The Change in Christian Doctrine and Practices During the Byzantine Empire

Following the decline of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, a new empire rose up in the ashes. This new empire, the Byzantine Empire, was a culmination of Western Roman cultures and tradition, yet, it also contains many distinctive features. Originating from the same empire, the two empires display similar cultural roots.

The churches in the Byzantine Empire were extremely close to the government. Enough for Christianity in the government to be called caesaropapist. Caesaropapism is a polotical theory that believes the head of state should also be head of the church. The role of Christianity impacted the political views of people and the government directly. The Christian church was seen as a department of the state by the Emperors and government officials. In the patriarchs, bishops, and priest's sermons, they encouraged their followers to obey the government. In the Islamic culture, religion and government moved almost as one. The caliphate of Islam was the head leader of the government as well. Islam created a stable running bureaucracy and then began to

Rome then shifts from a political identity to a religious one. Meanwhile, in the Byzantine Empire, they took extra precautions to ensure what had happened in the west, does not happen in the east. The Byzantine Empire resorted to trade and agriculture to avoid poverty (Smith, pg. 233, 2012). The highly urban-networked empire believed it should maintain their Roman roots, and stray away from barbaric culture like the west. But it was useless, due to the multitude of ethnicities and cultures. By this time, the Eastern Empire attempted to unite themselves through war, but evidentially spiking tax prices and bringing discontent to the Empire (Smith, pg. 239,

Geography: The West encompassed Western Europe and the northern and western areas of the Mediterranean and the East took up Asia Minor, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.

The bold movement of Christianity and the slow fall of the Roman Empire constituted a new phase in Rome and the birth of the Eastern and Western Churches that left a profound place in Western history. The relationship of the Byzantine Church to the Romans was one that was growing indifferent during the 5th thru 11th century of the Middle Ages. During this time three bishops stood forth from the political with great superiority among the cities in which they ruled. The transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople and the later eclipse of Alexandria and Antioch as battlegrounds of Islam and Christianity promoted the importance of Constantinople. The similarities of the East and the West were many but the differences weighed

The Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire in the eastern part of the Mediterranean and referred to as the "New Rome." The Byzantine Emoire had become a town of growing importantance amgonst the Roman Empire, it was a Christian state. Notably the first empire founded by the authority of the Church and not on worldly power.  Due to it's Roman foundation, the empire flourished immensely. The empire was also less vulnerable to foreign attacks than the Western part of Rome, because of its geographical location. One of its many successes was the preservation of both Roman and Greek cultures. Their ideas and culture was able to spread across the land. As for reglion, Saints Cyril and Methodius from the empire had spread Christianity

Throughout the reign of the Byzantine Empire, sculpting and architecture were the pinnacle of ancient Byzantine art; leaving a vast collection of masterpieces for later cultures to admire, and even adopt their majestic styles and techniques. A focal period during the lifespan of the Byzantine Empire was the reign of Justinian the Great (527-565 A.D.), which is also referred to as the Golden Age. It is during this time that architecture and sculpture begin to flourish, along with other mediums of art such as mosaics, murals, and illuminative manuscripts. Very many religious works of art were created during this time as well, however very few survived the onset of the iconoclast uproar in 726.

When it comes to something like the Byzantine worship, Christians in the Byzantine world asked to Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints while looking at images of them on panels which are known as icons. The veneration of icons was viewed with some apprehension from the Church. This was because of the Mosaic proscription of religious descriptions and the persecution of Christians who refused to venerate images of Roman emperors. Iconoclasm that happened was the veto and obliteration of works of art because they were considered inappropriate in religious contexts. Images of saints and sacred stories on icons and in churches were destroyed and the people who worshiped them were persecuted. During this time, the Church leaders were fearful that

The western Roman empire collapsed around AD 476. Temporarily the east was again dominant as the Byzantine Empire formed from the eastern half of the Roman empire. Another power arose in the 7th century, and with it the religion of Islam, which soon swept across from the east; at its greatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled 75% of the Mediterranean region and left a lasting footprint on its eastern and southern shores.

Church fathers, and indeed the whole religious mind of Byzantium, made it perfectly clear that doctrine was expected to induce in the faithful to everyday experiences and make them responsible agents of Christianity...Byzantine Christianity was accessible to all people and affected the life of most as Gregory of Nyssa relates.

While the Byzantine culture was expanding from new territory, so was the art depicting Christianity. The development of the Christian art has been divided by Art historians into three periods based on its greatest glory. This time period in art is sometimes referred to as “golden ages”. The first period from the “golden ages”,Early Byzantine, began in 527 under the rule of Justinian. During this time, the destruction of images used in religious worship, or iconoclasm, was enforced. The Early Byzantine era ended in 726 with Leo III as the ruler. Then the Middle Byzantine Era begun during 843 and lasted until 1204 while iconoclasm was no longer enforced, but instead was seen as heresy. The final Byzantine era, also known as, the Late Byzantine Era began after the recapture of Constantinople in 1261 and finally ended during 1453.

In the years of the Byzantine Empire, they experienced a stressful shift between the 5th and 7th century. A shift forced unto them by their god, believed to be a divine prophecy, a punishment for their Christian sins. For centuries Christian authors and theologians analyzed and made attempts to make sense of this prophecy. Many patriarchs made connections with events from the Old Testament and not only seeing parallel symbols, but being more self aware of the people and their actions. Questioning the Muslims and their success along with the failures of defense.

The Christianity of the Byzantine Empire under, and after, the rule of Justinian I during the early 6th century was the sole public religion of the Roman world. He built the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, which became the symbol of Constantinople’s position as the center of the orthodox Christian world. This imperialistic religion stands in stark contrast to the Christianity that first came to the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, China, and Northern Ireland nearly two centuries earlier. I will show that the Christianity that found itself in these places was a transformative religion that could adapted to the cultures it encountered.

Space and religion share an intimate connection. Early Judaism focused on the temple as the site where contact with the divine could be made. However, following the Babylonian exile, the Israelites were forced to adapt and develop ways to worship away from the temple. They began performing daily rituals of worship such as the Sabbath and adhering to a special diet. They eventually came to believe that the presence of their God was not solely bound to the confines of the Temple in Jerusalem, but rather that his presence was mobile as it had originally been. Thus, over time the temple was less and less imperative to the religion. By the time Christianity was founded, the temple remained an important symbol and place of worship, as well as a symbol of the presence and strength of its religion in Jerusalem. In his essay “Space,” historian and scholar Thomas Tweed argues that religious space is kinetic and interrelated, and thus has relations to the political, social, and economic spheres and is also connected to both the past, the present, and the future. The ideological religious, topographical, and politico-economic transformations associated with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre embody the interrelated and kinetic nature of the space through their demonstration of the shift from Eastern Hill to Western Hill, the shift from spiritual faith to an earth-centered faith, and the change in Byzantine imperial policy from Hadrian’s Aelia Capitolina to Constantine’s Christian city.

After the fall of the Roman Empire the political atmosphere was transformed in Western Europe. As the West witnessed a change, brought about by the constant invasion of barbarians, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and grew incredibly prosperous. The Eastern Empire had much closer ties between the state and the Christian Church. These ties lead to many elaborate Byzantine churches being built in Constantinople, emphasizing the importance of the Eastern Church in everyday life.