constantinople was designed to be the center of what religious world
Christianity
title: Istanbul text: into the 20th century. On 11 May 330, Constantinople was proclaimed the capital of the Roman Empire, which was later permanently divided between the two sons of Theodosius I upon his death on 17 January 395, when the city became the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The establishment of Constantinople served as one of Constantine's most lasting accomplishments, shifting Roman power eastward as the city became a center of Greek culture and Christianity. Numerous churches were built across the city, including the Hagia Sophia which was built during the reign of Justinian the Great and remained the world's title: Christianity in the 4th century text: Bosphorus (it came to be named for him: Constantinople)–the city employed overtly Christian architecture, contained churches within the city walls (unlike "old" Rome), and had no pagan temples. In 330 he established Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire. The city would gradually come to be seen as the center of the Christian world. The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor in the Church. Emperors considered themselves responsible to God for the spiritual health of their subjects, and thus they had a duty to maintain orthodoxy. The emperor did not decide title: Constantinople text: Constantinople Constantinople (; ) was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire (330–1204 and 1261–1453), and also of the brief Crusader state known as the Latin Empire (1204–1261), until finally falling to the Ottoman (1453–1923) empire. It was reinaugurated in 324 from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, and dedicated on 11 May 330. The city was largely located in what is now the European side and the core of modern Istanbul. From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and title: History of Istanbul text: the center of the Greek world and for most of the Byzantine period, the largest city in Europe. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity a few years earlier, in 312, had set the Roman Empire onto Christianization, and in 381, during the reign of Theodosius I, the official state religion of the Roman Empire became Christianity, which turned Constantinople into a thriving religious center. After the end of his reign in 337, Constantine declared his three sons as joint heirs of the Roman Empire in a system of co-emperorship. Unfortunately, the sons couldn’t govern together peacefully and their war raged rivalry split title: Constantinople text: the Ecumenical Patriarch, and made it a prime center of Christianity alongside Rome. This contributed to cultural and theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity eventually leading to the Great Schism that divided Western Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy from 1054 onwards. Constantinople is also of great religious importance to Islam, as the conquest of Constantinople is one of the signs of the End time in Islam. The city provided a defence for the eastern provinces of the old Roman Empire against the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. The 18-meter-tall walls built by Theodosius II were, in essence, impregnable to