Byzantine style

Domes on pendentives and walls of gold mosaic – the churches of the Eastern Roman Empire.

When the Roman Empire was divided, the eastern half carried on with Constantinople as its capital. Churches were built around a central dome, and the interior was covered with gold-ground mosaics that catch the light. The exterior is often of plain brick; it is the interior that is the work of art.

Constantine the Great moved the capital of the empire to Constantinople in 330. When the West fell, the Eastern Roman Empire continued for a thousand years, with Greek as its language and the Orthodox Church as its state religion. The church interior was to be an image of heaven, with Christ in the dome and the saints in mosaic on the walls. The style lived on in Russia, in the Balkans and in Venice long after Constantinople fell in 1453.

In Sweden Byzantine models are seen mostly in the Neo-Byzantine churches of the 19th century and in the domes of Orthodox churches.