Greek Exchange of Populations, 1922–1934. Routledge. p. 62. ISBN   978-1-136-60010-4. Here the term "Christians" should be read as referring specifically to the remaining Armenian groups and perhaps Karamanli Greeks in the interior of Anatolia, who had not yet been displaced.
  21. ↑ Nagel Publishers (1968). Turkey. Nagel. p. 615. OCLC   3060049. The Karaman region was for a long time inhabited by Turkish-speaking Orthodox Greeks who wrote Turkish in the Greek script. These Greeks are called Karamanians.
  22. ↑ Daly, Michael (1988). "The Turkish legacy: an exhibition of books and manuscripts to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk". Bodleian Library: 40. ISBN   978-1-85124-016-6. … a large number of works were printed in Turkish using the Greek and Armenian alphabets. These were intended for those ethnic Greeks and Armenians who, while retaining their religious allegiance to their respective churches, had lost all knowledge of their own languages and had been assimilated linguistically by their Muslim Turkish neighbours. Turcophone Greeks were known as Karamanlides, after the province of Karaman where many of them lived, although there were also large communities in Istanbul and in the Black Sea region, and printed or manuscript works in Turkish using the Greek alphabet are known as Karamanlidika.
  23. ↑ Mackridge, Peter (2010). Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766-1976. OUP Oxford. p. 64. ISBN   978-0-19-959905-9.
  24. ↑ Skopeteas, Stavros (2013). The Caucasian Urums and the Urum Language. Bielefeld University.
  25. 1 2 "The Political Role of the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (so-called)". www.atour.com. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
  26. ↑ Özdalga, Elisabeth (2006-03-07). The Last Dragoman: Swedish Orientalist Johannes Kolmodin as Scholar, Activist, and Diplomat. I. B. Tauris. p. 152. ISBN   978-91-86884-14-7.
  27. ↑ Luffin, Xavier (2000). "Baba Eftim et l'Église orthodoxe turque: De l'usage politique d'une institution religieuse". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 52 (1–2): 73–95. doi:10.2143/JECS.52.1.565615.
  28. ↑ Özdalga, Elisabeth (2006-03-07). The Last Dragoman: Swedish Orientalist Johannes Kolmodin as Scholar, Activist, and Diplomat. I. B. Tauris. p. 153. ISBN   978-91-86884-14-7.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.