Ottoman Greeks

In the Ottoman Empire, in accordance with the Muslim dhimmi system, Greek Christians were guaranteed limited freedoms (such as the right to worship), but were treated as second-class citizens.

The Ecumenical Patriarch was recognized as the highest religious and political leader (millet-bashi, or ethnarch) of all Orthodox Christian subjects of the Sultan, though in certain periods some major powers, such as Russia (under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774) or Great Britain, later the United Kingdom, claimed the rights of protection over the Ottoman Empire's Orthodox subjects.

Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government implemented the Tanzimat reforms to improve the situation of non-Muslims, although these would prove largely ineffective.

On July 24, 1908, Greeks' hopes for equality in the Ottoman Empire brightened with the removal of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) from power and restored the country back to a constitutional monarchy.

The Committee of Union and Progress (more commonly called the Young Turks), a political party opposed to the absolute rule of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II, had led a rebellion against their ruler.

The position of the Patriarchate in the Ottoman state encouraged projects of Greek renaissance, centered on the resurrection and revitalization of the Byzantine Empire.

Hellenism (yellow) in the Aegean during and after World War I by George Soteriadis of the University of Athens .
Distribution of Anatolian Greeks in 1910: Demotic Greek speakers in yellow, Pontic Greek in orange and Cappadocian Greek in green with individual villages indicated. [ 1 ]
A 1914 document showing the official figures from the 1914 population census of the Ottoman Empire . The total population (sum of all the millets ) was given at 20,975,345, and the Greek population was given at 1,792,206.
Greek woman in Turkey, 1710
Ottoman Greeks in Constantinople , painted by Luigi Mayer