History of Christianity

===Byzantium and the Fall of Constantinople===
In the mid-eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire was the largest and most prosperous polity in the Christian world.{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=7}} Constantinople remained its capitol and center, and its wealth and safety was seen, even by distant outsiders, as resulting directly from the religious devotion of its inhabitants.{{sfn|Shepard|2006|p=3}} 

The eleventh century was a period of relative peace and prosperity, and Christianity was the ‘glue' holding the empire together until April of 1204, when western crusaders in the Fourth Crusade stormed, captured, and looted Constantinople.{{sfn|Harris|2014|pp=1-2; 8-9}}{{sfn|Bundy|2007|p=133}} It was a severe blow.{{sfn|Jacoby|1999|pp=525; 536}} Byzantine territories were divided among the Crusaders establishing the [[Latin Empire]] and the Latin takeover of the Eastern church.{{sfn|Gregory|2011|p=178}}{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=1}} 

By 1261, the Byzantines had recaptured a much weakened and poorer Constantinople.{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=4}}{{sfn|Gregory|2011|p=186}} Mongol invasions to the East caused many Turkic refugees to pour in, strongly affecting Asia Minor, the core of Byzantium.{{sfn|Gregory|2011|pp=353-354}} 

In 1339, the Ottoman threat prompted leaders of the Eastern and Western churches to make overtures toward reunion, but as the threat waned, nothing of substance was accomplished.{{sfn|Dowley|2018|p=342}} In 1439, an agreement was made, but there was popular resistance in the East. As a result, it wasn't until 1452 that the decree of union was officially published in Constantinople. Resolution of the Roman-Greek conflict in Christianity was overthrown the very next year by the [[Fall of Constantinople]] to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.{{sfn|Dowley|2018|pp=342-343}}{{sfn|Kitromilides|2006|p=187}} 

The conquest of 1453 destroyed the Orthodox Church as an institution of the Christian empire inaugurated by Constantine, sealing off Greek-speaking Orthodoxy from the West for almost a century and a half.{{sfn|Kitromilides|2006|pp=187, 191}} However, even as political fortunes declined, the spiritual and cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, and Mount Athos the monastic peninsula, increased, forming a spiritual epicenter that continued tp provide the norm of correct doctrine and piety for all the Orthodox nations.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=173}}

Islamic law did not recognize the Patriarch as a ‘juristic person,’ nor did it acknowledge the Orthodox Church as an institution, but it identified the Orthodox Church with the Greek community, and concern for stability allowed it to exist.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|pp=171, 173}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} The monastery at [[Mt. Athos]] prospered from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=174}} Ottomans were tolerant and wealthy Byzantines who entered monastic life there were allowed to keep some control over their property until 1568.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=174}} Compulsory resettlement meant Constantinople reacquired a considerable population of Greek Orthodox inhabitants.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=175}} Leaders of the church were recognized by the Islamic state as administrative agents charged with supervising the loyal submission of its Christian subjects and the collection and delivery of their taxes.{{sfn|Kitromilides|2006|p=191}} 

The regularly levied and compulsory taxes, higher and higher "bids" to the sultan in hopes of receiving his appointment to the Patriarchate, and other financial gifts, corrupted the process and bankrupted the Christians involved.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|pp=176-177; 179}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} Conversion became a solution.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=181}} The oldest Ottoman document lists 57 bishoprics existing in 1483. By 1525, their number decreased to fifty, and only forty are recorded from 1641–1651.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=181}} Even so, by the reign of [[Suleiman the Magnificent|Süleyman the Magnificent]] (1520 – 1566), the patriarchate had become a part of the Ottoman system to the degree that it continued to have great influence in the Orthodox world.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=184}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}}
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