During 1894 – 1923 the Ottoman Empire conducted a policy of genocide against the Christian population living within its extensive territory . The Sultan , Abdul Hamid , issued an official governmental policy of genocide against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1894 . Systematic massacres took place in 1894 – 1896 when Abdul savagely killed 300,000 Armenians throughout the provinces . In 1909 government troops killed , in the towns of Adana alone , over 20,000 Christian Armenians . Also , in the first two decades of the 20th century , there were massacres of Greeks , Slavs , and Armenians in the Ottoman Empire , culminating in the Armenian , Greek and Assyrian genocides . As a result , the 20th century saw a sharp decline of the number of Orthodox Christians , and of Christians in general , in the Anatolian peninsula amidst complaints of Turkish governmental repression of various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox groups
Armenian
Armenian Genocide
History of the Eastern Orthodox Church