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Since its fall, the issue of succession to the Byzantine Empire has been a major point of contention both geopolitically, with different states laying claim to its legacy and inheritance, and among the surviving members of the Byzantine nobility and their descendants. Historically, the most prominent claims have been those of the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Byzantium in 1453 and ruled from its former capital, Constantinople; the Russian Empire, as the most powerful state practising Eastern Orthodox Christianity; and various nobles and figures in Western Europe of increasingly spurious and questionable imperial descent.
References
- ↑ A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos, pp.300
- ↑ N. Oikonomides, "The Chancery of the Grand Komnenoi: Imperial Tradition and Political Reality", Archeion Pontou, 35 (1979), pp. 312f
- ↑ L. G. Westerink, "La profession de foi de Grégoire Chioniadès", Revue des études byzantines, 38, (1980), pp. 235f
- ↑ Oikonomides, "The Chancery", pp. 322-324; Rosenqvist, J.O., "Three Trapezuntine Notes", Byzantinoslavica, 54 (1993), pp. 294-299
