query: who remained the head of the church in the eastern roman empire

pos: State church of the Roman Empire State church of the Roman Empire With the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the Empire's state religion. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church each stand in that continuity. Earlier in the 4th century, following the Diocletianic Persecution of 303-313 and the Donatist controversy that arose in consequence, Constantine had convened councils of bishops to define the "orthodoxy" of the Christian faith, expanding on earlier Christian councils. A series of ecumenical councils convened by successive emperors met during the 4th and 5th centuries, but Christianity continued to suffer rifts and

neg: Western Roman Empire Clovis I of the Franks; other kingdoms, such as the Visigoths, later followed suit to garner favor with the papacy. When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as "Roman Emperor" in 800, he both severed ties with the outraged Eastern Empire and established the precedent that no man in Western Europe would be emperor without a papal coronation. Although the power the Pope wielded changed significantly throughout the subsequent periods, the office itself has remained as the head of the Catholic Church and the head of state of the Vatican City. The Pope has consistently held the title of "Pontifex Maximus"

neg: Roman Empire the Ottomans, who based their state on the Byzantine model, took Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II established his capital there and claimed to sit on the throne of the Roman Empire. He even went so far as to launch an invasion of Italy with the purpose of re-uniting the Empire and invited European artists to his capital, including Gentile Bellini. In the medieval West, "Roman" came to mean the church and the Pope of Rome. The Greek form Romaioi remained attached to the Greek-speaking Christian population of the Eastern Roman Empire, and is still used by Greeks in addition to

neg: State church of the Roman Empire an outburst of missionary activity among these peoples, who had no direct links with the Eastern Roman Empire, and among Pictic and Celtic peoples who had never been part of the Roman Empire, fostered the idea of a universal church free from association with a particular state. On the contrary, "in the East Roman or Byzantine view, when the Roman Empire became Christian, the perfect world order willed by God had been achieved: one universal empire was sovereign, and coterminous with it was the one universal church"; and the church came, by the time of the demise of the Byzantine

neg: Great Church of the Roman Empire in 380. However, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, an Oriental Orthodox branch parted ways with the Great Church due to Christological differences. In contrast, in modern Catholic usage, the "Great Church" broadly means the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic" unity of the Catholic Church (Latin Church) and the Eastern Orthodox Church - both continuing in authority from the Apostles to today - and all bishops who remained in fellowship with the Pope. The sees of Rome and Constantinople, both applying the Chalcedonian Definition, remained in full communion throughout the First seven ecumenical councils (325–787)

neg: History of Armenia occupied Armenia in 252 and held it until the Romans returned in 287. In 384 the kingdom was split between the Byzantine or East Roman Empire and the Persians. Western Armenia quickly became a province of the Roman Empire under the name of Armenia Minor; Eastern Armenia remained a kingdom within Persia until 428, when the local nobility overthrew the king, and the Sassanids installed a governor in his place. According to tradition, the Armenian Apostolic Church was established by two of Jesus' twelve apostles — Thaddaeus and Bartholomew — who preached Christianity in Armenia in the 40s—60s AD. Between

neg: Holy Roman Empire kingdom with Papal lands. In 797, the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VI was removed from the throne by his mother Irene who declared herself Empress. As the Church regarded a male Roman Emperor as the head of Christendom, Pope Leo III sought a new candidate for the dignity. Charlemagne's good service to the Church in his defense of Papal possessions against the Lombards made him the ideal candidate. On Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the West for the first time in over three centuries. In 802, Irene was overthrown by Nikephoros

neg: Episcopal polity "Apostolic See", it remained the last court of episcopal appeal in serious matters for the whole Church, East and West. However, the center of the civilized Roman world had shifted definitively to Constantinople, or New Rome, the capital of the Greek speaking Empire. Along with this shift, the effective administration of the Church in the Eastern Roman Empire also shifted. This practical eminence of Constantinople in the East is evident, first at the First Council of Constantinople 381, and then ecumenically at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Beginning with John the Faster (John IV, 582-595), the Bishop of Constantinople

neg: Catholic Church issued 380 by Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire, when establishing the state church of the Roman Empire. Since the East–West Schism of 1054, the Eastern Church has taken the adjective "Orthodox" as its distinctive epithet (however, its official name continues to be the "Orthodox Catholic Church") and the Western Church in communion with the Holy See has similarly taken "Catholic", keeping that description also after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when those who ceased to be in communion became known as "Protestants". While the

neg: Christianity in the 4th century Armenians who broke from the Church in the 5th century and established ethnic churches at the cost of their universality and catholicity, the eastern and western parts of the Church remained loyal to the faith and authority of the seven ecumenical councils. They were united, by virtue of their common faith and tradition, in one Church. The Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and the ecclesiastics of the Orthodox church are based in the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulchre constructed in 335 AD. Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. Emperor Diocletian divided the administration of

neg: East–West Schism in America says that the Bishop of Byzantium was elevated to Patriarch already in the time of Constantine. Disunion in the Roman Empire contributed to disunion in the Church. Theodosius the Great, who in 380 established Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (see Edict of Thessalonica), was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire. Following the death of Theodosius in 395, the Empire was divided for the final time into western and eastern halves. In the 4th century, the Roman emperor (reigning in Constantinople) started to control the Church in his territory. The

neg: Ecclesiastical Latin the primarily language of the Church as well as the language of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Following the split, early theologians like Jerome translated Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, the dominant language of the Western Roman Empire. The loss of Greek in the Western half of the Roman Empire, and the loss of Latin in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire were not immediate, but changed the culture of language as well as the development of the Church. The use of Latin in the Western Church continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the time

neg: Catholicos Catholicos Catholicos, plural Catholicoi, is a title used for the head of certain churches in some Eastern Christian traditions. The title implies autocephaly and in some cases it is the title of the head of an autonomous church. The word comes from ancient Greek καθολικός, pl. καθολικοί, derived from καθ' ὅλου ("kath'olou", "generally") from κατά ("kata", "down") and ὅλος ("holos", "whole"), meaning "concerning the whole, universal, general"; it originally designated a financial or civil office in the Roman Empire. The name of the Catholic Church comes from the same word. The Church of the East, some Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox

