Constantinopole (also called Byzantium) was the capital of the Byzantine Empire since the division of the Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. It was considered it had an equal status with Rome. It conserved the Orthodox rituals, the Greek language and culture, and became the seat of the Orthodox Church after the Great Schism of the Church in the 11th century. It fell into the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453, its end as a Christian metropolis.
