A political-religious system in which the secular ruler is also head of the religious establishment, as in the Byzantine Empire

800 AD crowned by the Pope as the head of the Holy Roman Empire, which extended from northern Spain to western Germany and northern Italy. His palace was at Aachen in central Europe

A large and wealthy city that was the imperial capital of the Byzantine empire and later the Ottoman empire, now known as Istanbul

a series of military expeditions in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries by Western European Christians to reclaim control of the Holy Lands from the Muslims

Christian followers in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire); split from Roman Catholic Church and shaped life in eastern Europe and western Asia

Emerging in the fourth century with the conversion of the rulers of Axum, this Christian church proved more resilient than other early churches in Africa. Located in the mountainous highlands of modern Eritrea and Ethiopia, it was largely cut off from other parts of Christendom and developed traditions that made it distinctive from other Christian Churches.

A medieval and early modern central European Germanic empire, which often consisted of hundreds of separate Germanic and Northern Italian states. In reality it was so decentralized that it played a role in perpetuating the fragmentation of central Europe.

religious images used by eastern christians to aid their devotions

The product of Nestorian Christians living in China, these sutras articulate the Christian message using Buddhist and Daoist concepts.

Byzantine emperor in the 6th century A.D. who reconquered much of the territory previously ruler by Rome, initiated an ambitious building program , including Hagia Sofia, as well as a new legal code

State that emerged around the city of Kiev in the ninth century C.E.; a culturally diverse region that included Vikings as well as Finnic and Baltic peoples. The conversion of Vladimir, the grand prince of Kiev, to Orthodox Christianity in 988 had long-term implications for Russia.

Emerging in the fifth and sixth centuries in several kingdoms to the south of Egypt, this Christian church thrived for six hundred years but had largely disappeared by 1500 C.E. by which time most of the region's population practiced Islam.

He was the Russian prince who selected Greek Orthodoxy as the national religion. This added cultural bonds to the Byzantine Empire to the already existing commercial ties

Church established in western Europe during the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages with its head being the bishop of Rome or pope

Western European branch of Christianity that gradually defined itself as separate from Eastern Orthodoxy, with a major break in 1054 C.E. that has still not been healed.