What is the Byzantine culture? How was it formed?
In the third century, the emperor Diocletian abandoned Rome and fixed his capital at Nicomedia in Asia Minor (285). In the fourth century, Constantine the Great created a new capital for the Roman Empire: Byzantium (Constantinople). He transplanted there the culture, and the intellectual and artistic abilities of all the peoples who dwelt under the rule of his empire. St. Jerome observed, somewhat tart!y, that Constantinople was clothed in the nudity of almost every other city and with the work of any contemporary artist who could be persuaded to make his home there. If Constantine did not Christianize the whole Roman Empire, he did give the Church sufficient power and privileges to overcome paganism and to become the only recognized and official religion. The New Rome, Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, became officially Christian on 11 May 330. On that date, Constantinople was dedicated to the Theotokos, the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Eternal Father. Un
