section_path: History/Roman/Byzantine Empire
section_name: Byzantine Empire
paragraph_text: Byzantine Empire
  
  Constantinople is generally considered to be the centre and the "cradle of Orthodox Christian civilisation ". From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe. Eastern Christian culture reached its golden age during the high point of the Byzantine Empire and continued to flourish in Ukraine and Russia, after the fall of Constantinople. Numerous autocephalous churches were established in Europe: Greece, Georgia, Ukraine, as well as in Russia and Asia.
  
  In the 530s the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) was built in Constantinople under Emperor Justinian I. Beginning with subsequent Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia became the paradigmatic Orthodox church form and its architectural style was emulated by Ottoman mosques a thousand years later. Being the episcopal see of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, it remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520. Hagia Sophia has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world ", and architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilisation, and it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture".