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Pretender to the throne, Sultan Jachia, who sought to Christianize the Ottoman Empire:

Sultan Jachia – Count Alexander of Montenegro (also Şehzade Yahya or Alexander Varna, 1585? –1648).
[A letter of Sultan Jachia to the Pope]
Lviv: November 3, 1645.

Count Alexander of Montenegro (circa 1585 – 1648), also known as Sultan Jachia or Şehzade Yahya, was a self-proclaimed son of Ottoman Sultan Murad III (1546 – 1595). He claimed that his mother, Elena, was a Christian from Trabzon who was forced to convert to Islam after being taken to Murad III’s harem. According to Jachia’s early biographies, he and his mother hid in Montenegro and later in other Balkan regions to escape the Sultan’s men and the threat of execution by his half-brother, the new Sultan Mehmed III, who sought to eliminate any rivals. Jachia was baptized in an Orthodox Christian ritual, and his mother eventually entered a monastery in Thessaloniki.

1645, in Lviv, during the author’s travels in Poland after arriving in Istanbul in June 1645. The author spent some time in Istanbul, disguised as a dervish (Catualdi 1889, p. 258). This letter is addressed to Pope Innocent X and details the author’s journey in disguise from Istanbul through Thessaloniki to Lviv.

The year 1645 was particularly turbulent for the Ottoman Empire’s relations with its Italian neighbors, as the peace treaty between the Venetian Republic and its allies, including the Papal States, concluded the Fifth Ottoman–Venetian War, which was largely fought over the island of Crete. By November, when this letter was written, it became clear that the war would continue for a longer period, with both the Ottoman Empire and the Venetians gathering resources to strengthen their military forces. Sultan Jachia likely believed that the increasing political tension with the Ottoman Empire would lead the Pope to recognize him as a legitimate Christian Sultan.

A year later, Jachia relocated to Venice, where he was legally known as Alexander Varna and held the title of Colonello. He was addressed as Serenissimo Sultano.

Although often overlooked in the history of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Jachia’s life has intrigued various authors and scholars from the early 17th century to the present day in Europe. To this day, there remains no clear consensus on whether he was a legitimate heir to the Ottoman throne or an impostor.

References: Vittorio Catualdi, Sultan Jahja dell’imperial casa ottomana od altrimenti Alessandro conte di Montenegro ed i suoi discendenti in Italia. Nuovi contributi alla storia della questione orientale …, 1889; Amanda Danielle Giammanco, (Self)Fashioning of an Ottoman Christian Prince: Jachia ibn Mehmed in confessional diplomacy of the early Seventeenth-Century, 2015 (with quoted older literature).