Crypto-Christians of the Trabzon
Region of Pontos
Who were the crypto-Christians?
The crypto-Christians (also called cryphi, klosti, Stavriotes, Kromledes) were
Christian Greeks who due to the Muslim persecution against Christians publicly
declared themselves Muslims.
However, in secret, they upheld their Greek language, customs and Christian
Crypto-Christians were not polygamists and they were married in a Christian as
well as a Muslim ceremony. The
Christian marriage ceremony was often conducted in a rock-hewn house or one
underground. When one of them died,
a Christian funeral took place as well as the usual Muslim one.
Up to the mid 19th century their Christian ceremonies were
conducted with great care, but by the early 1900s as long as the men registered
themselves as Muslims (thus available for military service), nobody asked
whether they were Christian or Muslim at heart.2
Greek authors gave some curious details of the secret Christian rites of Greeks
in the Trabzon
district (see Map 1).
Crypto-Christians followed the Orthodox fasts.
Their children were baptised, and bore both a Christian and Muslim name
for secret and public use respectively.
They never allowed their daughters to marry Muslims, but the men did take
Muslim wives. In the latter case,
the Christian marriage was conducted in secret, in one of the monasteries.
If pressure was required, the bridegroom threatened to leave his bride.3
Map 1: Map of Pontos (Bryer and Winfield 1985, p. 2)
The first reference to crypto-Christians in the Trabzon region comes from an American
missionary in 1833, followed by W.J. Hamilton in 1836
and two French travellers in 1840.
(Between 1796 and 1832, none of the 25 western travellers, who left a record and
passed through this region, mentioned crypto-Christians.)4
During the century after 1461, Trabzon
became a ‘Muslim’ town; partly by influx of Muslims, partly by deportation of
Christians, but largely through conversion.
(There were considerable financial benefits in converting to Islam.)
According to Ottoman tax registers [tahrir
defters] in 1520 (59 years after
the fall of Trabzon to the Ottoman Turks), Trabzon was still 86% Christian.
However, by 1583, it was 54% Muslim, with still 77% Greek speaking.5
Greek historians maintain that, like Of (a village 45 km east of Trabzon) and the Greek-speaking Muslim Oflus, the Greeks of
Tonya (42 km south-west of Trabzon)
converted to Islam in the late 17th century.
However, in the case of Tonya there is no popular explanation of why this
happened. The notion is plausible,
for in the late 17th century, Christian Greeks in the Pontos
experienced considerable pressure on their faith.
In the case of Of, we now know there was
no mass conversion and the Muslims may simply have overtaken the Christians by
Even after conversion to Islam, some people around Trabzon, as reported in the 1890s, did not
forget their Christian roots. There were
whole villages on this seaboard whose inhabitants were Muslim, and would resent
being called anything else; yet their Greek origin was believed both by history
and by some of their traditions.
For example, Surmene and Of, two considerable villages (35 km and 45 km east of
Trabzon respectively), hold to certain customs, which
connect them with the Christian faith.
Under the stress of illness, the image of Madonna is suspended above the
sickbed; the sufferer sips the forbidden wine from the old cup of the Communion,
which still remains a treasured object, much as they might be puzzled to tell
A little earlier, in 1879, it was estimated that out of 10-12,000 families from
Of, 8-10,000 families spoke Greek but only 192 families were Christian.8
Map 2 *Click
to enlarge: Map of Matsouka, south of
(Zerzilidis 1959, p. 160)16
Impact of the Tanzimat reforms and Hatt-i
The Tanzimat was a period of legislation and reform that
modernised Ottoman state and society, and brought greater state participation in
Ottoman society during 1839-76.9
1843, a new penal code was introduced, which recognised equality of Muslims and
year later, the death penalty for renouncing Islam, a provision of the
şeriat, [Muslim religious law]
This abolition was a crucial event.
On 18 February 1856, a new reform charter, the Imperial Rescript (Hatt-i
Humayun), was promulgated by the Sultan. This
Rescript; prepared under strong pressure from foreign powers, laid down the
equality of all Ottoman subjects irrespective of religion.11
Hatt-i Humayun allowed people to
report their true religion in public without punishment.
Not all crypto-Christians professed their faith after 1856.
The revelation continued up to 1910.12
On 14 May 1856, Petros Sideropoulos, the first Kromniot [from the Kromni area,
south of Trabzon] crypto-Christian declared his
Orthodoxy in Trabzon.
