Byzantine art

Badly damaged by the sack of Constantinople at the hands of Roman Catholic invaders in 1204 and diminished in size, the Byzantine Empire fell to Muslim invaders in 1453. As a result the Christians in the Ottoman Empire became a tolerated minority and the church was firmly subjected to the will of its Muslim overlords. Patriarchs were found who would do the bidding of sultans and the administration of the church was often corrupt. Following the fall of Constantinople, the Russian Orthodox held that the leadership of the Orthodox Church had passed to Moscow, which came to be called the "Third Rome."