neg: Albania under the Byzantine Empire the eastern Roman Empire, supplanting pagan polytheism. But, though the country was in the fold of Byzantium, Christians in the region remained under the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome until 732. In that year the iconoclast Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian, angered by archbishops of the region because they had supported Rome in the Iconoclastic Controversy, detached the church of the province from the Roman pope and placed it under the patriarch of Constantinople. When the Christian church split in 1054 between the East and Rome,the region of southern Albania retained its ties to Constantinople while the north

neg: History of the Catholic Church in Germany in 774 he confirmed the gift of his father to the Roman res publica, nevertheless he saw to it that Rome remained connected with the Frankish State; in return it had a claim to Frankish protection. He also interfered in dogmatic questions. Charlemagne looked upon the revived Roman Empire from the ancient point of view inasmuch as he greatly desired recognition by the Eastern Empire. He regarded his possession of the empire as resulting solely from his own power, consequently he himself crowned his son Louis. Yet on the other hand he looked upon his empire only as a Christian

neg: Matthew Festing and nowadays represents the Order's claim to sovereign status. The sovereign Prince was created "ex officio" a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1607 (as an honorary title, as the Prince and Grand Master was already a Head of State in his own right outside the Empire), as well as the style of "Most Eminent Highness" from the Pope in 1630, recognising his status as a Prince of the Church. In the order of precedence in the Catholic Church Fra' Matthew was the highest-ranked officer following the Cardinals, and remained the only leader of

neg: Eastern Orthodoxy in Bulgaria Eastern Orthodoxy in Bulgaria The Eastern Orthodox Church in Bulgaria has deep roots, extending back to the 5th and 7th centuries when the Slavs and the Bulgars, respectively, adopted Byzantine Christianity in the period of the First Bulgarian Empire (681-1018). Prior to this official conversion, Christianity had spread to the region during Roman and early Byzantine times. After the 1054 Great Schism, the Church of Bulgaria remained in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and other Eastern Orthodox Churches. It bears the distinction of being the oldest Slavic Christian Church in the Orthodox communion. According to the most recent

neg: Church Fathers form of communal monasticism). He may have been a bishop, and later Syriac tradition places him at the head of Mar Matti monastery near Mosul, in what is now northern Iraq. He was a near contemporary to the slightly younger Ephrem the Syrian, but the latter lived within the sphere of the Roman Empire. Called the "Persian Sage" (, ḥakkîmâ p̄ārsāyā), Aphrahat witnesses to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire. Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306 – 373) was a Syriac deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century

neg: Aegina of Aegina, Gabriel and Thomas, in the Councils of Constantinople in 869 and 879. The see was at first a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Corinth, but was later given the rank of archdiocese. No longer a residential bishopric, Aegina is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. Aegina belonged to the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire after the division of the Roman Empire in 395. It remained Eastern Roman during the period of crisis of the 7th–8th centuries, when most of the Balkans and the Greek mainland were overrun by Slavic invasions. Indeed, according to the

neg: Irene of Athens a woman unfit to be Emperor. However, Charlemagne made no claim to the Eastern Roman Empire. Whether he actually desired a coronation at all, remains controversial - his biographer Einhard related that Charlemagne had been surprised by the Pope - but the Eastern Empire felt its role as the sole Roman Empire threatened and began to emphasize its superiority and its Roman identity. Relations between the two Empires remained difficult. Irene is said to have endeavoured a marriage alliance between herself and Charlemagne, but according to Theophanes the Confessor, who alone mentions it, the scheme was frustrated by Aetios, one

neg: Serbia wider) were: Singidunum (Belgrade), Viminacium (now Old Kostolac), Remesiana (now Bela Palanka), Naissos (Niš), and Sirmium (now Sremska Mitrovica), the latter of which served as a Roman capital during the Tetrarchy. Seventeen Roman Emperors were born in the area of modern-day Serbia, second only to contemporary Italy. The most famous of these was Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor, who issued an edict ordering religious tolerance throughout the Empire. When the Roman Empire was divided in 395, most of Serbia remained under the Eastern Roman Empire, while its northwestern parts were included in the Western Roman Empire. By the

neg: Roman law "Basilica". Roman law as preserved in the codes of Justinian and in the Basilica remained the basis of legal practice in Greece and in the courts of the Eastern Orthodox Church even after the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the conquest by the Turks, and, along with the Syro-Roman law book, also formed the basis for much of the "Fetha Negest", which remained in force in Ethiopia until 1931. In the west, Justinian's political authority never went any farther than certain portions of the Italian and Hispanic peninsulas. In Law codes were issued by the Germanic kings, however, the

neg: St. Francis's Church, Wetzikon St. Francis's Church, Wetzikon The Church of Saint Francis is a Roman Catholic parish church located in Wetzikon, Switzerland. Christianity was first brought to modern-day Switzerland's Zürcher Oberland by the Roman Empire, who built the region's first Christian church at Irgenhausen Castrum on the Pfäffikersee. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Christianity returned to eastern Switzerland because of the work of the monks Gallus and Columbanus. The first church in Wetzikon, perhaps mentioned in a document from 857, was destroyed by fire in 1320. The township replaced it a decade later, but it was under the control of the

neg: St. Francis's Church, Wetzikon Frank Roskothen, Pius Bieri, and Barbara Ziegenfuss. St. Francis's Church, Wetzikon The Church of Saint Francis is a Roman Catholic parish church located in Wetzikon, Switzerland. Christianity was first brought to modern-day Switzerland's Zürcher Oberland by the Roman Empire, who built the region's first Christian church at Irgenhausen Castrum on the Pfäffikersee. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Christianity returned to eastern Switzerland because of the work of the monks Gallus and Columbanus. The first church in Wetzikon, perhaps mentioned in a document from 857, was destroyed by fire in 1320. The township replaced it a decade later, but

neg: History of Germany was divided among Charles the Great's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state. In the Late Middle Ages, the regional dukes, princes and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained as the Catholics. The two parts of the Holy Roman Empire clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty

