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Byzantine Empire: Greek Patriarch
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The Byzantine Empire was a state with definite political boundaries, but it ... had enduring cultural impact even outside its realm. The Orthodox version of Christianity, along with a Byzantine-style conception of emperorship, were strong influences on neighboring Russians, Bulgars, and Serbs; and heavily influenced the formation of the Russian state, which was set up with a Russian Orthodox church controlled by the Russian tzar in the same manner that the Byzantine emperor controlled the Greek Orthodox church. Even after the fall of the Byzantine Empire itself, its civilization lived on in an altered form in Russia, Bulgaria and Serbian cultures.
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The Byzantine Empire was the empire that introduced the widespread adoption of Christianity to Europe — arguably one of the central aspects of a modern Europe’s identity. This is embodied in the Byzantine version of Christianity, which spread Orthodoxy and eventually led to the creation of the so-called " Byzantine commonwealth" (a term coined by 20th century historians) throughout Eastern Europe. Early Byzantine missionary work spread Orthodox Christianity to various Slavic peoples, where it still predominates, especially in today's Bulgaria, (fY) Republic of Macedonia, Russia, Serbia Ukraine; and it has remained the religion of the Greeks. Less well known in the West, is the influence of the Byzantine religious sensibility on the millions of Christians in Ethiopia, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and the Christians of Georgia and Armenia,though they all belong to the Orthodox Faith.
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The Byzantine Empire was actually better off after 500, as they were freed of the expense of having to spring for military defense of the west. Western emperors had been calling for help on the eastern half and draining its resources since the split. After the fall of West, the Eastern half was on its own. The top layer of society was made up of Greek aristocrats, ruling a mixed population of Slavs, Arabs, Armenians, Jews and others. In rural areas, aristocrats held large landed estates worked by coloni: free tenant workers similar to sharecroppers. While coloni were technically free, they were tied to the land by economic necessity.
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Heraclius ended the use of Latin in government when he made Greek the official language of the Byzantine empire. Instead of being called by the Latin terms Imperator, Caesar, or Augustus, he was named Basileus, the Greek word for king though in this context it is translated Emperor. He began the Byzantine practice of designating his successor as Co-emperor to give the next Emperor experience and facilitate the succession. To try to mollify the many Monophysites in the Near East, the patriarch Sergius supported the teaching that Christ has a single energy and a single will, the latter known as the monothelete doctrine. Sergius died in 638 and was succeeded by Pyrrhus, an ardent advocate of this doctrine; but his victory proved Pyrrhic as the monothelete compromise failed to satisfy either the orthodox or the Monophysites.
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Eight hundred years of continuous Byzantine culture were brought to an abrupt end in 1204 with the sacking of Constantinople by the knights of the Fourth Crusade, a disaster from which the Empire never recovered. Although the Byzantines recovered the city in 1261, the Empire was thereafter a small and weak state confined to the Greek peninsula and the islands of the Aegean.
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The Byzantines considered themselves to be Romans and the legitimate continuation of the Roman Empire. Practically speaking... the general prevailing national identity of the Eastern Roman State was Greek. Greek was not only the official language, but also the language of the church, of the literature and of all commercial transactions. Even though the Byzantine Empire was a multinational state, including Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Egyptians, Syrians, Illyrians, and Slavs, it was considered to be a "Greek state" due to its Orthodox Christian character and its common Greek culture radiated by large centers of Hellenism such as Constantinople, Antioch, Ephesus, Thessalonika and Alexandria.
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Greek Patriarch