PHANARIOT

PHANARIOT. Strictly, one who is a resident of the Fanar, a borough of Turkish Constantinople (q.v.) along the upper reaches of the Golden Horn. More generally, the “Phanariots” were successful Greek merchants and traders who moved into the Fanar, which has been the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch (q.v.) from early on under Ottoman rule. The Phanariots exercised leadership among the Greek population from the 17th c. to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (q.v.). Their wealth and high level of education, often acquired through a stay at a Western European university such as Padua or Bologna, singled them out for leadership within both the Orthodox Church and the Turkish state. By the 18th c. they were running the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself, and in good part the Ottoman Empire as well.

At about this time they evolved the plan referred to as “the Great Idea” (He Megale Idea), nothing less than the restoration of Byzantium (q.v.) from within the shell of Ottoman rule. When this notion was combined with the narrower focus of Greek nationalism, the effects on the Orthodox Church were thoroughly deleterious. The Great Idea amounted in practice to Greek hegemony over the other Orthodox peoples of the Empire. Thus, the multiplication of national churches in the Balkans (q.v.) accompanying the 19th c. movements for independence was a natural consequence of, and reaction to, Phanariot policy. The resulting ill feeling and mistrust left over from Ottoman rule continue to hamper the genuinely ecumenical ministry, which the patriarch of Constantinople is called to exercise.