The New Rome, dedicated to the Mother of God

Upon learning of the oppressive measures taken by the Roman emperor against Eastern Christians, the Eastern emperor Constantine raised a powerful army, placed it under the sign of the victorious Cross, and took advantage of a military campaign against the barbarians in Pannonia (present-day Hungary) to invade Italy in 322. 

The victorious Constantine, triumphant in the name of Christ and the Truth, offered the reunified Roman Empire to the King of kings, and like a new Apostle he proclaimed to the ends of the Empire, from Mesopotamia to Great Britain, the faith in the one God and in his Son, who took flesh for our salvation.

In an edict proclaimed throughout the Empire, he declared that God alone was to be considered the cause of his victories and that he had been chosen by Providence to serve the good and the truth. He urged all his subjects to follow his example, but without forcing anyone. To this new Christian Empire, which was to last a thousand years, he decided to give a new capital. Inspired by a divine sign, the pious emperor chose the small city of Byzantium, situated at the crossroads between East and West. 

He himself traced the boundaries of the new city, and ordered the master builder, Euphrata, to spare no expense in endowing it with monuments and public roads surpassing in glory and magnificence all other cities in the world. 

When the city was founded on November 8, 324, Byzantium was named Constantinople and New Rome, and was later dedicated to the Mother of God.

 The Mary of Nazareth team