Constantinople Patriarchal See

The see of Constantinople grew with the capital refounded by Constantine in 330; the council of 381 ranked its bishop second in honor only to Rome. Justinian's Hagia Sophia was consecrated in 537, and the breach with Rome opened there in 1054. Latin clergy held it under Crusader occupation from 1204 to 1261.

After the Ottoman conquest of 1453 turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque, Mehmed II in 1454 invested the monk Gennadius as patriarch and ethnarch of Orthodox Christians under the millet system. The Miaphysite Armenians received their own patriarchate in 1461 under Hovakim I, whose millet also embraced the Syriac Orthodox.

Moscow was recognized as a fifth patriarchate in 1589. The Greek throne moved in 1597 to Saint George in the Phanar, rebuilt after fires, while the Church of Greece broke away as autocephalous in 1833.