Religion Vs Byzantineism

The important thing about the Byzantine Empire is that it prospered for another 1000 years after the fall of Rome. The Roman Empire was split into the Byzantine Empire(East Roman Empire) by Diocletian to make it easier to rule the huge territory. The Emperor Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople, a city where many trade routes pass through. As a result, Constantinople was a rich and prosperous city and so was the empire. Emperor Justinian made a set of laws for all in the empire to follow called the Justinian Code. It covered almost every topic such as robberies, marriage, wills, and etcetera. Later in 1054, the Great Schism occurred splitting Christianity into the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church which was used in the Byzantine Empire. But the important thing about the Byzantine Empire is that it prospered for another 1000 years after the fall of Rome.

Christianity has become one of the world’s largest religions to date. We see the widespread of Christianity began in the Byzantine Empire during the rule of Constantine The Great after his decision to convert to Christianity and make the religion legal in his empire. The actions Constantine took paved the way for the religion to spread through the West and through Europe during the Middle Ages. The church would become a symbol of power, wealth, and social status among the clergy and society, it provided the idea of a divine right to rulers and the pope, and would ultimately influence almost every aspect of people’s lives. This document analysis will dig deep into the theme of Christianity during late antiquity and the middle ages with a focus on the relationship between church and state, the English conversion to Christianity, and Charlemagne’s efforts to spread Christianity in Europe.

To this day, the Greek church is so similar to the Roman church, they are practically sibling churches. Another major division is the Russian orthodoxy. This Russian division is one of the biggest and most powerful of all. In addition, another division is the Egyptian orthodoxy. The Egyptian's believe that they are the oldest Christian group because God sent someone to save them. The divisions of the Church happened because of differences in beliefs. One of the most important divisions in the history of the Church is the division started by Martin Luther. Luther was a German man who changed the course of history with his fascinating works of literature. One of his most renowned work of literature is what we call today the ninety-five theses. This document was revolutionary because it talked about everything the Roman Church was doing wrong. Moreover, the main issue during this time period is the fact that the Church was selling salvation. This form of salvation was through the selling of indulgences. In essence, of you have the money you can pay your way out of Hell according to the church. Naturally, Luther saw this as a problem and would not stand for it. Through his efforts, he founded his own church and invented the German language. However, even though Luther led a good life and fathered many children, he messed up. On his final days, he wrote 6 pamphlets explaining his discrimination on Jews. Additionally, Hitler used this as an opportunity to convince the masses about his "final

Western Europe triumphed from their princes and the Pope ruling since they soon overcame The Byzantine Empire. This was because having more than one ruler can hold together an empire or countries better than one ruler. The princes had control of the government in their areas, and the Pope had control of the entire religion in Western Europe. Having the Pope and the princes dealing with separate issues is better than having just one emperor deal with all of their issues. Another difference of the two halves of Europe was the monasteries and nunneries. Western Europe believed that they should have both priests and nuns teaching and preaching to other people. The Byzantine Empire did not feel that nuns were needed in their empire to preach and to teach other people. This was the most likely cause for the many people in the empire converting to their barbaric enemies religions. If The Byzantine Empire had used nuns to preach and teach their people, instead of having just priests and monasteries, the people would not have converted the their enemies. Hence, The Byzantine Empire, and Western Europe were greatly different than each other.

A schism formed between the East and the West due to power struggles between the pope and the patriarchs. Christianity was divided into the Roman Catholic church for the west and the Eastern Orthodox church for the east. There are key differences between the two churches. First, the Byzantines outlawed the use of icons, while icons are permitted in the west. In addition, Greek was the main language for the Byzantines, while Latin was the main language for the west. Lastly, the pope controlled all church affairs in the west while the Byzantine emperor controlled the church affairs for the east.

In addition to political and social structure, both civilizations share the same economy. Byzantine and Islamic civilization use similar approaches to promote their economy. They have engaged in trading with other civilizations. Byzantine was a large exporter of grain and silk. Their

The Byzantine Empire was a primarily Christian empire whose reign started in 330 A.D and ended in 1453 A.D with the capturing of the its capital Constantinople by the Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. In the years following the fall of the Byzantines, many of the Christian basilicas were transformed into mosques for Islamic worship, inspiring many artists to create works that embodied their religious politics. One of the pieces created following the fall of the Byzantine Empire is Yusuf Fleeing Zulayhka, created in 1488 by Kamal al-Din Bihzad, a famous Persian painter who worked under the patronage of several Persian sultans. The illustration depicts Yusuf’s struggle to escape his master’s wife Zulaykha as she chases him through her elaborate palace in an attempt to seduce him. The representation was made using paint, ink and gold, and features jewel-like colors in order to portray the extravagancy of the palace Zulayhka has built specifically for the seduction of Yusuf (Stokstad 286).

