Reflecting the Mind of the Vatican since 1850
The Catholics in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East
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For centuries the interests of the Latin Catholics living in the Ottoman Empire – this year is the 100th anniversary of its fall, a fate decided by the victors in the First World War – had been protected at the Sublime Porte by the representative of France. This right originally had its basis in the “Capitulations,” agreements of a politico-commercial nature that soon opened up to the protection of individuals or individual communities residing in the Empire.

Only in 1740 did the Sultan grant France a capitular regime, which also provided for the protection of all Latin Catholics – designated simply as “Franks” – belonging to every nationality and, in particular, of those who traditionally guarded the Holy Places. This privilege was substantially reconfirmed, but only on condition that it did not prejudice the interests of the other European countries in the Ottoman Empire recognized by article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878.

This position of pre-eminence and prestige accorded, or rather reconfirmed, by the Sublime Porte to the French representatives was perceived by the Italian political leadership – in the years in which Italy, recently unified, was trying to enter the sphere of the European nations and to find its own space and influence in questions of international politics – with ill-concealed annoyance. The conquest of Tunisia in 1881 by the French reinforced in Italians a feeling of hostility toward their transalpine cousins.
© Union of Catholic Asian News 2022
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