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«Востоковедение: история и методология»
For a long time, Turkish historians uncritically expounded theories, widespread in traditional European historiography, about the system of self-governing communities of non-Muslims, recognized by the Ottoman state since the time of Mehmed the Conqueror. In the second half of XX century, a critical view could start progressively to elaborate. Both the Millet theory itself, which does not find substantiation in the archival documents of the classical period of Ottoman history, and the place and significance of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and other Eastern Orthodox patriarchates, before the starting of modernization and Europeanization of the Ottomans in the middle XIX century, begun reconsidering. New methods appear in Turkish historiography of the Orthodox Church at the turn of the century. These methods consist in the study of the legal status and judicial practice of patriarchates and the bulk of Orthodox subjects. Essence of the image and the range of powers and obligations of church institutions becomes clear because of studies of Ottoman Sultan's edicts and correspondences between church and state authorities on different issues.