MIKAEL PASHA PORTUGAL

Mikael Pasha was born in Ortaköy in 1842. His father, Hovsep Portugal, was the inspector of the imperial jewelers at the mint, a person of upright and honest character who had never sinned against his conscience, and who had commanded the respect and esteem of his colleagues. He was recognized as one of the honorable members of the Armenian Catholic community.

Early on, he had sought to impress upon his son’s mind the principles of strict virtue, principles that Mikael Portugal would become a zealous guardian of. Behold an example of that moral virtue, which became a source of satisfaction for his own person and a good example for his son. One day, calling his son, Hovsep Portugal opens his desk and spreads before the youth’s eyes numerous precious diamonds that had been entrusted to him. "Do you see," he says, "this treasure, which represents a vast fortune? Well, I could take a handful of it and keep it without being noticed, thereby leaving you a great fortune. Do you know what stops me? I do not think of heavenly punishment in the afterlife, but rather the fear of disgracing myself before my own person, losing that which is above all the greatest riches of this world, namely my honor, which has always guided me in my life." The child, having become an adult, would prove that he had grasped this lesson well.

Mikael Portugal received his primary education at the Parish School of Saint Illuminator in Ortaköy, where he began attending when he was six years old. A precocious intelligence, an insatiable desire to learn, and a perseverance that nothing could stop, which caused astonishment at such a tender age, made him always the first among his classmates.