15 July 1857, the Kromni (KPOMNH at 39036′E 40034′N in Map
2) crypto-Christians presented a petition to the pasha and western consuls in
Trabzon (appealing for protection) on behalf of 55,755 inhabitants of 58
settlements, of whom 52% were claimed to be open Christians, 31% [17,260]
Kromniot (crypto-Christians) and 17% Muslims.4
Some crypto-Christians who declared for Orthodoxy after 1856 may have had
Muslim ancestors and many were registered for military service.13
In relation to the military reforms under the Tanzimat,
from 1845, conscription was officially introduced in most areas of the
Christians were now allowed to serve within the
army, but as this was expected to create tensions, they were soon able to pay a
special tax instead (in lieu of military service), which they largely preferred.
Muslims, too, could evade conscription by payment,
but this was very steep for most.14
Hatt-i-Humayun, in towns, districts and villages where the whole population
was of the same religion, they could repair, according to their original plan,
buildings of religious worship, schools, hospitals, and cemeteries.
plans of these buildings, in the case of new construction, would after approval
by the Patriarchs or heads of communities, be able to be submitted to the
Ottoman Government, which would decide if they could be constructed.
Each sect, in localities where there were no other
religious denominations was free to practice its religion in public.
towns, districts and villages where different sects were present, each
community, inhabiting a distinct quarter, had equal right to repair and improve
its churches, hospitals, schools, and cemeteries.
Each sect was free to exercise its religion.15
Prior to the Hatt-i
Humayun, old Christian churches were allowed to be repaired only in some
areas, but no new churches were allowed to be built.
However, after 1856, in areas where there were
Ottoman Muslims, Christian celebrations were not allowed in public, nor were
bells allowed to be rung.
Bells were allowed to be rung in areas where mostly
where bells were not allowed to be rung, the churches may have hung a slab of
wood horizontally and the priest would hit it with a piece of wood.
Impact of the economic conditions of Gumushane on the
Gumushane, about 65 km south of Trabzon, was established in the 1590s.
Its Greek name of Argyropolis appears to have been derived around 1846.
The silver mining economy of old Gumushane declined in 1829 (the silver
mines were abandoned in the 1850s) and the emergence of the crypto-Christians of
Kromni, Stavri (at 39030’E 40036’N in Map 2) and Santa
(40 km SSE of Trabzon)
after 1856 are related. In the case
of Chaldia (covering Kromni, Stavri and villages further south) at least, the
phenomenon of crypto-Christianity arose largely from the peculiar economic and
administrative context of the period 1829-56.18
Pontic crypto-Christians only entered their ‘twilight’
world after 1829 and were reluctant to re-emerge in the ‘sunlight’ after 1856.
This was to do with the silver-mining and smelting
economy of Gumushane. From
1654-1841 both the mining concessionaries (archimetallourgoi)
and a new metropolis of Chaldia were in Greek hands, principally the dynasty of
Phytianos – which was to provide miners and bishops all over Anatolia and the
Caucasus, and a patriarch of Antioch.4
The mines were the property of the Sultan and under state
supervision with all precious metals supposed to be sent to
(Without doubt, much precious metal was concealed
However, the mines around Gumushane were
effectively controlled by the
archimetallourgoi, who was invariably a Greek, with the skilled labour also
monopolised by Greeks.
This situation, by one probably unreliable
tradition goes back to the patronage of Maria of Libera (Gülbahar), Pontic Greek
wife of Sultan Bayazid II (1481-1512), gave the Greeks of the area a peculiar
economic position and considerable tax privileges.19
From at least the mid-seventeenth century, the Greeks of
Gumushane and the surrounding villages were exempt from normal taxes in return
for working in the main branches of the industry; namely mining, smelting, and
charcoal burning. Gumushane
drew its charcoal from an area later to be identified with crypto-Christianity.
These villages were excused the
haraç, tribute which Christians paid
in lieu of military service, thus losing a basic legal distinction as
The crypto-Christians claimed their faith in 1856 only
after the mines of Gumushane were abandoned.
As they had never paid the
haraç before they still demanded
exemption, but mining service had ended and they were given the ‘privilege’
of military service instead.
The argument dragged on into the 1860s.19
After 1829, it was a question whether the silver mines of
Chaldia or the charcoal for smelting from Imera (Stavri /Kromni), were exhausted
most intensive crypto-Christian (and fewest Muslim living) areas in the petition
presented in 1857 (by Kromniot crypto-Christians mentioned previously) had been
economically dependent on silver-mining and charcoal burning for smelting.
Smaller crypto-Christian elements were listed near
alum mines to which the archimetallourgoi
of Gumushane turned after 1829, when their own silver mines declined.
