Literally every time I hear the word Constantinople, I can not help to sing to myself the lyrics from the famous They Must Be Giants Song, entitled Istanbul. (It is actually a song. I suggest YouTubing it if you haven't heard it.
Continuing on though, I will actually be discussing Constantinople and its influence by leader Constantine over the Christian Religion.
To start off with, as Jamie a few other of my peers have mentioned, Rome fell in about 476. It was about this time that the Byzantine empire was on the rise. (Constantinople was its central city). Constantinople's leader, Constantine, had previously been a Roman emperor, and had also converted over to Christianity. Due to his success as an emperor, he also managed to influence not only Constantinople's ideals towards Christianity, he also brought the ideas to the places he managed to conquer during his time. This can be noted in the Strayer Text (Ways of the World: A Brief Global History, Vol 1: to 1500 by Robert W. Strayer, if you wanted to look it up)
Strayer says the emperor in Constantinople claimed to "Govern all creation as God's worldly representative" and that he was "peer of the Apostles" he also mentions how the peoples attempted to "imitate the awesome grandeur of what they thought was God's heavenly court". Because of the ornate decorations and churches Constantinople had erected, a Russian leader, Price Vladmir, sought Christianity out as a way to unify his people, while linking to other communities and people.
The Byzantine empire was a diverse culture, pulling in parts from Roman and Greek culture, and had a few different religions in it. Ultimately, Constantine and the city of Constantinople played a large role in the spread of Christianity.
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One of my high school teachers played us this song when we discussed the Crusades and the shifting of Constantinople from the Byzantine empire to Islamic control. Watching him dance to a catchy song certainly cemented these events in my head!
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