the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As the Ottomans identified nationality (ethnicity) with confession and the majority of ethnic Bulgarians were Orthodox Christians, they were automatically included in the Rūm millet, a community ruled immediately by the Ecumenical Patriarch in his capacity of millet-bashi and dominated by Phanar Greeks (Phanariots). Thus, if the Bulgarians wanted to have Bulgarian schools and liturgy in Bulgarian, they needed an autonomous ecclesiastical organisation. The struggle between the Bulgarians, led by Neofit Bozveli and Ilarion Stoyanov, and the Phanariotes intensified throughout the 1860s. As the Greek clerics were ousted from most Bulgarian bishoprics at the end of the decade, the whole of northern Bulgaria, as well as the northern parts of Thrace and Macedonia had, to all intents and purposes, seceded from the Patriarchate. Establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate In seeking to calm down the disturbances, the Ottoman government of the Sultan Abdülaziz granted the right to establish an autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate for the dioceses of Bulgaria as well as those, wherein at least two-thirds of Orthodox Christians were willing to join it, by issuing the Sultan's firman promulgated on . The firman envisaged a broad autonomy of the Exarchate but would leave it under the supreme canonical authority of the Ecumenical See, i.e. not full autocephaly. The Exarchate's borders went on to extend over present-day northern Bulgaria (Moesia), most of Thrace, as well as over north-eastern Macedonia. After the Christian population of the bishoprics of Skopje and Ohrid voted in 1874 overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate (Skopje by 91%, Ohrid by 97%) the Bulgarian Exarchate became in control of the whole of Macedonia (Vardar and Pirin Macedonia). The Exarchate was also represented in the whole of Greek Macedonia and the Vilayet of Adrianople by vicars. Thus, the borders of the Exarchate included all Bulgarian districts in the Ottoman Empire. The process of constituting the Exarchate as legal institution was important part of nation-building process. A meeting of the Bulgarian leaders in Constantinople chaired by Gavril Krastevich is convened on March 13, 1870 to elect ten civil members of the Temporary church council. The council includes also the six Bulgarian bishops which constitute the Exarchate's Synod. The role of newly found council have been to create draft for the Exarchate's Statute, which prescribes the inner administrative order of the Bulgarian autocephalous church. Over the next ten months, the council have discussed ideas about Exarchate's Statue.