Constantinople

Background

Constantinople lies on the western shore of the Bosporus, where Europe and Asia meet. It was originally Byzantion (Latin Byzantium), a city founded by Greeks. Constantine I, who reunited the Roman Empire, chose it as his new capital and greatly enlarged the city. His choice is reported to have been influenced by the site's proximity to the eastern frontier and to trade routes, as well as by its defensibility, since it was surrounded by water.

Course of Events

• 330: Constantine dedicated the city and gave it his own name. It was also called "New Rome."
• 381: Theodosius I convened a council in the city. In the wake of the Arian controversy, the council reaffirmed the divinity of the Son and added language confessing the divinity of the Holy Spirit. A canon of the same council declared that the bishop of Constantinople, as bishop of "New Rome," held honor second only to the bishop of Rome.
• 451: The Council of Chalcedon reaffirmed this status in its Canon 28. Leo I, bishop of Rome, did not accept this canon.
• 537: Justinian I completed the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, construction of which had begun in 532.
• 553 and 680–681: Councils were again held in the city.
• 1054: The papal legates and Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicated each other. This event is regarded as the symbolic marker of the East–West Schism.
• 1204: The Fourth Crusade captured and sacked the city. The Byzantine Empire recovered it in 1261.
• 1453: Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire conquered the city. This brought about the fall of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, and Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque.

Consequences and Influence

• Center of Orthodoxy: The Ecumenical Patriarchate, which holds the primacy of honor in the Eastern Orthodox Church, remains in Istanbul to this day. In 1965 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I lifted the mutual excommunications of 1054.
• The Creed: The confession of faith commonly called the Nicene Creed today is generally understood to be the form refined in 381, and it is therefore also called the "Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed." The Western church later added the phrase stating that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son" (the Filioque), which became one of the points of contention between East and West. In Korea, the Anglican Church of Korea uses the Nicene Creed in the Eucharist, while most Protestant denominations confess the Apostles' Creed in Sunday worship.
• Biblical Manuscripts: Greek manuscripts of the New Testament copied and transmitted by the Byzantine church are extremely numerous. Manuscripts of this tradition formed the basis of the Greek New Testament that Erasmus published in 1516, and that text in turn developed into the text on which the King James Version based its translation. Some scholars hold that the movement of Greek scholars to the West around 1453 stimulated the study of classical languages and thus indirectly influenced the study of the Bible in its original languages during the Reformation era.

Assessment

Constantinople is regarded, together with Rome, as one of the two centers of ancient Christianity. The Orthodox Church remembers the city as the center that preserved the orthodox faith. The Catholic Church has continued dialogue aimed at restoring unity with the church of this city, from which it has been separated since 1054.

Within Protestantism, attitudes toward the creeds vary by denomination. Denominations that value the creedal tradition, such as the Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, and Methodist churches, accept the doctrine of the Trinity formulated by the councils held in the city as a confession consistent with Scripture. Groups that place less emphasis on the authority of extrabiblical documents, such as Baptists and independent churches, generally share that doctrinal content but do not treat the creeds themselves as a basis of authority.

Some critics also argue that, as the imperial capital became the center of the church—with emperors convening councils, for example—state power and the church became too closely intertwined.