<P> Under the Macedonian emperors, the city of Constantinople flourished, becoming the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, with a population of approximately 400,000 in the 9th and 10th centuries . During this period, the Byzantine Empire employed a strong civil service staffed by competent aristocrats that oversaw the collection of taxes, domestic administration, and foreign policy . The Macedonian emperors also increased the Empire's wealth by fostering trade with Western Europe, particularly through the sale of silk and metalwork . </P> <P> The Macedonian period also included events of momentous religious significance . The conversion of the Bulgarians, Serbs and Rus' to Orthodox Christianity permanently changed the religious map of Europe and still resonates today . Cyril and Methodius, two Byzantine Greek brothers from Thessaloniki, contributed significantly to the Christianization of the Slavs and in the process devised the Glagolitic alphabet, ancestor to the Cyrillic script . </P> <P> In 1054, relations between the Eastern and Western traditions within the Christian Church reached a terminal crisis, known as the East--West Schism . Although there was a formal declaration of institutional separation, on July 16, when three papal legates entered the Hagia Sophia during Divine Liturgy on a Saturday afternoon and placed a bull of excommunication on the altar, the so - called Great Schism was actually the culmination of centuries of gradual separation . Unfortunately the legates did not know that the Pope had died, an event that made the excommunication void and the excommunication only applied to the Patriarch who responded by excommunicating the legates . </P> <P> The Empire soon fell into a period of difficulties, caused to a large extent by the undermining of the theme system and the neglect of the military . Nikephoros II, John Tzimiskes, and Basil II changed the military divisions (τάγματα, tagmata) from a rapid response, primarily defensive, citizen army into a professional, campaigning army, increasingly manned by mercenaries . Mercenaries were expensive, however, and as the threat of invasion receded in the 10th century, so did the need for maintaining large garrisons and expensive fortifications . Basil II left a burgeoning treasury upon his death, but he neglected to plan for his succession . None of his immediate successors had any particular military or political talent and the administration of the Empire increasingly fell into the hands of the civil service . Efforts to revive the Byzantine economy only resulted in inflation and a debased gold coinage . The army was now seen as both an unnecessary expense and a political threat . Native troops were therefore cashiered and replaced by foreign mercenaries on specific contract . </P>

The form of christianity practiced in the byzantine empire after 1054 was which
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