ABSTRACT
The main aim of this chapter is to highlight the role played by the different elites of the Rum milleti in the transformation of the community from religious to national during the period preceding the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923). The term “elites” refers to the different influential lay and religious subgroups of the Greek Orthodox community. Emphasis will be given to the intra and intercommunal antagonism that developed in the context of the reform program for the modernization of the Ottoman Empire. It will be argued that this antagonism between different elites led to the formation of a Greek ethnic community from the mid-nineteenth century until 1908 and paved the way for the politicization of the millet along ethnic lines under the Young Turk regime (1908–18). The last stage of this evolutionary process will be examined in relation to the identification of the leadership of the millet with Venizelos and Greek irredentism during the crucial years 1918–22.
