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The greatest collapse of a mighty state, a large human so­ciety and a fruitful civilization of which we possess a reasonably ac­curate record, has been immortal­ized by Edward Gibbon’s histori­cal classic, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire. Henry Adams remarked that Gibbon did not really explain the fall; but this criticism is not altogether just. As the following excerpts from The Decline and Fall show, the philosophic historian offered a number of reflections on the symp­toms and causes of the drama which he set out to describe: "This long peace and the uni­form government of the Romans introduced...

There was a book a few years ago entitled "How the Irish Saved Civilization," explaining how Irish monks preserved ancient manuscripts that became the basis for much of Western thought. To give credit where credit is due, however, it must also be acknowledged that when the classic works of ancient Greek thought that form the basis of Western philosophy, political thought, and even literature had vanished almost completely from Western Europe, they were brought there not just from Ireland, but from a place that many assume had vanished from the earth long before: the Roman Empire. If schoolchildren today pause...

A Turkish homeowner chasing his chickens through a hole in his basement during renovations came across an abandoned underground Turkish city that once housed 20,000 people. ... the ancient city of Elengubu, known today as Derinkuyu. Derinkuyu, burrowed more than 280 feet beneath the Central Anatolian region of Cappadocia, is the largest excavated underground city in the world and is believed to connect to more than 200 smaller, separate underground cities ... Inside the subterranean city — whose entrances connect to more than 600 private homes in the modern, surface-level region of Cappadocia — researchers found 18 levels of tunnels...

The Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine-era religious building in Istanbul, Turkey, was reportedly damaged last week when heavy cleaning equipment cracked the marble floors. It is just the latest incident in recent years that has seen the site damaged. The Hagia Sophia, constructed by the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I between 532 and 537, served as the largest Christian cathedral in the world until Constantinople was taken over by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. It was then turned into a mosque and subsequently into a museum by Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1935. Considered one of the most important religious...

YAVNE, Israel (AP) — Israeli archaeologists on Monday said they have unearthed a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years. The complex, discovered in the central town of Yavne, includes five wine presses, warehouses, kilns for producing clay storage vessels and tens of thousands of fragments and jars, they said. Israel’s Antiquities Authority said the discovery shows that Yavne was a wine-making powerhouse during the Byzantine period. Researchers estimate the facility could produce some 2 million liters (over 520,000 gallons) of wine a year. Jon Seligman, one of the directors of the excavation, said the wine made in...

The two forces eventually met near the city of Manzikert, just north of Lake Van. Sultan Muhammad bin Dawud sent a delegation to parley with Romanus on "the pretext of peace," though in reality, he was "stalling for time," explained Michael Attaleiates, who was present. This only "roused the emperor to war." Romanus spurned the emissaries, forced them to prostrate themselves before him, and commanded them to tell their sultan that "there will be no treaty ... and no going home except after I have done in the lands of Islam the like of what has been done in the...

With Ramat HaSharon approaching its centennial year, archaeological evidence indicates the Tel Aviv suburb’s history goes back much further than previously thought. “The excavation unearthed evidence of agricultural-industrial activity at the site during the Byzantine period – about 1,500 years ago. Among other finds, we discovered a large winepress paved with a mosaic as well as plastered installations and the foundations of a large structure that may have been used as a warehouse or even a farmstead,” said Dr. Yoav Arbel, who directed the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Inside the buildings and installations, we found many...

Jesuit who became a Byzantine priest worked to help disparate parts of the Church understand one another Fr. Robert Francis Taft, preeminent historian of the Eastern Christian liturgy and an outspoken voice in relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, died at his home in Weston, Massachusetts, November 1, at the age of 86. Fr. Taft, who taught at a pontifical institute in Rome for several decades, is best known for his six-volume History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Born into a family that had ties to a U.S. president and a senator from Ohio, he grew up...

As the time for afternoon prayers approaches, Onder Soy puts on a white robe and cap and switches on the microphone in a small 19th century room adjoining the Hagia Sophia. Soon, Soy’s melodic call to prayer rings out over a square filled with tourists hurrying to visit some of Turkey’s most famous historical sights before they close for the day. The room Soy is in — built as a resting place for the sultan and now officially called the Hagia Sophia mosque — fills up with around 40 worshipers, drawn not by the modestly decorated space itself, but by...

For eight decades, the iconic Hagia Sophia [Ἁγία Σοφία, “Holy Wisdom”] – museum in Istanbul [Constantinople] has stood as a symbol of Turkey’s commitment to a secular society. Now that tradition is under siege by growing calls to convert the historic structure back into a practicing mosque. The 1,500-year-old structure originally was built as an Orthodox Christian cathedral. It was turned into a mosque in the 15th century after the Ottoman Turks defeated the Greek emperor in Constantinople and renamed the city Istanbul. In the 1930s, the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, turned it into a museum in his...

