The situation of the “rough tolerance” in Eastern Mediterranean had lasted for another half millennium, with Christian communities surviving through hardships in their homeland. In some cases, eastern Christians became chancellors of the Sultans, physicians for the Pashas. Eastern Christians were also a very useful asset when the High Porte (Ottoman imperial government) wished to communicate with the western European powers. Throughout the heydays of the Ottoman regime, diplomatic communications with France, the Papal state, Habsburgian monarchy was done in Greek. Many of the Greek and Armenian elites became fluent in modern technology and western enlightenment, combined with their already native classical heritage and Turco-Persian scholarship. They became, once again, transmitters of culture in the Mediterranean. For example, Greeks and Armenians were also the first to utilise modern printing press to produce copies of religious and literary works in the Ottoman Empire, roughly 300 years earlier than the Muslims did. Even though Arabic printing modules were already good to go since 1500s, conservative Islamic Ulema (religious scholars) strongly disapproved of printing and imposed a fatwa (condemnation) upon it until in 1729 when the Ottoman government officially sanctified printing of Islamic and Turkish secular literature.

​

   The Ottoman empire had its flaws, and they were deadly. Economic breakdowns, social tensions, religious uprisings became the norm of the Ottoman society. While old Islamic scholars were still advocating for a return to the traditions and old values, Ottoman intelligentsia and aristocracy proposed a total reform of the state from the ground up. Mahmud II (1785-1839) was one of the first reformers in the government, who proposed a plan of more actively integrating the religious minority to the empire in face of nationalistic upheavals. One of his most remarkable reforms was the introduction of the “fez” cap, which his administration promoted as a sign of modernity and egalitarianism. According to himself, he wanted to “see no distinction among Muslims, Christians, and Jews except for their religious lodges”. His successor Abdulmecid continued his legacy and issued reforms collectively called the Tanzimat “reorganisation” in Turkish (Hanioglu 72).

​

       The situation of the minorities became trickier than ever before. Western powers such as Britain and France were aware of the potentials Ottoman empire bore, and they planned to break the latter down into pieces. The 18th and 19th centuries were times of change when new western ideas were introduced into the Ottoman empire, among which were enlightenment and nationalism. Minorities under the Ottomans such as Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians were encouraged to seek independence from the oppressive Ottoman regime by creating new independent nation states (Hanioglu 75). Meanwhile, whereas the Tanzimat incorporated many progressive ideas such as women suffrage, decriminalisation of homosexuality, modern citizenship, etc., the old landowning provincial magnates were never too delighted to accept these changes which damaged their pejoratives. The lower Muslim populace were enraged by these reforms, seeing them as downgrading the Muslims to the level of Christians. Surrounded by snakes, the religious minorities of the Ottoman empire had to tread carefully in the swamp of revolution (Hanioglu 78)

​

      After Greece declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire, situation worsened for the Christians in the Balkans and Asia Minor. Christians were accused of disloyalty to the empire and were harassed constantly by force (Akcham 63). When Britain and France were pressing the Ottoman government, it was the Greeks and Armenians where the populace directed their fury. Christians and Jews initially allied themselves with the progressive Young Turks party which promised better conditions for the minorities, only to find themselves in a new set of havoc. During the first world war and after, the Young Turk regime systematically wiped out almost 1.5 million Armenians and 750000 Greeks in the Ottoman states, constituting some of the first genocides of the modern age, which the Turkish government today still denies existence. (Suny 4)

​