The ecclesiastical council has its sphere of action in religious matters and is the highest religious authority in the Turkish empire. The political or civil council is the civil authority, and has four sub-councils or committees under its supervision through which to operate, namely, council of Revenues, council of Expenditures, Judicatory Council and Educational Council (or the committee on Education). These names indicate the sphere of their activities or duties. This mode of operation or division of the work is carried out into the provinces wherever Armenians are found. The Bishops or their substitutes are the presidents of these provincial councils. And all the councils and sub-councils in the provinces and in the districts of Constantinople are amenable to the General Assembly, and the Assembly and the Patriarch to the Porte.[76] Oppressions, resulting from wars, political and religious, persecutions, the division of the country among different powers, and the desire of the people to better themselves have caused the people to scatter from their paternal homes all over the world. An early company of emigrants entered India via Persia. After the appearance of the East India Company, the Armenians rendered the Company very important services, acting as interpreters. Thus they also received special privileges as traders and became very wealthy. In every important city they have their churches and schools and printing press. They have been also liberal in giving large sums for the education of the poor and orphan Armenian children. The Armenians in Persia, or under the Persian rule, are not in a very desirable condition, from a religious and educational point of view. Especially those living in Western Persia, or Pers-Armenia, are subject to all sorts of cruelties at the hands of the Kurds, with whom they unfortunately neighbor. But the presence of the Russian armies who occupy these regions may be the end of oppression in the East. Russia having in the last century wrested from Persia and Turkey a large portion of Armenia, there are over a million of Armenians in the Armenian provinces of Russia, besides those who reside in the commercial cities of the same empire. Their financial and intellectual condition is far better than that of those living in Persia, or in the interior of the Turkish provinces of Armenia. Now that the entire Armenia is occupied by the Russian forces, the prospect is that probably the dawn of the liberty of the long oppressed Armenians is at hand. Russia of this century is different from the Russia of the past. She will be liberty-loving, the good company that she is in will guide her to heal the wounds made in the past, and make those who have served her faithfully, both in the past and at the present, acknowledge her as their liberator.