High mission in Syria and Lebanon. Russia and the Levantine Orthodox (according to the reports of the Consul General in Beirut, Georgy D. Batyushkov)

Abstract

The analysis of the position of the flock of the Antiochian Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church in the Syrian and Lebanese regions of the Ottoman Empire is presented through the prism of assessments of the Russian consul general in Beirut. Most of the documents relate to 1912, when the tension of social relations in the region reached its highest level in the conditions of the Italo-Turkish (October 1911 – October 1912) and the First Balkan Wars (September 1912 – May 1913), which largely divided the social opinion. The documents allow to recreate the true picture of the clash of interests of the European powers in the Arab provinces, their methods of relying on different confessional groups. Religious institutions in those years were actively used in the inter-party struggle at the level of the central Ottoman government, and the Orthodox clergy was not an exception. The Syro-Lebanese Orthodox were in the center of attention from Russia as co-religionists and, as a result, the most social group located to Russian influence. Material assistance from Russia, our educational and medical institutions continued to operate in the Arab vilayets of the empire, and if this kind of support for the Orthodox Levant were continued, Russia would have achieved much greater success in countering European colonial forms in the form of international “mandates” to the Middle East subsequent period.