Rum millet
The Rum millet was instituted by Sultan Mehmet II who set himself to reorganise the state as the conscious heir of the Eastern Roman Empire, adding Caesar of Rome to his list of official titles.
Byzantine) subjects of the Ottoman Empire, but all Orthodox Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Romanians and Serbs, as well as Georgians and Arab Melkites, were all considered part of the same millet in spite of their differences in ethnicity and language.
[2] This community became a basic form of social organization and source of identity for all the ethnic groups inside it and most people began to identify themselves simply as "Christians".
This is evident from a Sultan's Firman from 1680 which lists the ethnic groups in the Balkan lands of the Empire as follows: Greeks (Rum), Albanians (Arnaut), Serbs (Sirf), Vlachs (Eflak, referring to Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Romanians) and the Bulgarians (Bulgar).
The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, from 1774, allowed Russia to intervene on the side of Ottoman Eastern Orthodox subjects, and most of the Porte's political tools of pressure became ineffective.
The rise of nationalism in Europe under the influence of the French Revolution had extended to the Ottoman Empire and the Rum millet became increasingly independent with the establishment of its own schools, churches, hospitals and other facilities.
This ideology spread among the urban population of Aromanian, Slavic and Albanian origin[9] and which started to view themselves increasingly as Greek.
The Bulgarian Exarchate recognized by the Ottomans in 1870 was the answer to the unilateral declaration of an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece in 1833 and of Romania's in 1865.
Eventually the Porte had to send the gerontes to their dioceses, and a constitutional committee produced a series of laws between 1860 and 1862 to govern the Greek millet.
Only an organ designed for the patriarch's election was established which ostensibly gave the laity a large majority: 1 banker, 5 merchants, 10 artisans, 4 professional men, 8 public officials, members of a new mixed council, and 28 representatives of provincial bishoprics.
The ultimate decision on the election was made by the clerical members, and the Porte reserved the right to strike candidates they deemed inappropriate.
Intense ethnic and national rivalries among the Balkan peoples emerged at the eve of the 20th century in Macedonia, known as the Macedonian Struggle.
However, the process of supplanting the monarchic institutions was unsuccessful and the European periphery of the Empire continued to splinter under the pressures of local revolts.
