Why is constantine significant

This was a deliberate attempt to portray him as different from others. Thus, with Constantine, the Roman Empire incorporated religion into the state and strengthened itself. For Constantine, Christian monotheism was just a means to an end, a legitimization of his vision of sole emperorship. Learn more about early christianity. Constantine seemed to be drawn to the political corollaries of a monotheistic religion since it offered a way to quash political division; but he then seems to have extended this idea to religion itself, deciding that it was a bad thing for there to be any religious factionalism among Christians.

Therefore, he took an active role in attempting to resolve several purely theological disputes that threatened to fracture the early Christian community. In the May of AD, he presided over a meeting of over three hundred bishops at the Council of Nicaea. The council debated on the divine status of Jesus and instituted the document called Nicene Creed, a statement of the Orthodox Church to deal with certain voices of dissent.

More than being just a leader of the Church, Constantine even seems to have viewed himself as the equivalent of an Apostle. He built a basilica containing statues of the traditional 12 apostles and in their center left a niche for a statue of himself. Learn more about early Christianity and the rise of Constantine.

One of the most significant achievements of Constantine was the construction of the impressive city of Constantinople to serve as the eastern capital of the empire. He selected the old Greek colony of Byzantium and completely rebuilt it into a spectacular new capital, and named it after himself, Constantinople. The ancient city is located in modern-day Turkey and now known as Istanbul. The grand new eastern capital of Constantinople was officially dedicated on May 11, AD. It was endowed with the same features as the western capital of Rome and included a grand palace, an amphitheater, a hippodrome for chariot racing, a senate, and libraries.

The city was divided into fourteen districts, and Constantine resided there for most of the rest of his reign. The eastern capital was strategically located to overlook and control Bosphorus, the narrow strait which linked the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea. The natural harbor coupled with the geographical position between Europe and Asia soon turned Constantinople to a thriving port city.

It was also situated on a highly defensible peninsula of land surrounded by water on three sides. Moreover, the massive concentric walls around Constantinople were so impervious that it could fortify the city from assaults for over 1, years.

Irene; it is possible that Constantine laid the foundations of St. Sophia, which was completed by his successor, Constantius. After the reign of Constantine three important Christian centers developed: the early Christian Rome, in Italy, although pagan sympathy and tradition continued to exist there for some time; Christian Constantinople, which very soon became a second Rome in the eyes of the Christians of the East; and, finally, Christian Jerusalem.

After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus in 70 A. D, old Jerusalem had lost its significance, although it was the mother church of Christendom and the center of the first apostolic preaching. Christian Jerusalem was called to new life in the period of Constantine. Politically, Caesarea, and not Aelia, was the capital of that province.

The churches built during this period in the three centers stood as symbols of the triumph of the Christian church on earth. This church soon became the state church. The exact number of people who came to this council is not known; the number of Nicaean Fathers is often estimated at Most of them were eastern bishops. The aged bishop of Rome sent in his place two presbyters. Among the matters taken up by the council the most important was the Arian dispute. The Emperor presided at the council and sometimes even led the discussions.

In the first centuries of the Christian era the emperors often deserted Rome for long periods during their extensive military campaigns and journeys through the empire. At the end of the second century Byzantium received a heavy blow: Septimius Severus, upon defeating his rival, Pescennius Niger, who was supported by Byzantium, submitted the city to a terrible sack and almost complete destruction. Meanwhile the East continued to attract the emperors. Diocletian preferred to live in Asia Minor in the Bithynian city, Nicomedia, which he beautified with many magnificent new edifices.

When Constantine decided to create a new capital, he did not choose Byzantium at once. For a while, at least, he considered Naissus Nish where he was born, Sardica Sofia , and Thessalonica.

His attention turned particularly to Troy, the city of Aeneas, who according to tradition, had come to Latium in Italy and laid the foundations for the Roman state. The Emperor set out personally to the famous place, where he himself defined the limits of the future city.

The gates had already been constructed when, as Sozomen, the Christian writer of the fifth century, related, one night God visited Constantine in a dream and induced him to look for a different site for his capital. Even a century later travelers sailing near the shores of Troy could see the unfinished structures begun by Constantine.

Byzantium, which had not yet fully recovered from the severe destruction caused by Septimius Severus, was at that time a mere village and occupied only part of the cape extending to the Sea of Marmora. In A. Constantine decided upon the foundation of the new capital and in the construction of the main buildings was begun. Laborers and materials for the construction work were gathered from everywhere.

Pagan monuments of Rome, Athens, Alexandria, Ephesus, and Antioch were used in beautifying the new capital. Many commercial and financial privileges were proclaimed for the new capital in order to attract a larger population. Toward the spring of A. The dedication took place on May 11, and was followed by celebrations and festivities which lasted for forty days.

The capital adopted the municipal system of Rome and was subdivided into fourteen districts or regions, two of which were outside the city walls. It was inaccessible from the sea; on land it was protected by walls. Economically, Constantinople controlled the entire trade of the Black Sea with the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas and was thus destined to become the commercial intermediary between Europe and Asia.

The February CE agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire, thereby ending years of persecution. One of the earliest forms of christogram, which is used by some Christians, and was used by the Roman emperor, Constantine I r. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman army officer, and his consort, Helena.

His father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west, in CE. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In , Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia modern Great Britain. As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen the empire.

The government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years.