WORLD RELIGIONS

Detailed explanation-1: -From the 4th to the 11th century, Constantinople (now Istanbul), the centre of Eastern Christianity, was also the capital of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, while Rome, after the barbarian invasions, fell under the influence of the Holy Roman Empire of the West, a political rival.

Detailed explanation-2: -The cathedral church of Constantinople, Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), was the center of religious life in the eastern Christian world.

Detailed explanation-3: -Under Ottoman rule, Constantinople (now Istanbul), became an Islamic city. The Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the spiritual center of the Orthodox Christendom, was turned into a mosque.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the Late Middle Ages, the Fall of Constantinople brought a large part of the world’s Orthodox Christians under Ottoman Turkish rule. Nevertheless, Orthodoxy continued to flourish in Russia, as well as within the Ottoman Empire among the latter’s Christian subject peoples.