Its tall, long, and flexible floor plan proved to be a perfect match for Christian worship and would become the primary space of the Christian church. The Roman Basilica was of notable influence. To satisfy this need, Byzantine rulers simply used pagan building types from the previous empire and adapted them as the first church buildings. By the time Christianity became the official religion of the Byzantine Empire, there was no official building for Christian worship. Christian followers were persecuted by Romans early on and had to hide worship in private houses. The solution to this architectural problem would prove to be one of the most influential and repeated design paradigms in the world, even into the 21st century. It needed a spatial model to help spread the "good news" across the known world. This new religion and its functions needed an architecture to support it. It became a worship of pageantry, reciting, and choral singing. The Byzantine Empire would expand to nearly the size of the Ancient Roman Empire and would single handedly spread the Christian religion across Europe, Russia, Near East and Northern Africa.Ĭhristianity became a very processional religion. Constantine’s predecessor declared that Christianity become the state religion of the Eastern Roman, or the Byzantine Empire. He changed the name of the capital to Constantinople in his honor and declared himself a Christian becoming the first Roman emperor to do so. Byzantium would be the new capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, of which he would be the Emperor. In 313 AD Emperor Constantine petitioned for the Roman Empire to become two separate dominions. Christianity is a monotheistic religion, where one God exists in three unified ‘persons’: God the Father, God the Son of Man (Jesus Christ), and God the Spirit. The fall of the ancient Roman Empire can be attributed to many causes but the increasing popularity of Christianity was no doubt a major contributing factor. Before Rome was sacked for the last time the empire had split into two separate dominions: the Western Empire headquartered in Rome and the Eastern Empire in Byzantium (modern day Istanbul, Turkey).
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