neg: Christianity in the 13th century Christianity in the 13th century The Eastern Roman ("Byzantine") imperial church headed by Constantinople continued to assert its universal authority. By the 13th century this assertion was becoming increasingly irrelevant as the Eastern Roman Empire shrank and the Ottoman Turks took over most of what was left of the Byzantine Empire (indirectly aided by invasions from the West). The other Eastern European churches in communion with Constantinople were not part of its empire and were increasingly acting independently, achieving autocephalous status and only nominally acknowledging Constantinople's standing in the Church hierarchy. In Western Europe the Holy Roman Empire fragmented making

neg: İzmit Nicomedes I of Bithynia in 264 BC under the name of Nicomedia. It remained one of the most important cities in northwestern Asia Minor. Hannibal came to Nicomedia in his final years and committed suicide in nearby Libyssa (Gebze). The historian Arrian was born there. Nicomedia was the metropolis of Bithynia under the Roman Empire (see Nicaea), and Diocletian made it the eastern capital city of the Roman Empire in 286 when he introduced the Tetrarchy system. Nicomedia remained as the eastern (and most senior) capital of the Roman Empire until Licinius was defeated by Constantine the Great in 324.

neg: Medieval Greek was the political centre of the eastern parts of the Roman Empire where Greek was the dominant language. At first, Latin remained the language of both the court and the army. It was used for official documents, but its influence waned. From the beginning of the 6th century, amendments to the law were mostly written in Greek. Furthermore, parts of the Roman Corpus Iuris Civilis were gradually translated into Greek. Under the rule of Emperor Heraclius (610–641 AD), who also assumed the Greek title "Basileus" (Greek: βασιλεύς, "monarch") in 629, Greek became the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire.

neg: History of Eastern Orthodox theology ecclesiastical and imperial issues were hotly debated during that period. In the years following Chalcedon the patriarchs of Constantinople intermittently remained in communion with the non-Chalcedonian patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, (see Henotikon) while Rome remained out of communion with the latter and in unstable communion with Constantinople. It was not until 518 that the new Byzantine Emperor, Justin I (who accepted Chalcedon), demanded that the Church in the Roman Empire accept the Council's decisions. Justin ordered the replacement of all non-Chalcedonian bishops, including the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. The extent of the influence of the Bishop of Rome

neg: Ancient history Greece came under Roman rule, ruled from the province of Macedonia. In 27 BC, Augustus organised the Greek peninsula into the province of Achaea. Greece remained under Roman control until the break up of the Roman empire, in which it remained part of the Eastern Empire. Much of Greece remained under Byzantine control until the end of the Byzantine empire in 1453 AD. Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of the city-state of Rome, originating as a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula in the 9th century BC. In its twelve centuries of existence, Roman civilization

neg: Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) a dozen years. In 387, the Kingdom of Armenia was split between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire. Western Armenia first became a province of the Roman Empire under the name of Armenia Minor, and later Byzantine Armenia; Eastern Armenia remained a kingdom within Persia until, in 428, the local nobility overthrew the king, and the Sassanids installed a governor in his place, beginning the Marzpanate period over Persian Armenia. Those parts of historical Armenia remained firmly under Persian control until the Muslim conquest of Persia, while the Byzantine parts remained until being conquered, also by invading Arabic

neg: Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria end of the 960s, the Eastern Roman Empire paid the Kievan prince Sviatoslav to attack Bulgaria. The unexpected collapse of Bulgaria and Sviatoslav's ambitions to seize Constantinople caught the Eastern Roman Empire off-guard but they managed to pull back the Kievan armies and occupied eastern Bulgaria including the capital Preslav in 971. Emperor Boris II was captured and taken to Constantinople where he abdicated and the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes announced the annexation of Bulgaria, even though the Eastern Roman Empire only controlled Eastern Bulgaria at the time, but the lands to the west remained under Bulgarian control. The

neg: History of Albania civilians during that time. When the Roman empire was divided into eastern and western halves in AD 395, Illyria east of the Drinus River (Drina between Bosnia and Serbia), including the lands form Albania, were administered by the Eastern Empire but were ecclesiastically dependent on Rome. Though the country was in the fold of Byzantium, Christians in the region remained under the jurisdiction of the Pope until 732. In that year the iconoclast Byzantine emperor Leo III, angered by archbishops of the region because they had supported Rome in the Iconoclastic Controversy, detached the church of the province from the

neg: Muʻa (Tongatapu) eastern branch of Tupou high school) in the north-east. Lapaha has a government primary school and a high school run by the Roman Catholic Church (Takuilau) at the eastern end of the village. Mua was at one time the center of Lapita culture in Tonga (about 2,000 years ago) and later (twelfth to sixteenth century CE) the capital of the Tui Tonga Empire. After the disintegration of the empire it remained the capital of the Tui Tonga (Tonga kings), up to the nineteenth century, but was rather a spiritual centre and no longer a source of political power. The Tui

neg: Latins states were incorporated within the Roman state, and their inhabitants were given full Roman citizenship. Others became Roman allies and enjoyed certain privileges. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Europeans held on to the "Latin" identity, more specifically, in the sense of the "Romans", as members of the Empire. In the Eastern Roman Empire, and the broader Greek-Orthodox world, "Latins" was a synonym for all people who followed Roman Catholic Christianity. It was generally a negative characterization, especially after the 1054 schism. "Latins" is still used by the Orthodox church communities, but only in a theological context.

neg: Catholicos of India The position was created in the 20th century, amid a series of splits within the local Malankara Church and the broader Syriac Orthodox communion that divided the community into rival Indian Orthodox and Jacobite Syrian factions. It was instituted to provide a regional head for Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the faction that remained closely aligned with the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. The word is a transliteration of the Greek καθολικός, pl. καθολικοί, meaning concerning the whole, universal or general. It was a title that existed in the Roman Empire where Government representative who was in charge of a large

neg: Anatolia his kingdom to the Roman Republic, and western and central Anatolia came under Roman control, but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey, brought all of Anatolia under Roman control, except for the eastern frontier with the Parthian Empire, which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of wars, culminating in the Roman-Parthian Wars. After the division of the Roman Empire, Anatolia became part of the East Roman, or Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was one of the first places where Christianity spread, so that by the 4th century AD, western and

