Ullah millet

The Aromanians are a Balkan ethnic group which is scattered in several countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.

This conflict between the Aromanians and Greeks eventually escalated to physical violence, sparking fights between members of both groups.

[4] The situation began to be studied by the Ottoman Empire and, on 9 August 1891, the Ministry of Justice sent to the Ottoman grand vizier a report in which it stated that the Aromanians had the right to use their own language in the church just like many Orthodox people in Arab-populated lands could use their mother language if it was not Greek.

They asked to be separated from the Greeks and to be recognized as a community (a millet) officially and legally in the country.

However, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid II, decided to ignore these requests to avoid political conflicts.

In those times, the Ottoman Empire was specially worried about a possible loss of the region of Macedonia and a change of the status quo in the Balkans.

[4] The rejection of their requests by the Ottomans and the Greek opposition of their self-determination sparked the beginning of cooperation between Aromanians and Bulgarians.

The news was happily received in Romania, in which the establishment of the Ullah millet was seen as a great victory.

This holiday is meant for the Aromanians but also for the Megleno-Romanians and the Istro-Romanians, perceived in Romania simply as ethnic Romanian subgroups living south of the Danube.