Nerses Varzhapetian (

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

: Ներսէս Բ Վարժապետեան Կոստանդնուպոլսեցի) served as the

Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

between 1874 and 1884. He oversaw the church during the

Russo-Turkish War The Russo-Turkish wars ( ), or the Russo-Ottoman wars (), began in 1568 and continued intermittently until 1918. They consisted of twelve conflicts in total, making them one of the longest series of wars in the history of Europe. All but four of ...

. In the aftermath of the war, he strove to convince the Sultanate that the Ottoman Armenians were still loyal to the state and that they were not trying to achieve national independence.

Controversy

A major controversy arose over the figures submitted to the

Berlin Congress At the Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878), the major European powers revised the territorial and political terms imposed by the Russian Empire on the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878), which had ended the Rus ...

. In his memorandum addressed to the Congress (subsequently used extensively by various writers) Patriarch Nerses placed the number of

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

Van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or ...

(

Muş Muş (; ; ) is a city in eastern Turkey. It is the seat of Muş Province and Muş District.İl Beled ...

and

Siirt Siirt (; ; ; ) is a city in the Siirt District of Siirt Province in Turkey. It had a population of 160,340 in 2021. The city is predominantly inhabited by Kurds. Neighborhoods The city is divided into the neighborhoods of Afetevlerı, Alan, ...

included), Sivas, Harput, Diyarbekir, and Halep at 780,000 and the number of Syrians (i.e.,

Assyrians Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from ot ...

, or Syriacs) and

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

at 251,000 and 25,000, respectively, for a total of 1,056,800 Christians. The total number of Muslims in these areas, according to the patriarch, amounted to a mere 770,000, of whom only 320,000 were

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lang ...

, the rest being

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

, Kizilbaş, and Türkmen; of course, the last two groups were also ethnically Turkic. Moreover, the patriarch gave the population of

Adana Adana is a large city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province, Adana province, and has a population of 1 81 ...

as consisting of only 86,000 Muslims, as against 134,000 Christians; on the other hand, Captain Casper, the former British vice-counsul in Adana, numbered the Muslims at 327,980 and the Christians at 33,780.

Kemal Karpat Kemal Karpat (15 February 1924, Babadag Tulcea, Romania – 20 February 2019, Manchester, New Hampshire, United States) was a Romanian- Turkish naturalised American historian and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early life ...

(1985)
Ottoman Population, 1830-1914, Demographic and Social Characteristics

The University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, p. 53

References

{{Authority control Armenians from the Ottoman Empire Armenian Patriarchs of Constantinople 1837 births 1884 deaths

Controversy

See also

References