neg: £sd rated equal to 1 gold solidus – a 4th-century Roman coin that was rare but which still circulated; and, since 240 denarii were cut from one Roman "libra" of silver, 240 denarii therefore equalled one pound ("livre" in France, "peso" in Spain, etc.). Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, new currencies were introduced in Western Europe though (Eastern) Roman currencies remained popular. In the Eastern Roman Empire, the currencies gradually evolved away from the solidi and denarii. In the eighth century, Charlemagne re-introduced and refined the system by decreeing that the money of the Holy Roman Empire should

neg: Military history of Europe migrations from Asia, caused a ripple effect of Eastern Europeans migrating west from barbarians, most well known of these the Huns. The Western Roman Empire fell to these barbarians helped with the fact of economic inflation and internal strife. The Eastern Roman Empire still remained untouched until the late Middle Ages. The early parts of the medieval period known as the Dark Ages saw the first conflicts with the Eastern Roman Empire which continued to fight the Persians in the Roman-Persian Wars and against the Muslim conquests shortly after. In the Medieval period, feudalism was firmly implanted, and there existed

neg: History of theology of Nicaea) include: Texts from patristic authors before 325 AD are collected in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Influential texts and writers between 325 AD and c. 500 AD include: Texts from patristic authors after 325 AD are collected in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Important theological debates also surrounded the various Ecumenical Councils – Nicaea in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451 See also main articles on Patristics and Church Fathers. While the Western Roman Empire declined and fell, the Eastern Roman Empire, centred on Constantinople, remained standing until 1453, and was the home of a

neg: State church of the Roman Empire Empire in 1453, to merge psychologically with it to the extent that its bishops had difficulty in thinking of Christianity without an emperor. Modern authors refer to the church associated with the emperor in a variety of ways: as the "catholic church", the "orthodox church", the "imperial church", the "imperial Roman church", or the "Byzantine church", although some of these terms are also used for wider communions extending outside the Roman Empire. The legacy of the idea of a universal church carries on, directly or indirectly, in today's Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as in others, such

neg: History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire in the abolition of the "Caesares". Ultimately this constitution survived, in one form or another, until the Roman Empire fell in 476. Diocletian's division of the empire into west and east set the stage for ages to come, and was a significant factor behind the ultimate division of the Christian church into western Roman Catholic and eastern Greek Orthodox, while his division of the empire into prefectures and dioceses is used by the Catholic Church to this day. History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire The History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire is a study

neg: Sack of Rome (410) rebelled and began looting and pillaging throughout the eastern Balkans. A Roman army, led by the Eastern Roman emperor Valens, marched to put them down. At the Battle of Adrianople in 378, Fritigern decisively defeated emperor Valens, who was killed in battle. Peace was eventually established in 382 when the new eastern emperor, Theodosius I, signed a treaty with the Thervings, who would become known as the Visigoths. The treaty made the Visigoths subjects of the empire as foederati. They were allotted the northern part of the dioceses of Dacia and Thrace, and while the land remained under Roman sovereignty

neg: Uckermark Lake Oberuckersee (near modern Prenzlau). In 954, Margrave Gero of the Saxon Eastern March (the "marca Geronis"), aided by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I's son-in-law, Conrad of Lorraine, launched a successful campaign to subdue the Ukrani, who had come in reach of the Empire after the 929 Battle of Lenzen. After the 983 revolt of the Obodrites and Liutizians, the area became independent again, yet remained under permanent military pressure, especially from Poland and the Holy Roman Empire. In 1172 Pomeranian dukes, vassals of the Duchy of Saxony, later of the Holy Roman Empire, controlled the area. In the course

neg: Europe England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament. The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe. The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying

neg: Middle Ages settlement of peoples was accompanied by changes in languages. Latin, the literary language of the Western Roman Empire, was gradually replaced by vernacular languages which evolved from Latin, but were distinct from it, collectively known as Romance languages. These changes from Latin to the new languages took many centuries. Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire, but the migrations of the Slavs added Slavic languages to Eastern Europe. As Western Europe witnessed the formation of new kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and experienced an economic revival that lasted into the early 7th century. There were fewer invasions

neg: Western Europe Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Carolingian Empire), the division between Roman Catholic and Protestant became more important in Europe than that with Eastern Orthodoxy. In East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as "taixi" in China and "taisei" in Japan, which literally translates as the "Far West". The term Far West became synonymous with Western

neg: Serinhisar the Roman Empire was divided in 395 the area remained within the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) and was then possessed by the Seljuk Turks in 1077, who ruled until 1308. Turkmens (from Oghuz Turks' Avsar and Kayi tribe) were settled in the district in this period. Seljuk rule was interrupted by the Crusades, Genghis Khan, and Timurlane, who left the area under the rule of the Germiyan dynasty, from whom it passed to the Ottoman Empire in 1429. The castle fell into ruin in the Ottoman period and was broken up for building materials, being finally demolished in 1954. During

neg: Roman art funerary sculpture thrived, while full-sized sculpture in the round and panel painting died out, most likely for religious reasons. When Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople), Roman art incorporated Eastern influences to produce the Byzantine style of the late empire. When Rome was sacked in the 5th century, artisans moved to and found work in the Eastern capital. The Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople employed nearly 10,000 workmen and artisans, in a final burst of Roman art under Emperor Justinian (527–565 CE), who also ordered the creation of the famous mosaics of Basilica of

neg: State church of the Roman Empire schisms surrounding the issues of Arianism, Nestorianism, and Miaphysitism. In the 5th century the Western Empire decayed as a polity: invaders sacked Rome in 410 and in 455, and Odoacer, an Arian barbarian warlord, forced Romulus Augustus, the last nominal Western Emperor, to abdicate in 476. However, apart from the aforementioned schisms, the church as an institution persisted in communion, if not without tension, between the east and west. In the 6th century the Byzantine armies of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I recovered Italy and other sections of the western Mediterranean shore. The Eastern Roman Empire soon lost most

neg: History of the papacy of the peninsula known as the Papal States. Thereafter, the role of neighboring sovereigns was replaced by powerful Roman families during the "saeculum obscurum", the Crescentii era, and the Tusculan Papacy. From 1048 to 1257, the papacy experienced increasing conflict with the leaders and churches of the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). The latter culminated in the East–West Schism, dividing the Western Church and Eastern Church. From 1257–1377, the pope, though the bishop of Rome, resided in Viterbo, Orvieto, and Perugia, and then Avignon. The return of the popes to Rome after the Avignon Papacy