Neither Professor Dawkins nor Hasluck (see ref
3) asked why crypto-Christians were keeping their identity secret in
places where there were so few declared Muslims.4
The Orthodox church was more reluctant that the Ottoman
state to recognise the situation after 1856.
1863, the church’s solution was to combine the monastic exarchates of Sumela
(ΣOYMEΛA 39039′E 40041′N in Map 2), Vazelon (BAZEΛΟN 39030′E 40045′N
in Map 2) and Peristereota (ΠEPІΣΤEΡEOTA 39043′E 40047′N
in Map 2) into its last Anatolian eparchy, Rhodopolis.
According to the petition of 1857, the 14,525
inhabitants of the new diocese were 53% open Christian, 37% crypto-Christian and
Here if their landlord was one of the three ruling abbots,
from whom were the crypto-Christians keeping their identity secret?4
Palgrave (1826-88), the British consul in
Trabzon, was first to observe that Ottoman mining and
smelting service in the Pontos was in lieu of military service, so Kromniots
carried arms (another obvious advantage) as Muslims but did not pay poll tax as
With the decline of the mines after 1829, they clung to
the best of both worlds.4
Hionides, C 1988,
The Greek Pontos: mythology
geography history civilization,
Massachusetts, p. 99.
Pears, E 1911,
Turkey and its people,
Methuen & Co Ltd, London,
Triantaphyllides, P 1866,
People in Pontos, or Pontica, and
some speeches by the same author, (in Greek), Athens, pp. 55-92, in Hasluck,
1929, Christianity and Islam under the
Sultans, vol. II, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 472-3.
Bryer, A 2006,
R.M. Dawkins, F.W. Hasluck and the
‘Crypto-Christians’ of Trebizond, Paper delivered to
School at Athens.
Lowry, H 1977,
The Ottoman Tahrir Defters [tax
registers] as a source for urban demographic history: the case study of Trabzon
ca. 1486-1583, unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, Los
Angeles, excerpts used in Bryer, A
1991, ‘The Pontic Greeks before the diaspora’,
Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 4
(4) p. 319.
Bryer, A & Winfield, D 1985,
The Byzantine monuments and
topography of the Pontos, vol. I, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library &
Collection, Harvard University,
D.C., p. 156.
Lynch, HFB 1901,
travels and studies, vol. 1, reprinted in two volumes in 1967,
Khayats, Beirut, pp. 11-2.
Parcharides, I 1879,
Στατιστική τής έπαρχίας Оφεως του νομου Τραπεζουντος,
Παρνασσός, iii, pp. 224-32, quoted in
Bryer, A 1968, ‘Churches east of Trebizond (the Santa district),
Archeion Pontou, vol. 29 (2), p. 110,
in Bryer et al 2002.
Shaw, SJ & Shaw, EK 2002,
History of the Ottoman Empire and modern
vol. II: reform, revolution, and republic: the rise of
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
Zurcher, EJ 2004,
Turkey: a modern history, 3rd
edition, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, London, p. 61.
Lewis, B 2002,
The emergence of modern Turkey,
3rd edition, Oxford University Press, NY, p. 116.
Andreadis, G 1995,
The Cryptochristians: klostoi:
those who returned, tenesur: those who changed, Kyriakidis Brothers, Thessaloniki, Greece, p. 84.
‘The Tourkokratia in the Pontos: some problems and preliminary
conclusions’, Neo-Hellenika, vol. 1,
Zurcher, EJ 2004,
Shaw, SJ and Shaw, EK 2002, pp. 124-5.
Zerzilidis, G 1959,
‘Τοπωνυμικó της Άνω Ματσούκας’, (in Greek),
vol. 23, p. 160.
Fotiadis, K 2001,
A translation of,
The forced Islamization in Asia Minor
and the cryptochristians of the Pontos
(in Greek), Kiriakidis Bros,
Thessaloniki, Greece, pp. 369-70.
Bryer, A 2002,
‘Introduction’, in The
post-Byzantine monuments of the Pontos: a source book, (eds A. Bryer,
D. Winfield, S. Balance & J Isaac) Variorum Collected Studies Series, Ashgate,
Aldershot, Hampshire GB, p. xvii.
‘Churches south of Trebizond’ in
Archeion Pontou vol. 30, pp. 326-8
(in Bryer et al 2002).
I warmly thank Anthony Bryer OBE, Emeritus
Professor of Byzantine Studies,
for sending me a copy of his 2006 paper delivered to the
which I have quoted here.
I also thank him for his cryptic reference to me in
his paper. Bryer’s
work is essential reading to those studying the history of the Pontos.
Formation of the First Greek Settlements in
The cost of
Sumela monastery trave