Byzantine Empire: Challenges and Division

• The plague repeatedly resurfaced up to 700 AD, significantly decreasing Byzantium's Population.

Attacks on Byzantium

• From the start of its rise, Byzantine faced consistent challenges from foreign enemies called "barbarians."
• The Lombards attacked from the west.
• The Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars attacked from the north
• The Sassanid Persians attacked from the east
• Byzantine combatted enemies through bribes, diplomacy, political marriages, and military strength.
• The empire gradually shrank, and by 1350 was only the tip of Anatolia and a strip of the Balkans.
• It stood for another 100 years due to its walls and strategic position.
• It fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

The Church Divides

• During the Byzantine Empire, Christianity encountered development.
• It began to develop differently in the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.
• Distance and infrequent contact caused a split in the church.
• As the eastern empire became Byzantium and grew, differences caused a split.

A Religious Split

• Eastern Christianity drew heritage from early church fathers.
• Differences increased between the Eastern and Western churches.
• After 1054, Christianity split between the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Orthodox Church in the East.
• The two sections competed for converts.
• Eastern missionaries converted many Slavs of the Baltic Sea.

Early Russia

• Byzantium traded with its neighbors to the north.
• Missionaries were sent to the land of the Slavs in the ninth century.
• Slavs started absorbing Greek Byzantine ways.
• Mixing Slavic and Greek traditions eventually led to Russian Culture.

Russia's Birth

• Russia's first unified territory was west of the Ural Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.
• Because of its location between Europe and Asia, it was unique
• In the early Byzantine Empire, its forests hosted Slavic farmers and traders.
• A Shared language, but no political unity.