neg: Antichrist Empire, is the Papacy. In 533, Justinian I, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire (sometimes referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire), legally recognized the bishop (pope) of Rome as the head of all the Christian churches. Because of the Arian domination of some of the Roman Empire by barbarian tribes, the bishop of Rome could not fully exercise such authority. In 538, Belisarius, one of Justinian's generals, freed the city of Rome from its Arian barbarian Ostrogoth besiegers and the bishop of Rome could begin establishing universal civil authority. So, by the military intervention of the Eastern Roman Empire,

neg: Western Roman Empire the 6th century, inasmuch as gifts from the senate were received by Emperor Tiberius II in 578 and 580. The traditional senate building, Curia Julia, was rebuilt into a church under Pope Honorius I in 630, probably with permission from the eastern emperor, Heraclius. Marcellinus Comes, a sixth-century Eastern Roman historian and a courtier of Justinian I, mentions the Western Roman Empire in his "Chronicle", which primarily covers the Eastern Roman Empire from 379 to 534. In the "Chronicle", it is clear that Marcellinus made a clear divide between East and West, with mentions of a geographical east (""Oriens"") and

neg: Charlemagne the one man who by his wisdom and statesmanship and the vastness of his dominions ... stood out head and shoulders above his contemporaries." With Charlemagne's coronation, therefore, "the Roman Empire remained, so far as either of them [Charlemagne and Leo] were concerned, one and indivisible, with Charles as its Emperor", though there can have been "little doubt that the coronation, with all that it implied, would be furiously contested in Constantinople". Alcuin writes hopefully in his letters of an "Imperium Christianum" ("Christian Empire"), wherein, "just as the inhabitants of the [Roman Empire] had been united by a common Roman

neg: East–West Schism one, Mark of Ephesus, who held that Rome continued in both heresy and schism. It seemed that the Great Schism had been ended. However, upon their return, the Eastern bishops found their agreement with the West broadly rejected by the populace and by civil authorities (with the notable exception of the Emperors of the East who remained committed to union until the Fall of Constantinople two decades later). The union signed at Florence has never been accepted by the Eastern churches. In May 1453, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the invading Ottoman Empire. But Orthodox Christianity

neg: Catholicos recognized the "Code of Particular Canons of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church" (2012) which very well illustrates the title Catholicos. Catholicos Catholicos, plural Catholicoi, is a title used for the head of certain churches in some Eastern Christian traditions. The title implies autocephaly and in some cases it is the title of the head of an autonomous church. The word comes from ancient Greek καθολικός, pl. καθολικοί, derived from καθ' ὅλου ("kath'olou", "generally") from κατά ("kata", "down") and ὅλος ("holos", "whole"), meaning "concerning the whole, universal, general"; it originally designated a financial or civil office in the Roman Empire. The name

neg: Roman law the Roman law remained in effect in the Eastern Roman Empire. From the 7th century onward, the legal language in the East was Greek. "Roman law" also denoted the legal system applied in most of Western Europe until the end of the 18th century. In Germany, Roman law practice remained in place longer under the Holy Roman Empire (963–1806). Roman law thus served as a basis for legal practice throughout Western continental Europe, as well as in most former colonies of these European nations, including Latin America, and also in Ethiopia. English and Anglo-American common law were influenced also by

neg: Legacy of the Roman Empire in the Roman Catholic Church as Ecclesiastical Latin. Vulgar Latin, the common tongue used for regular social interactions, evolved simultaneously into the various Romance languages that exist today (notably Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.). Although the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century AD, the Eastern Roman Empire continued until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century AD and cemented the Greek language in many parts of the Eastern Mediterranean even after the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century AD. Although there has been a small modern revival of the Hellenistic religion with Hellenism,

neg: Macedonian Wars not as a matter of intentional empire-building, but constant crisis management narrowly focused on accomplishing short-term goals within a highly unstable, unpredictable, and inter-dependent network of alliances and dependencies. With some major exceptions of outright military rule (such as parts of mainland Greece), the eastern Mediterranean world remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms (with varying degrees of independence, both "de jure" and "de facto") until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It wasn't until the time of the Roman Empire that the eastern Mediterranean, along with the entire Roman world, was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control.

neg: History of Bulgaria nobility chose to join the Eastern Roman Empire. However, Bulgaria lost its independence and remained subject to Byzantium for more than a century and a half. With the collapse of the state, the Bulgarian church fell under the domination of Byzantine ecclesiastics who took control of the Ohrid Archibishopric. No evidence remains of major resistance or any uprising of the Bulgarian population or nobility in the first decade after the establishment of Byzantine rule. Given the existence of such irreconcilable opponents to the Byzantines as Krakra, Nikulitsa, Dragash and others, such apparent passivity seems difficult to explain. Some historians explain

neg: Europe remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and brought the Christian church under state control. From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were severely weakened due the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the Muslim Arabs began to

neg: Autocephaly Autocephaly Autocephaly (; from , meaning "property of being self-headed") is the status of a hierarchical Christian Church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Independent Catholic churches. In the first centuries of history of the Christian church, the autocephalous status of a local church was promulgated by canons of the ecumenical councils. Thus, there developed the pentarchy, i.e. a model of Church organization where the universal Church was governed by the primates (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople,

neg: Free Dacians Free Dacians The so-called Free Dacians (Romanian: Daci liberi) is the name given by some modern historians to those Dacians who putatively remained outside, or emigrated from, the Roman Empire after the emperor Trajan's Dacian Wars (AD 101-6). Dio Cassius named them "Dakoi prosoroi" (Latin: "Daci limitanei") meaning "neighbouring Dacians". A substantial population of Dacians existed on the fringes of the Balkan Roman provinces, especially in the eastern Carpathian Mountains, at least until about AD 340. They were responsible for a series of incursions into Roman Dacia in the period AD 120-272, and into the Roman Empire south of the

