Church of Armenia, Church of Rome: Faith, Print, and Power in Ottoman-Armenian History, c. 1690–c. 1715

Ohanian, Daniel · 2025

Examines a growing religious divide within the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population around 1700, a divide that reshaped the culture, institutions and politics of their communities for the next two centuries. Before the late seventeenth century essentially all Ottoman Armenians belonged to the traditional Armenian Church; within a few decades many converted to Catholicism while others developed a trenchant anti-Catholic group identity. Ohanian identifies four drivers: the expansion of Roman Catholic missionary efforts, the unprecedented availability of Armenian-language books through printing and long-distance circulation, shifting Ottoman-French diplomatic relations, and the complexities of Ottoman imperial administration. The study draws on sources in Classical Armenian, vernacular Armenian, Ottoman Turkish and French from more than a dozen archives.

Citation checked against the publisher's record on 2026-07-13.