Constantinople: Christianity’s First Capital

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Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city and one of the only cities in the world to straddle two continents: Europe and Asia. It is also one of the only cities in the world that served as the seat of two major civilizations: the Byzantine Empire (330–1453 CE) and the Ottoman Empire (1423–1922). The name Istanbul, however, is a relatively modern moniker, officially bestowed upon the city in 1930 following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in the wake of World War I. Until then, for much of its long and distinguished life, the city was known as Constantinople, eponymously named for Constantine I, the Roman emperor responsible for, among other things, legalizing Christianity in 313 CE.

Settled by seafaring Greeks as early as the seventh century BCE, the colony of Byzantion, as it was known, would later lend its Latinized name, Byzantium, to the late antique Christian civilization that arose in the east during the waning days of the once-mighty Roman Empire. Ideally situated for trade by both sea and land, it quickly became a thriving port city. Though Byzantion came under Roman control in the second century BCE, it was not until 324 CE that Constantine, in search of a new, more strategic and defensible location from which to administer the empire, turned his eye eastward and settled upon the ideally situated Greek colony as his new imperial seat.

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The next six years would see the port city undergo an intensive building program modeled upon the urban design of Rome. Constantine was deliberate and thorough in his quest to establish the prestige and authority of his new city. He lured Rome’s elites eastward using gifts of land as incentive and transferred many of the finest of Rome’s artworks and architectural ornaments from Italy to adorn its monuments, streets, and public spaces. On May 11, 330 CE, the now much-enlarged city was inaugurated with a series of lavish ceremonies and processions.

As the empire’s new capital and the seat of the emperor himself, the city was outfitted with all of the infrastructure and architectural hallmarks of imperial Rome on a grand scale. The construction of aqueducts, bath complexes, public forums, temples, a new hall for the senate, an imperial palace, and a significant expansion of the Severan-era circus (known to modern visitors as the “hippodrome”) are just some examples of the projects undertaken as part of Constantine’s building plan for his new capital.

Though Constantine can certainly be credited for paving the way for the “Christianization” of the new capital, it was over the course of the next two centuries that the city would acquire the magnificent monuments that have come to characterize the city’s Christian landscape. Constantine’s successors were, with the exception of the short-reigned Julian (361–363 CE), less ambivalent about Christianity than the city’s founder. While Constantine had to maintain a delicate balance between the empire’s polytheistic citizens and its growing Christian population, later emperors had no such concerns. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica, effectively making Christianity the official religion of the empire. In so doing, he set the stage for the resultant proliferation of the magnificent Christian art and architecture we associate with Byzantine Constantinople today.

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One such monument is perhaps the city’s most famous and recognizable: the Hagia Sofia. Originally constructed and consecrated as a church in 360 by Constantine’s son, Constantius II, the structure was destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt twice over the ensuing 200 years. The current version of the Hagia Sofia was inaugurated during the reign of Justinian I in 537. However, much like the city itself, the august building has taken on various roles during the course of its long life. The Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453 saw the church converted into a mosque, with its distinctive minarets being added over the course of the following century. In 1935, the structure was again converted, this time into a museum by Mustafa Kemal “Atatürk,” founder of the modern Turkish Republic. In 2020 amid much controversy, the ancient basilica was once again designated as a mosque by the current Turkish government.

As a result of its fortuitous geography, Constantinople remained unrivaled in wealth and commerce for almost a thousand years. At this western terminus of the “Silk Roads” network, exotic goods from Africa and Asia flowed westward over land into its shops and warehouses before being shipped to Europe, where there was great demand for the luxuries of the east. The continuous flow of commodities such as silks, perfumes, and precious stones along with less prestigious but nevertheless important staples such as oil, timber, and cereals through its markets ensured a steady stream of taxation income for the city’s coffers. Where people and commodities travel, so too do new ideas, technologies, literature, and culture, all of which flowed through the city in abundance. Constantinople, the “gateway between East and West,” would reign as the strongest and most prestigious center of commerce and culture in the Mediterranean world—until the rise of the Italian maritime states in the Middle Ages.

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But Constantinople’s long reign as the seat of the Byzantine Empire was not without its challenges. The arrival of bubonic plague in the mid-sixth century, which came at the height of the city’s power and prestige, decimated the population. A contemporaneous series of natural disasters, in conjunction with administrative missteps, left the empire vulnerable to the ongoing hostilities of its enemies, including the Huns, Ostrogoths, and Persians.

Subsequent centuries would see the city besieged by various aggressors, including the Umayyads, Slavs, and, in an event that would prove to be immediately controversial throughout the Christian world, the Latin Crusaders. Thwarted from their original intent of recapturing Jerusalem, the Roman Catholic crusaders instead besieged, captured, and sacked Constantinople in 1204, securing for the Catholic west this most lucrative of port cities, weakening and rendering it even more vulnerable to the subsequent aggressions of the rising Ottoman Empire. Finally, in 1453, after a 53-day siege, the Ottomans successfully captured Constantinople, marking the beginning of the next chapter of its life as the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Today, the palimpsest of the city’s remarkably long and dynamic history is easily discernable to even the most casual of visitors. The monuments, art, and architecture of Constantinople’s Roman, Christian, and Islamic pasts are woven into the fabric of the modern city. In the stunning collections of the city’s museums or on a stroll through the Sultanahmet district, where the Hagia Sofia gazes serenely cross the square at the remains of the ancient hippodrome, today’s visitors can easily discern the echoes of ancient Constantinople, capital of the great Byzantine Empire, that still resound through this most long-lived, dynamic, and resilient of cities.

Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city and one of the only cities in the world to straddle two continents: Europe and Asia. It is also one of the only cities in the world that served as the seat of two major civilizations: the Byzantine Empire (330–1453 CE) and the Ottoman Empire (1423–1922). The name Istanbul, however, is a relatively modern moniker, officially bestowed upon the city in 1930 following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in the wake of World War I. Until then, for much of its long and distinguished life, the city was known as Constantinople, eponymously named for […]