neg: Headscarf and bonnets. Many Anabaptist Christian women (Amish/Para-Amish, Brethren, Bruderhof, Hutterites and Mennonites) wear their headscarf at all times, except when sleeping. In countries with large Eastern Orthodox Christianity population such as Romania or Russia headscarves and veils are used by Christian women in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East, and Roman Catholic Church. A few years back, all women in Russia who attended Divine Liturgy wore head-coverings. A woman having her head covered means that she honors the Lord. Head-coverings also symbolizes that a woman is married and that her husband is the head

neg: Theological differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church the East–West Schism of 1054. This schism was caused by historical and linguistic developments, and the ensuing theological differences between the Western and Eastern churches. The Roman Empire was divided into a predominantly Greek speaking Eastern half and a Latin speaking Western half, resulting in a separation into two empires: The Western Empire and the Eastern Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium) with the passing of Theodosius I in AD 395. With the fall of the Western Empire in 476 AD, the whole of what had been the western part of the empire was ruled by Germanic

neg: Crete Gortyn was made capital of the island, and Crete became a Roman province, along with Cyrenaica that was called Creta et Cyrenaica. When Diocletian redivided the Empire, Crete was placed, along with Cyrene, under the diocese of Moesia, and later by Constantine I to the diocese of Macedonia. Crete was separated from Cyrenaica . It remained a province within the eastern half of the Roman Empire, usually referred to as the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire after the establishment of a second capital in Constantinople by Constantine in 330. Crete was subjected to an attack by Vandals in 467, the great

neg: Bayeux 'New market of the Badiocassi') and remained so until the time of the Roman Empire. The main street was already the heart of the city. Two baths, under the Church of St. Lawrence and the post office in rue Laitière, and a sculpted head of the goddess Minerva have been found, attesting to the adoption of Roman culture. In 1990 a closer examination of huge blocks discovered in the cathedral in the 19th century indicated the presence of an old Roman building. Bayeux was built on a crossroads between Lisieux and Valognes, developing first on the west bank of the

neg: Fulcher of Chartres Lady of Chartres". The details of the Council of Clermont in his history suggest he attended the council personally, or knew someone who did, perhaps bishop Ivo of Chartres, who also influenced Fulcher's opinions on Roman Catholic Church reform and the investiture controversy with the Holy Roman Empire. Fulcher was part of the entourage of Count Stephen of Blois and Robert of Normandy which made its way through southern France and Italy in 1096, crossing into the Eastern Roman Empire from Bari and arriving in Constantinople in 1097, where they joined with the other armies of the First Crusade. He

neg: Second Council of Lyon Holy Roman Emperor, ending the Interregnum. Wishing to end the Great Schism that divided the Roman Catholic Church from the Eastern Orthodox Church, Gregory X had sent an embassy to Michael VIII Palaeologus, who had reconquered Constantinople, putting an end to the remnants of the Latin Empire in the East, and he asked Latin despots in the East to curb their ambitions. Eastern dignitaries arrived at Lyon on 24 June 1274 presenting a letter from the Emperor. On 29 June 1274 (the Feast of Peter and Paul, patronal feast of the popes), Gregory celebrated Mass in St John's Church where

neg: Roman diocese in that, because of the close integration of the secular and ecclesiastical leadership in the Empire, the areas of ecclesiastical administration always coincided with those of the Roman civil administration. Therefore, as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches began to define their administrative structures, they relied on the older Roman terminology and methods to describe administrative units and hierarchy, which often caused the division between ecclesiastical and secular authority to disappear. In the Eastern Empire, this became fundamental doctrine: see Caesaropapism and State church of the Roman Empire. A millennium later this process would be somewhat repeated when the Ottoman

neg: Imperial Roman army staff. However, the clinical head of the legion's medical service was the chief physician, called simply the "Medicus" (the capital "M" here is used to distinguish from several other ranks of "medicus"). Most often an ethnic-Greek from the eastern part of the Empire, the "Medicus" was generally a highly qualified practitioner, occasionally even a published academic. The most notable example is Pedanius Dioscorides, an army surgeon in the time of Nero, who published "Materia Medica", which remained for centuries the standard textbook on medicine. The rank of the "Medicus" is uncertain, but was probably on a par with the military

neg: Western Roman Empire some attribute to Odoacer or the previous, deposed emperor Glycerius, and the Eastern Emperor Zeno chose not to appoint a new western emperor. Zeno, recognizing that no true Roman control remained over the territories legally governed by the Western court, instead chose to abolish the juridical division of the position of Emperor and declared himself the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Zeno became the first sole Roman emperor since the division after Theodosius I, 85 years prior, and the position would never again be divided. As such, the (eastern) Roman emperors after 480 are the successors of the western

neg: Chaldean Catholic Church the East sought to increasingly distance itself from the Greek Orthodox Church (at the time being known as the church of the Eastern Roman Empire). Therefore, in 424, the bishops of the Sasanian Empire met in council under the leadership of Catholicos Dadishoʿ (421–456) and determined that they would not, henceforth, refer disciplinary or theological problems to any external power, and especially not to any bishop or Church Council in the Roman Empire. Thus, the Mesopotamian churches did not send representatives to the various Church Councils attended by representatives of the "Western Church". Accordingly, the leaders of the Church of

neg: Aelia Flaccilla He had however survived his only son, Valentinianus Galates. His nephew Gratian, Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was his heir and assumed control of the Eastern Empire with his younger half-brother Valentinian II as his nominal co-ruler. On 19 January, Gratian declared Theodosius, "magister militum per Illyricum", to be his new colleague in the Eastern Roman Empire. Theodosius seems to have been the senior officer of Roman origins available for promotion at the time. Merobaudes and Frigeridus, the two "magistri militum in praesenti" were probably not considered due to their Germanic origins. Several other equivalent positions remained vacant since

neg: Greeks from both Christianity and the Homeric tradition of ancient Greece. The Eastern Roman Empire (today conventionally named the "Byzantine Empire", a name not used during its own time) became increasingly influenced by Greek culture after the 7th century when Emperor Heraclius ( 610–641 AD) decided to make Greek the empire's official language. Although the Catholic Church recognized the Eastern Empire's claim to the Roman legacy for several centuries, after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, king of the Franks, as the "Roman Emperor" on 25 December 800, an act which eventually led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, the

