Christianisations of Muslims in the Post-Ottoman Balkans: The Greek Revolution of 1821 and the Othonian State (1821–1862)

Given in Greek after an introduction by Maria Parani, this lecture by Stefanos Katsikas of the University of Cyprus examines the conversion of Muslims to Orthodox Christianity during the Greek War of Independence and the reign of King Otto (1821–1862). Drawing on archives from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General State Archives, Katsikas investigates the lives of these converts, known in contemporary Greek sources as neophotistoi.

After noting religious monuments whose liturgical use changed over time, such as the church of Agios Nikolaos in Chania, Katsikas introduces the 1831 case of Sekire, a Muslim woman in Argos baptised as Charikleia who refused to rejoin her Muslim family in Constantinople. He outlines why Muslims and a smaller number of Jews converted during the revolution: escaping violence and captivity, forced baptisms of captive women, mass baptisms of orphaned infants, and the return to Christianity of Peloponnesian families Islamised after the 1770 Orlov revolt. An 1822 debate between the Peloponnesian Senate and the Executive set an age threshold of twelve for male converts while leaving female conversions unrestricted.

Surviving census lists from the administrations of Ioannis Kapodistrias and Otto record around 700 converts in areas such as Nafplio and Laconia, though the true total was higher. Because most had lost their property when Muslim estates became Greek national lands, an 1830 decree granted them land allotments, made hereditary in 1835 despite dowry abuses. In Eastern Roumeli and Euboea, where departing Muslims had eighteen months to sell their estates, Islamic law disinherited apostates, sparking family litigation into the 1870s. Katsikas concludes that nineteenth-century nationalism turned conversion into a marker of national loyalty or treason.