Byzantine Religion
The religion in the Byzantine Empire was pretty straight forward right from the beginning in terms of what was universally practiced and excepted. The Byzantine Empire was the eastern Roman section of the Roman Empire. Under emperor Constantine, the official religion that was practiced there was Christianity. Almost all the citizens identified as Christians and followed the monotheistic practices of Christianity. The Council of Chalcedon established the division of the Christian world in five patriarchates. Each of these were ruled by a patriarch. The patriarch of Constantinople, which was the capitol of the Byzantine Empire, was also the emperor of set empire. Therefore, he was head of both church and state. In terms of beliefs that the Christians of that time had was pretty similar to those of today, just a little more barbaric. However, the most important point of the Christian religion back then was that their "God" expected that they follow him and only him. Making this a monotheistic society. All members on this Christianity religion followed Jesus of Nazareth and saw him as their savior. Many of the Christians of these times were also former Jewish people who decided to convert because they felt like the values of Christianity were more what they believed in. Rather than their former values of Judaism. The Byzantine society also relied highly on religion, it was integrated into almost every aspect of everyday life.
Byzantine Military
Not only was the Byzantine Empire highly religious, but they were also very skilled militarily. From the very beginning of the civilization, the Byzantine Empire faces Military pressure from all sides. People such as Sassanid Persians, the Arab Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates, the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks, the Bulgars, Normans, Franks, Russians and Serbians, as well as nomadic peoples such as the Avars and Pechenegs. Many people did not agree with the Christian religion, so they wanted to try and distinguish it. Also, since the Empire originally broke off from the Roman Empire, many people wanted to take their mass amounts of land and military tactics. They also engaged in expansion conquests such as, the take back of Italy and North Africa, from the original Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire also used many of the Roman battle tactic such as spears and infantry, but they were also found of cavalierly and sword combat. One of the most important military engagements the Empire was ever engaged in was the Crusades. They were a set of religious driven wars that spanned from 1095 to 1291, between the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Turks. The Capitol of Constantinople was badly looted and damaged during the crusades and many of the inhabitants were forced to abandon the city.
Byzantine Architecture
Since the entire civilization of the Byzantine Empire was so highly influenced by their religion and beliefs most of their most impressive and beautiful Buildings are some sort of religious temple, or church. Or they have some sort of religious flare to them, whether it be in the artwork that they placed inside their homes, or the different creative touches that they placed outside their homes, or other buildings. In the very start of the civilization the architects drew heavily from the Roman style of building and design. Eventually they formed their own style of building which is know as the Byzantine Greek-cross-plan church. These structures were very share on the bases, although they had a pretty distinctive roof. They roves of these churches were usually large domes. This was the first time that this type of architecture was seen in the ancient world since it was so difficult to keep the buildings steady with strong foundations and support systems. The builders usually used two different ways to help hold up these specially shaped roves. The first way was, squinch. That is an arch in each of the corners of a square base that transforms it into an octagon. They second way was, the pendentive. It was very important to the people to have large spacious rooms with luxurious decorations so the buildings would usually have things like, marble columns and inlays as well as beautiful detailed mosaics. This type of architecture was so popular that it made its way to other countries like, Russia.