neg: His Eminence Eastern Catholic patriarchs, "His Beatitude". When the Grand Master of the Military Order of the Knights of Malta, the head of state of their sovereign territorial state comprising the island of Malta until 1797, who had already been made a Reichsfürst (i.e., prince of the Holy Roman Empire) in 1607, became (in terms of honorary order of precedence, not in the actual church hierarchy of ordained ministers) the most senior official after the most junior member of the cardinals in 1630, he was also awarded the hybrid style His Most Eminent Highness (abbreviation HMEH) to recognize his status as a

neg: History of the Eastern Orthodox Church noted to have been founded by St Peter, the patriarchate of Rome and the patriarchate of Antioch. The Eastern churches accept Antioch as the church founded by St Peter (see the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Syriac Orthodox Church). It was in the establishment of the Eastern Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great that Christianity was legalized (Edict of Milan, 313). It was not until then, that systematic Roman persecution of Christians stopped, although it did resurface later, though temporarily, under Roman Paganism (Emperor Julian the Apostate). Christianity as Orthodox was not established as the State Religion

neg: Empire Empire, the Siamese Empire flourished alongside the Burmese and Lan Chang Empires from the 13th through the 18th centuries. In Eastern Europe, during the year of 917, the Byzantine Empire was forced to recognize the Imperial title of Bulgarian rulers (who were called Tsars). The Bulgarian Empire remained a major power in the Balkans until its fall in the late 14th century. At the time, in the Medieval West, the title "empire" had a specific technical meaning that was exclusively applied to states that considered themselves the heirs and successors of the Roman Empire. Among these were the "Byzantine Empire",

neg: Greece taught music from the age of six. Later influences from the Roman Empire, Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire also had effect on Greek music. While the new technique of polyphony was developing in the West, the Eastern Orthodox Church resisted any type of change. Therefore, Byzantine music remained monophonic and without any form of instrumental accompaniment. As a result, and despite certain attempts by certain Greek chanters (such as Manouel Gazis, Ioannis Plousiadinos or the Cypriot Ieronimos o Tragoudistis), Byzantine music was deprived of elements of which in the West encouraged an unimpeded development of art. However, this method

neg: Daniel 8 papacy. In 533 AD Justinian, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, legally recognized the bishop (pope) of Rome as the head of all the Christian churches. Because of the Arian domination of some of the Roman Empire by the barbarian tribes, this authority could not be exercised by the bishop of Rome. Finally, in 538 AD, Belisarius, one of Justinian's generals routed the Ostrogoths, the last of the barbarian kingdoms, from the city of Rome and the bishop of Rome could begin establishing his universal civil authority. So, by the military intervention of the Eastern Roman Empire, the bishop

neg: Byzantine Greeks the West, such as texts relating to the Council of Florence, to present the Western viewpoint. The ancient name "Hellenes" was synonymous to "pagan" in popular use, but was revived as an ethnonym in the Middle Byzantine period (11th century). While in the West the term "Roman" acquired a new meaning in connection with the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome, the Greek form "Romaioi" remained attached to the Greeks of the Eastern Roman Empire. The term "Byzantines" or "Byzantine Greeks" is an exonym applied by later historians like Hieronymus Wolf; the "Byzantines" continued to call themselves "Romaioi" (Romans)

neg: Christian Church century, ultimately leading to the division of the Church into the Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Eastern Orthodox) Churches. In 1448, not long before the Byzantine Empire collapsed, the Russian Church gained independence from the Patriarch of Constantinople. As a result of the redevelopment of Western Europe, and the gradual fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Arabs and Turks (helped by warfare against Eastern Christians), the final Fall of Constantinople in 1453 resulted in Eastern scholars fleeing the Moslem hordes bringing ancient manuscripts to the West, which was a factor in the beginning of the period of the Western

neg: History of Europe empire into a Western part with a capital in Rome and an Eastern part with the capital in Byzantium, or Constantinople (now Istanbul). Whereas Diocletian severely persecuted Christianity, Constantine declared an official end to state-sponsored persecution of Christians in 313 with the Edict of Milan, thus setting the stage for the Church to become the state church of the Roman Empire in about 380. The Roman Empire had been repeatedly attacked by invading armies from Northern Europe and in 476, Rome finally fell. Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, surrendered to the Germanic King Odoacer. The

neg: Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (, "Oikoumenikón Patriarkhíon Konstantinoupóleos", ; ; , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate") is one of the fourteen autocephalous churches (or "jurisdictions") that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is headed by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, currently Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople. Because of its historical location as the capital of the former Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire and its role as the Mother Church of most modern Orthodox churches, Constantinople holds a special place of honor within Orthodoxy and serves as the seat for the Ecumenical Patriarch, who enjoys the status of

neg: Fall of the Western Roman Empire be described as Roman. Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Empire survived, and though lessened in strength remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean. While the loss of political unity and military control is universally acknowledged, the Fall is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as Late Antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political

neg: Christian art of the art surviving from Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire is Christian art, although this in large part because the continuity of church ownership has preserved church art better than secular works. While the Western Roman Empire's political structure essentially collapsed after the fall of Rome, its religious hierarchy, what is today the modern-day Roman Catholic Church commissioned and funded production of religious art imagery. The Orthodox Church of Constantinople, which enjoyed greater stability within the surviving Eastern Empire was key in commissioning imagery there and glorifying Christianity. As a stable Western European society emerged during

neg: Fall of the Western Roman Empire the reasons for the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire). Comparison has also been made with China after the end of the Han dynasty, which re-established unity under the Sui dynasty while the Mediterranean world remained politically disunited. From at least the time of Henri Pirenne scholars have described a continuity of Roman culture and political legitimacy long after 476. Pirenne postponed the demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians had caused the Western Roman Empire to end, and he refused to equate the end of the Western Roman Empire with the

neg: Sino-Roman relations origin. The area lacks archaeological evidence of a Roman presence. Sino-Roman relations Sino-Roman relations comprised the mostly indirect contact, flow of trade goods, information, and occasional travellers between the Roman Empire and Han Empire of China, as well as between the later Eastern Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties. These empires inched progressively closer in the course of the Roman expansion into the ancient Near East and simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited. Only a few attempts at direct contact are known from records. Intermediate empires

