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| Constantine I the Great, also known as Constantine I, born February 27, 272, was a Roman Emperor who ruled between 306 and 337 AD. Born in Naissus, in Dacia Ripensis, town now known as Niš now in Serbia, he was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius Chlorus, a Roman Army officer. His mother was his father's consort, Helena. Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.
He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed and wrongly, the so-called Edict of Toleration issued at Milan in 312 which established the supremacy of Christianity. Although Constantine lived much of his life as a pagan, and later as a catechumen (student of Christianity) , he joined the Christian faith on his deathbed, being baptised by Eusebius of Nicomedia. His mother, Helena, had converted earlier and was influential in his becoming a Christian.
 Commonly surnamed Theodosius the Younger, or Theodosius the Calligrapher, was the Eastern Roman Emperor for most of his life, taking the throne as an infant in 402 and ruling as the Eastern Empire's sole emperor after the death of his father Arcadius in 408. He is mostly known for promulgating the Theodosian law code, and for the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. He also presided over the outbreak of two great Christological controversies, Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
The Edict of Milan gave Christianity a legal status, but did not make Christianity the State church of the Roman Empire; this took place under Emperor Theodosius I in 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica.
Note below that the purple land belongs to empire of Constantinople.
Green belongs to Venice Pink belongs to Greek successor states of Byzantine Empire 
Nicaea was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia. Emperor Constantine the Great convened the First Ecumenical Council there, and the city gave its name to the Nicene Creed. The city remained important in the 4th century, seeing the proclamation of Emperor Valens (364) and the failed rebellion of Procopius (365). During the same period, the See of Nicaea became independent of Nicomedia and was raised to the status of a metropolitan bishopric. However, the city was hit by two major earthquakes in 363 and 368, and coupled with competition from the newly established capital of the Eastern Empire, Constantinople, it began to decline thereafter.
 Many of its grand civic buildings began to fall into ruin, and had to be restored in the 6th century by Emperor Justinian I. What became of Milan? After the city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. An age of decadence began which worsened when Attila, King of the Huns, sacked and devastated the city in 452 AD. In 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan during the Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
"The Nicene Creed was adopted to resolve the Arian controversy, whose leader, Arius, a clergyman of Alexandria, "objected to Alexander's (the bishop of the time) apparent carelessness in blurring the distinction of nature between the Father and the Son by his emphasis on eternal generation". In reply, Alexander accused Arius of denying the divinity of the Son and also of being too "Jewish" and "Greek" in his thought. Alexander and his supporters created the Nicene Creed to clarify the key tenets of the Christian faith in response to the widespread adoption of Arius' doctrine, which was henceforth marked as heresy."
In 315, Constantine I's decrees took an anti-Jewish turn, canceling Jewish exemptions from municipal office and prohibiting proselytization or interference with Jewish converts to Christianity. Constantine's legislation initiated the legal degradation of Jews characteristic of the Middle Ages and set the pattern of emperors that followed him.
Niš has long been a crossroads between East and West. Founded by the Celtic Scordisci in 279 BC, the city would serve as the birthplace of three Roman emperors: Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor and the founder of Constantinople; Constantius III; and Justin I. Later playing a prominent role in the history of the Byzantine Empire, the city's past would earn it the nickname The Emperor's City.
Constantine's reign was from July 25, 306 to 337. At first it was to October 29, 312, as a Caesar in the West and self proclaimed Augustus from 309, recognized as such in the east in April 310. He ruled in competition with Flavius Severus from 306 to 307, Maximian from 306 to 308 and 310, Maxentius from 306 to 312 and Licinius from 308 to 313. In September 19, 324 he was the undisputed Augustus in the West, Senior Augustus in the Empire.
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The Roman Empire itself had divided in 395. This Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Until then, the Roman Empire had been ruled by or jointly by Constantine and his dynasty, and Valentinian, In 395 Theodosius ruled from 379 through 457. The Western Roman Empire kept going until 476. The Leonid dynasty lasted from 457 to 518 and then Justinian's dynasty took over from 518 to 602.
Justinian was emperor from 527 to 565. He was highly intolerant to any religious minorities so held a highly anti-Jewish policy. No Jew could serve in an civil or military post. They could not own Christian slaves. A word on this. Jews treated slaves much differently than other people. For instance, they were allowed to rest on Shabbat, just like the Jewish family they lived with. Now they would not even get the relief of living with Jews. In court, they could not give evidence against Christians. They could not celebrate Passover at the same time as Easter. That was a hard rule. We just had our first night of Passover fall on the Christian GOOD FRIDAY, and Easter fell on Sunday which was still during Passover. In 553, Justinian issued an edict regulating the synagogue service and forbidding the DEUTROSIS/commentary, the rabbinic expositions/comments. In Africa Justinian outlawed synagogues in 535 and forcibly converted the Jews of Borion. Samaritans and Jews revolted against him but were unsuccessful in Caesarea in 556.
Byzantine emperors considered themselves to be the rightful Roman emperors since Augustus, the Roman Emperor who ruled from 31 BCE to 14 CE. He was not friendly towards Jews. He had made Herod a king and had returned to him land taken by Cleopatra. Herod in turn named cities for Augustus such as Sebaste (Greek for Augustus) and Caesarea in his honor. Augustus honored Herod's will in leaving his lands to his 3 sons-Archelaus, Philip and Antipas but lated converted Judea into a region governed by a procurator living in Caesarea.
The word Byzantine wasn't created until the 16th century. The ruling of the land came from THE ROMAN EMPEROR IN CONSTANTINOPLE (now renamed as Istanbul). This wasn't contested until Empress Irene, being a woman, was not recognized as the ruler by Pope Leo III. This was in the Papal coronation of the Frankish Charlemagne as the Holy Roman EmperorESS on December 25, 800.
Many empires came and left with the last emperor being Constantine X1 that ended in 1453 with the beginning of the Ottoman Empire of the Muslim Turks that lasted for 400 years until the end of World War I.
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| Seen in Istanbul's Jewish Museum : Shalom-Peace, Hello, goodbye |
The Jews were organized into 44 distinct congregations divided into Greek, Spanish and Italian and Karaite. The Ashkenazim made up a small minority of the Jews. They had a chief rabbi in the city, and Hebrew printing presses of Constantinople were noted from the end of the 15th century. Jews developed the city's commerce, while others were distinguished as physicians and in court circles. The 19th century saw a decline in the economic and culture of the community, weakened by political reforms and modern schools. The Jewish population exceeded 90,000 in 1919, but was reduced to 20,000 by 1990. One would hope that the decline was due to moving to Israel.
Resource: https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2019/04/mother-of-roman-emperor-who-had-last.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_emperors
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia-Justinian
He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed.[
https://carm.org/nicene-creed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan
Also, read JULIAN by Gore Vidal; found in college libraries only; library can get it for you. Excellent; keeping my attention every night as I read then. Tells all about these emperors in a very interesting manner.
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