Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/130

124 pertaining to her ecclesiastical rights as to the election and privileges of the patriarchs and synods and provincial councils, and the administration of the schools and other institutions. This constitution, though carefully sifted and limited by Turkish severity, was once supposed to be the guarantee for the protection of the ecclesiastical rights so long disregarded, but soon proved to be a farce upon the part of the Turkish Government. From the election of the patriarch, the head of the executive body of the said constitution and the only authorized agent between the Armenian church and the Turkish government, to the appointment of the village teacher, every transaction was meddled with, disturbed, delayed, and frequently prevented by the "good pleasure of the all-powerful Padishah" (the monarch), as well as by the least and the meanest clerk of the porte.

In 1850 the Protestant Armenians were granted a charter guaranteeing them "religious liberty and other rights conferred on the other Christian communities of the empire." In spite of these promises they have never been allowed to erect one church in the capital, though they have the site and the necessary funds in hand and have repeatedly petitioned for the same during fifteen successive years.

The Catholic Armenians, having their own so-called patriarch in Constantinople, and being indirectly helped by the Roman church, have comparatively greater access to the palace, and that by the cunning policy of the Turkish government, in order to sow tares among the Christian communities of the empire.