Christianity, not civic ideals, formed the moral and intellectual center of Byzantine life. Even the Byzantines sometimes complained that buying a piece of fruit in the market was impossible without becoming immersed in a discussion of the Trinity, but religion to them was more than a mental exercise; it was the conceptual framework of their lives. Religious disputes thus played an important role in Byzantine politics. The struggle between the orthodox and the Monophysites, who held that Christ's nature was fully human but that it had been transformed by the divine, convulsed the empire for nearly four centuries. The Iconoclastic Controversy over the use of religious images or icons generated revolts and persecutions from 726 to 843.

Though the Greek and Latin churches did not divide formally until 1054, they followed different lines of development almost from the first. In the east, church organization continued to parallel that of the imperial bureaucracy. Its higher officials--patriarchs, bishops, and metropolitans--were monks appointed by the emperor. They were expected to be celibate, if not eunuchs. Village priests, however, were normally married, in part because popular wisdom held that this would protect them from sexual temptation.

Like Byzantine society as a whole, eastern Christianity maintained a high degree of individualism within its rigidly hierarchical framework. It emphasized the inner transformation of the believer rather than sin and redemption. Its icons, or religious paintings, portray God as Pantocrator or ruler of the universe and virtually ignore Christ the crucified redeemer until late in the empire's history. The saints are abstract figures whose holiness is indicated by the golden aura of sanctity that surrounds them, not by individual features. Western legalism--the tendency to enumerate sins and prescribe penances--was almost wholly absent, and even monasteries encouraged individual development at the expense of communal living. Saintly hermits remained the most revered figures in Byzantium, advising emperors from their caves or from the top of pillars where they lived exposed to the elements, often for decades.

Before the death of Constantine, this faith had transformed the Greek way of life beyond recognition. The preoccupation with personal salvation, as well as the vast weight of the imperial bureaucracy, rendered the old idea of community meaningless. The ancient preoccupation with the human body vanished. The Byzantines wore long brocaded robes and heavy makeup that disguised the body's natural outlines and, like westerners, gradually abandoned the practice of bathing because the church thought of it as self-indulgent. For medieval Christians, the “odor of sanctity” was no mere figure of speech. In deportment, solemnity became the ideal even for children, who, like their elders, were supposed to mimic the icons that gazed down serenely from the domes of churches. . . .

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