Processional Cross Icon with Saint Demetrios Double-Faced Enkolpion Casket, Story of Joshua Casket with Warriors and Dancers Panels from Adam and Eve Casket Temple Pendant and Stick The Middle Byzantine Period: The "Second Golden Age" of Byzantium (843­1261) The era we now call the Middle Byzantine is considered to begin in 843, with the finish of the Iconoclastic controversy, and to end in the year 1261, when the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople from the crusaders, who had sacked the city in 1204. At its apogee in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Italy to Mesopotamia. In the tenth century Byzantium, through political pressure and missionary activity, began to convert the Bulgarians and the Rus' to Christianity. Key to these successes were the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who were conversant with the Slavic language. In the ninth century these men translated Byzantine Christian writings into the Slavic dialect, thus creating the first Slavic alphabet, the first Slavic literary language (called Old Church Slavonic), and the first Slavic literature. The imperial government was centralized and ordered. From the church and emperor to the peasant, ceremonies created a sense of order and stability for the members of Byzantine society. The emperors patronized the arts as policy, restoring and rebuilding Constantinople's palaces and churches; some promoted the study and preservation of ancient Greek literature. The official language of the state became Greek, not Latin. Monasticism burgeoned in the Middle Byzantine era, guiding the course of theology, the veneration of icons, and the piety and religious practices of Byzantium. In the cities monasteries administered orphanages, craft schools, poor houses, rest homes, and hospitals. In the countryside, monasteries functioned as agricultural communes. Mount Athos in northeastern Greece was the international center of Orthodox monasticism by the eleventh century. The Emperor and the Court during the Middle Byzantine Period Considered the representative of Christ by his subjects, the emperor of Byzantium was an absolute ruler. He centered his government at his palace and had thousands of educated bureaucrats throughout the empire carrying out imperial legislation and operations, including the tax and justice systems. This administration was unique in its efficiency. Ceremonials, held by both the male court of the emperor and the female court of the empress, sumptuously punctuated all state occasions, including imperial coronations, marriages, births, and birthdays; the promotion of officials; the reception of ambassadors; and the celebration of triumphs. On holy days the court magnificently processed to churches. These occasions of elaborate pomp not only put the internal structure of the court on stage, with the precise ranks of officials marked by their silk costume, but also presented to the public an idealized image of the Byzantine state in harmonious order. This sort of theater can also be seen in the visual and verbal portraits of emperors by Byzantine artists and orators, in which the condition of the court, and thus the state, was symbolically shown. In physique and deportment the ideal emperor was always decorous and handsome; even his costume and regalia expressed his majesty and quality. An emperor's portrayal might also link him to the virtuous prototypes of Christ, such as the Hebrew rulers David and Solomon, while in art the emperor's halo and the gold of his background associated him with the sun. The Byzantine Church during the Middle Byzantine Period According to Orthodox belief, a Christian's ultimate goal is theosis, a Greek word meaning "becoming God." This is the belief that God became man so that man might become God. Christ was considered by the church to be both fully divine and fully human. His human will to act, however, always followed his divine will. Although human beings can never be fully divine, by following the teachings of the Orthodox Church, they can strive in their actions to come as close as possible to being God-like. The Byzantine Church's unique devotion to icons, or sacred images, was nourished by monasticism. Icons were brought out for special occasions, carried in processions, and were even used to protect cities in wartime. They were bowed to, prayed to, sung to, and kissed; they were honored with candles, oil lamps, incense, precious-metal covers, and public processions. Although an icon (in Greek eikon, or "image") could be a panel painted with a sacred subject intended for veneration, it could also be an image on a mosaic, an enamel, an ivory carving, a sculpture, and even a coin. What was essential was that the icon's imitation of the holy figure enabled the image to partake of the essence and sanctity of the actual figure portrayed. By venerating the likeness, the worshiper honored the sainted figure through the gateway of the icon. The Greco-Roman tradition of having painted panels of the gods placed in homes with candles lit in front of them may have inspired the development of icons. First used privately, icons with Christian subjects gradually entered the church. Possibly because of their pagan roots and possibly because they seemed to violate the second of the Ten Commandments, which forbade the making of idols, segments of society rejected icons, eventually leading to the Iconoclastic controversy. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 officially established the division of the Christian world into five patriarchates, or areas overseen by a patriarch, in order of precedence: Rome (the patriarch there later calling himself the pope), Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. When Islamic conquests of the seventh century absorbed the last three, the patriarch of Constantinople became the leader of most eastern Christians. The exceptions were the Armenians and the Christians in communities that still existed in imperial lands lost to Islam, all of whom still maintained their long-standing relationships with the empire. As the Slavs of Bulgaria, the Rus', and the Serbs were converted to the Orthodox religion in the tenth century, the patriarch of Constantinople also became their spiritual head. He remained, however, under the authority of the emperor. 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