March 6 - Constantinople Falls / Renaissance Begins

March 6 – Constantinople Falls – Renaissance Begins

The city that became the center of the Eastern Empire was all that was left 1140 years after Constantine founded it. On May 28, 1453, people gathered in the Hagie Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) along with Roman bishops who came for support. The schism was set aside and they shared communion. This would be the final time that Christianity was lifted up in this place. The next day, the Muslims conquered Constantinople. A Muslim teacher entered the building, walked to the altar and said, “There is no God but Allah.” From that point forward, the building was a mosque.

The Ottoman Turks had finally set aside the Byzantine Empire.

Scholars had already fled into Europe. When they left, they took their treasures … ancient Greek manuscripts. The Roman Christians had all but ignored these authors and with the influx of this information into the continent, a brand new birth of interest in Greek art, writing and rhetoric was born. The Renaissance had begun.

Christians began applying the philosophical insights that were gleaned from these works to Scripture. They focused on the original language of the Bible and determined to go back to the original intent. During this period of time, Johann Gutenberg mastered movable type and by 1456 had produced 200 exact copies of the Jerome’s Vulgate Bible.

Now, most common folk and even many of the village priests were still illiterate and couldn’t read or write their own language, much less Latin. By 1483, every large European country had at least one press and within 50 years, books were available in many languages, literacy increased and the Bible began being translated into languages for everyone. As people learned to read, they began to read the Bible for themselves. The Gospel spread across Europe quickly as people began to comprehend scripture without the intervention of a priest or the pope. The church’s power was beginning to loosen, but it wasn’t ready to give up quite yet.