Edward Gibbon’s history of the decline and fall ends in 1453 with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. That’s one long fall, and it puts into perspective the fact that the Roman empire never really decisively “fell” - it gradually evolved into something else. And in a sense it still exists in the form of the Roman Catholic Church, which is organized along the lines of the later imperial government.
And in a sense it still exists in the form of the Roman Catholic Church..
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the natural and historical inheritor of Rome/Christendom...and since its subjugation by islam...only Russia can possibly claim the mantle as in Byzantism which refers to a renewed Russia to counter the increasing secularism of the West.