neg: Germanic peoples Anglo-Saxon areas to the south. Cultural and linguistic assimilation occurred less frequently between the Germanic Anglo-Saxons and the indigenous people who resided in the Roman dominated areas of England, particularly in the regions that remained previously unconquered. Anglo-Saxons occupied Somerset, the Severn valley, and Lancaster by c. 700 where they remained dominant. Over time, the Anglo-Saxons, with their distinct culture and language, displaced much of the extant Roman influence of old. On the European continent, the eastern remnant of Francia developed into the Kingdom of Germany, which became the most important part of the Holy Roman Empire proclaimed by Otto

neg: Justinian I Justinian I Justinian I (; ; ; 482 14 November 565), traditionally known as Justinian the Great and also Saint Justinian the Great in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was the Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the historical Roman Empire. Justinian's rule constitutes a distinct epoch in the history of the Later Roman empire, and his reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized "renovatio imperii", or "restoration of the Empire". Because of his restoration activities, Justinian has sometimes been

neg: Christianity in the 15th century the West broadly rejected by the populace and by civil authorities (with the notable exception of the emperors of the East who remained committed to union until the Fall of Constantinople two decades later). The union signed at Florence has never been accepted by the Eastern churches. In 1453, the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Ottoman Empire. But Orthodoxy was still very strong in Russia which became autocephalous (since 1448, although this was not officially accepted by Constantinople until 1589); and thus Moscow called itself the Third Rome, as the cultural heir of Constantinople. Eastern Christians expressed a belief

neg: Canon law of the Catholic Church now chiefly contained in the "Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches", as well as to the particular law proper to each individual "sui juris" particular Eastern Catholic Church. Originating with the canons of particular councils and the writings of the Eastern Church Fathers, oriental canon law developed in concert with Byzantine Roman laws, leading to the compilation of nomocanons. Oriental canon law is distinguished from Latin canon law, which developed along a separate line in the remnants of the Western Roman Empire under the direct influence of the Roman Pontiff, and is now chiefly codified in the "1983 Code

neg: Eastern Europe Orthodox Church, by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish empire) led to a change of the importance of Roman Catholic/Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe. Armour points out that the Cyrillic alphabet use is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used. Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly

neg: Aphrahat near Mosul in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan. He was a near contemporary to the slightly younger Ephrem the Syrian, but the latter lived within the sphere of the Roman Empire. Called the "Persian Sage" (, "Ḥakkimā Pārsāyā"), Aphrahat witnesses to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire. Aphrahat was born in Asōristān during the rule of emperor Shapur II on the border with Roman Syria around 280. The name Aphrahat is the Syriac version of the Persian name "Frahāt", which is the modern Persian "Farhād" (). The author, who was known as

neg: Religion in Albania of the primary bishoprics in Albania had initially remained under the authority of Eastern Church after the split despite continuous, but fruitless efforts from the Roman church to convert it to the Latin rite. However, things changed after the fall of Byzantine Empire in 1204. In 1208, a Catholic archdeacon was elected for the archbishopric of Durrës. After the reconquest of Durrës by the Despotate of Epirus in 1214, the Latin Archbishop of Durrës was replaced by an Orthodox archbishop. According to Etleva Lala, on the edge of the Albanian line in the north was Prizren, which was also an

neg: Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople The Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople was an office established as a result of the Fourth Crusade and its conquest of Constantinople in 1204. It was a Roman Catholic replacement for the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and remained in the city until the reconquest of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261, whereupon it became a titular see. The office was finally abolished in 1964. Before the East–West Schism in 1054, the Christian Church within the borders of the ancient Roman Empire was effectively ruled by five patriarchs (the "Pentarchy"): In descending order of precedence: Rome

neg: Legal history century AD in the Eastern Roman Empire, the Emperor Justinian codified and consolidated the laws that had existed in Rome so that what remained was one twentieth of the mass of legal texts from before. This became known as the "Corpus Juris Civilis". As one legal historian wrote, "Justinian consciously looked back to the golden age of Roman law and aimed to restore it to the peak it had reached three centuries before." During the Byzantine Empire the Justinian Code was expanded and remained in force until the Empire fell, though it was never officially introduced to the West. Instead,

neg: Pulcheria a successor by marrying Marcian on 25 November 450, while simultaneously not violating her vow of virginity. She died three years later, in July 453. Pulcheria greatly influenced the Christian Church and its theological development by guiding two of the most important ecumenical councils in ecclesiastical history, namely those of Ephesus and Chalcedon, in which the Church ruled on christological issues. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church subsequently recognized her as a saint. Pulcheria was born into the royal House of Theodosius, a dynasty of the later Roman Empire, ruling in Constantinople. Her parents were Eastern Roman

neg: Sino-Roman relations Sino-Roman relations Sino-Roman relations comprised the mostly indirect contact, flow of trade goods, information, and occasional travellers between the Roman Empire and Han Empire of China, as well as between the later Eastern Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties. These empires inched progressively closer in the course of the Roman expansion into the ancient Near East and simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited. Only a few attempts at direct contact are known from records. Intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans, seeking to maintain lucrative

neg: East–West Schism Constantine to the final extinction of the empire in 1453, universal ecclesiology, rather than eucharistic, "became the operative principle". The view prevailed that, "when the Roman Empire became Christian the perfect world order willed by God had been achieved: one universal empire was sovereign, and coterminous with it was the one universal church". Early on, the ecclesiology of the Roman Church was universal in nature, with the idea that the Church was a worldwide organism with a divinely (not functionally) appointed center: the Church/Bishop of Rome. These two views are still present in modern Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism and can

neg: Legacy of the Roman Empire and to a lesser degree Egyptian and Aramaic language continued to be in use. Despite the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language continued to flourish in the very different social and economic environment of the Middle Ages, not least because it became the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Koine Greek, which served as a lingua franca in the Eastern Empire, is still used today as a sacred language in some Eastern Orthodox churches. In Western and Central Europe and parts of Africa, Latin retained its elevated status as the main vehicle of communication for the