Some of my most vivid memories from my first visit to Istanbul in the 1970s are of the colorful locals. Scruffy kids sold ...

"With this cross, I pray you bring peace to the world and make America invincible!" said Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek ...

Greek Independence Day, on March 25, marks the beginning of the Greek revolt against Ottoman rule in 1821 and overlaps with the Feast of the Annunciation.

The Siege of 1453 The Siege of 1453 was a defining moment for Constantinople and the world. The city, once considered ...

Jesus believed in the imminent end of the world and the coming of the “Day of the Lord,” but that day never arrived, and ...

Anicia Juliana was a Byzantine woman who managed to conquer the fields of architecture, using her massive wealth and noble lineage.

The Roman Empire was one of the greatest empires in history ... Not long after, in 535, Eastern Roman armies invaded Italy, with Emperor Justinian declaring that “the Goths have used force to take ...

The Byzantine Empire preserved the intellectual heart of Greece and ... A prime example of their influence is Emperor Justinian I’s Corpus Juris Civilis, a comprehensive collection of Roman law. This ...

Forced conversions: Emperor Justinian (527-565) enacted laws banning Jewish religious traditions, including Hebrew scripture readings. Jews were blamed for plagues, fires, and military defeats ...

Emperor Constantine the Great authorised Christianity across the Roman Empire in 313, but it was Theodosius I, half a century later, who put the brute force of the imperial state behind the faith.

The empire during the time of Justinian. Credit: Tataryn / Wikimedia Commons The ... possibly Leo Phokas (some have even suggested the emperor himself, Nikephoros Phokas). It was written in Greek ...

first built as a Christian cathedral by Byzantine emperor Justinian in the 530s and then rebuilt in grand fashion after an earthquake and finally turned into a mosque by the conquering Sultan Mehmed ...