1453

The Fall of Constantinople

On the evening of 28 May 1453, the people of Constantinople gathered in Hagia Sophia for the last Christian service held in the cathedral. That night the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II broke through the walls. Three days of plunder followed, and the sultan then turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos died in the fighting.

Thus ended the existence of the eastern part of the former Roman Empire – the New Rome. By promise, it was supposed to stand until the end of the age.

The Ottomans soon organized the non-Muslim population under the "millet" system. The Patriarch of Constantinople was granted broad administrative and judicial authority over the empire's Orthodox Christians. The philosopher George Scholarios became one of the first patriarchs after the conquest, as Gennadios II. At Mehmed II's request he wrote a confession of faith, "On the One Path of Man's Salvation".

Byzantine scholars and manuscripts who fled west made a significant contribution to the European Renaissance. Orthodoxy, having lost its imperial mainstay, increasingly leaned on the Russian church.