Eastern Europe had begun its transition from the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine empire with the penetration of Christianity into all aspects of life. Both the Byzantine and Islamic Empires were defined by their use of monotheistic religion in governing their empires. They both used religion in their own ways as justification to spread their governorship. But their laws however were not the same, Byzantine laws were based off of romans and Christianity, However the Islamic caliphates laws were based off The Holy Book Quran. The Byzantine built churches so the people could worship and learn about the religion of Christianity where the Islamic Caliphates used the Sharia law where equal punishment is given to criminals. The difference between the two empires was that the Islamic Caliphates believed that the ruler should be related to prophet Muhammad. Whereas the Byzantine Empire believed that whoever was the most dedicated to the religion of

During the 17th to 18th century, The Roman Empire had gone through a cultural and religious metamorphous. Throughout this time, the roles of religion in the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds altered the period of 600-750 with their similarities adhering to monotheism for one, and differences in regards to perspectives. These three cultures were all pretty diverse but they also shared some of the same roots and became heritors of the Roman Empire, built on different ideologies. The different ideologies of the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds, consisted of different founders, places, and elements of worship, thus portraying how religion was indeed prominently central to governmental and social structures because of the large impact towards political laws.

The Byzantine Empire, seen as a direct continuation of the Roman Empire, lasted approximately from 500-1450 CE. This empire proved to be a valuable city for both the Greeks as well as the Romans. Throughout history, the Aegean Sea, the Bosphorus Strait, and Constantinople all impacted Roman history through constant trade and achievements. Other than trade, perfecting the oil industry, and the construction of aqueducts, conduits, and tunnels was other main achievements.

The difference of religion had a huge impact on both of the empires. Christianity in the Byzantine Empire was the most popular religion in the world with Islam right after. Judaism is a monotheistic religion and while most Christians believe they are monotheistic as well, many Muslims think upon Christians as polytheistic because they believed both God and Jesus are gods. In comparison, both empires were ruled by a pope. The Byzantine Empire was impacted through Christianity because the pope was the head of the empire, such as Constantine who became pope in 708. The Islamic Caliphate was also impacted through Islam because they too were ruled by a pope. This meant if you had a religious ruler, many people of the empire would follow suit and either convert or become more involved in the religious practices that the emperor/pope would do. Both religions were quite simple. Islam has no official clergy, and follows only one single sacred text, the Koran. However, Muslims do believe in the validity of the Old Testament. Muslim's

Religions heavily influenced the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates in both similar and different ways. Education, internal division, and architecture changed when the realms became theocracies. Both highly valued education, until religious practices took precedence over higher learning, they built chapels and mosques with astounding architecture, and they suffered a religious split, neither of which ever healed. The Byzantine was influenced by Greco-Rome much more than the Islamic empires, in both education and in architecture. However, the Islamic Caliphates spread their knowledge and architecture more widely and much quicker than the Byzantine.

Both the Byzantine and the Islamic Empires both used religion to govern through the political, economic, and social aspects, but some were used similarly and some were used differently. Now, we will go over many of the similarities and the differences between theses two empires.

There are many obvious similarities and differences between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphate. Things such as how closely the religions of each empire were tied to politics, the split of religious opinions, or the power of the empires due to religion were very similar. However, the ruler of the Byzantine empire had much more religious power than the ruler of the Islamic caliphate. Islam was also more accepting of other religions that the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire was, and it spread much further during its time. The differences between the empires are very distinct, even with their similarities.

Differences of the impact of religion on Byzantine and Islam There were many similarities and differences between the religious impact on the Islamic Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire. A similarity between the two was that both churches in their region split, which developed conflict. The Byzantine's Roman church split into Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and the Muslims faith splits into Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. The other similarity was the commandments that both regions followed. And a difference was how the Quran and the Bible affected people differently.