The sovereignty of the Commenos in the Black Sea Region is an important subject of the Middle Age history. However the studies carried out in this field are not sufficient enought to enlighten it in every respect. Thus related to the place of the Commenos dynasty in the Turkish and Byzantine histoıry there have been several arguments. Moreover, their sovereignty in the regioın has been described as the "Empire" by the western researchers, who take J. P. Fallmerayer as the model for their studies. They also gnore using the Turkish sources or other related sources to describe the political, ethnic and socio-cultural structure of the Black Sea region. Therefore, the book written by Tellioğlu handles the soverignity of the Comnenos using a wide range of sources and he manages to enlightne some contorversila problems referring to different sources and tries to enlighten some points lying in dark. Thus he makes some valubale contributions to the field of literature.

XXIX. century is the period through which the Ottoman State radically went some military, admnistrative, social, cultural and economic changes. Especially, when the Tanzimat was declared in 1839, non-muslims were granted some rights such as the guarantee of life, honor and property of the subjects, the equal status between the Muslims and the non-muslims and the equality before the law. Thus, in the course of time following the Tanzimat and the Islahat Edicts, some changes took place in the social, political, economic lives of both Muslims and non-muslims. Even though some had the Muslim identity, they practiced deception and retained their old faiths and rites. Paralel to the emergence of some political, social and edonomic changes peculiar to the XIX. century, when they were granted some rights, they felt more secure under the wings of the Western powers. Subsequently, some of them declared that they are not Muslims and this time they wanted to benefi t from the advantages of being a Chrtistian. As in the case of Kurumlis living in the north of Gümüşhan in the Trabzon (Trebizon) Povince, some goups offi cially registered as Muslims openly started to declare that they are not Muslims and demanded to convert to their own faith especially following the Islahat Edict (1856) . The purpose of this study is to use the accounts of some Western travelers and researchers who came to Trabzon in the XIX. century and analyze, question and evaluate their opinions about the existence of the Crypto-Christians living in Trabzon and in its vicinity.