     According to the Church's calendar, developed during the Byzantine period and based on Biblical chronologies, September 1/14 marks the beginning of the ecclesiastical year. Specifically, September 1/14, 2016 marks the beginning of the year 7525 from the creation of the world, God having created 5509 years before the Nativity of Christ.The article below, originally appearing on OrthodoxWiki, offers a detailed look at the development of the Church's Byzantine Creation Era calendar, and several of its predecessing calendars.* * * The Byzantine Creation Era, also "Creation Era of Constantinople," or "Era of the World" (Greek: Έτη Γενέσεως Κόσμου κατά...

Last February, archaeologists unearthed a unique rock-carved underground church in Nevsehir, in the central Turkish region of Cappadocia. The church was decorated with never before seen frescoes depicting Jesus’ Ascension, the Final Judgement, Jesus feeding the multitudes, and portraits of saints and prophets.The discovery, made during excavations and cleaning operations in an underground city recently uncovered as part of an urban project in Nevsehir, is located within a castle that might date back to the fifth century. Authorities expect it will make Cappadocia an even more important pilgrimage center for Orthodox Christians. Semih İstanbulluoğlu, the archaeologist who heads the works for...

Christians in Turkey have become a tiny minority. The few remaining Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Christians in Turkey have – throughout the centuries -- been turned into a tiny, dwindling minority. The remaining few Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Hagia Sophia in Trabzon: Church-mosque-museum and now mosque again. The Hagia Sophia, Greek for “Holy Wisdom,” was one of the many historic Orthodox churches located in the city of Trabzon. ... The city of Trabzon .. is located in the ancient land of Pontos, in the...

It wasn't unusual for young Celeste Strohmeyer to want to get married and have a dozen kids. After all, she was one of 11, which, she said, "provided a lot of hands-on experience with children."But there was a competing tug in her heart, beginning in early childhood -- a call to religious life. It kept calling to her: when she was 12, when she was 16, when she was 22 and later, after establishing a promising career.She had a good job, independence, a home of her own, the freedom to travel. She still could have married. But the thought...

State Duma deputies have supported the idea of the return of Agia Sophia in Constantinople to the Orthodox Church. This was stated by Chairman of Committee on Property, and the coordinator of the inter-factional parliamentary group on the protection of Christian values, Sergei Gavrilov, TSN reports. Today, when Russian-Turkish relations are undergoing an "endurance trial," mutually friendly initiatives and proposals are of special importance, Gavrilov says. "The Russian side deems it possible to return to the question of Agia Sophia, the ancient shrine of the Christian world, located in Constantinople - an ancient Byzantine cathedral associated with the history of...

The Ladder of Heavenly UnityMoses approached the divine fire of the Burning Bush with the footsteps of his mind bare, completely free from any human trains of thought, wrote Saint Maximos the Confessor. Continuing Orthodox monasticism’s oldest unbroken tradition, Sinai monks still liturgize, shoeless, over the roots of the Burning Bush. On the holy ground where Moses was commanded to remove his sandals – together with all earthly logic – monks turn diversity’s polarizing forces to unity – some of the ways St. Catherine’s Monastery of Sinai brings Byzantium’s patristic spirit into the modern era as living tradition.One need look...

It is the ultimate in DIY: a flat-pack building found on the bottom of the sea 1,500 years after it sunk. A Byzantine church is to be reassembled for the first time in its long history, after it was lost in a ship wreck around 550AD. The church is to go on show at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford as part of a new exhibition of treasures found under the sea, as its director says he hopes it is easier to assemble than “an Ikea wardrobe”. It is the most extensive building project of its kind, bringing the church...

Students and faculty at the University of Notre Dame who go to the university’s chapel on Sundays may be hearing something different from the usual Mass opening of “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”“Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever,” Father Khaled Anatolios recently chanted, as he made the sign of the cross with the book of the Gospels lifted high above the altar.He faced the altar, away from the congregation, and there were icons on either side. Those in the congregation sang...

Israeli archaeologists may be one step closer to solving a riddle that has vexed explorers for more than a century: the location of the tomb of the biblical Maccabees which they recognized by finding the signature of the Cross.A worker for the Israel Antiquities Authority shows The Holy Cross designed on a mosaic floor at an archaeological site at Ben Shemen Forest near the Israeli city of ModiinOn Monday, Sept. 21, 2015, Amit Reem, an Israeli archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority, said “the cross is a clue” as it appears on the floor of the only Byzantine-era site burial...

A 1,500-year-old church has been discovered at a Byzantine period rest stop on the road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, archaeologists announced today (June 10). The ancient road station and church, uncovered during a highway construction project, sit next to a seep spring called 'Ain Naqa'a, which is on the outskirts of Moshav Bet Neqofa, a settlement in Jerusalem. Along the old road, which was likely paved in the Roman period, "other settlements and road stations have previously been discovered that served those traveling the route in ancient times," Annette Nagar, the director of the excavation on behalf of the...