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Six centuries before [[Christ]], Athens emerged as a powerful political city-state against the Persians and quickly also became the home for the literary masterpieces of Sophocles, Aristophanes and Hippocrates to name a few. The demise of Athens occured during the [[Peloponnesian War]] (431-404 BC) but it continued to shine as a cultural and philosophical centre. This and other major historical events in Athens and Greece, have helped to shape the most well known personality of the Eastern Orthodox church; the Greek Orthodox church. Prior to christianity, Greek religion consisted of the worship of mythical pantheon gods and godesses, such as Athena, who supposedly lived throughout all of Greece.
The seed of Christianity was first sown in Athens when the [[Apostle Paul]] visited the Athenians in 502AD50 AD. Three centuries later, [[Constantine the Great]] inaugerated the [[Byzantine Empire]] with the [[Edict of Milan]], moving "Rome" to his new capital at Constantinople, allowing Christianity to be openly practiced. Athens, along with the rest of the empire, formally confirmed Christianity as the state church in 380 AD and changed forever. Pagan worship was then entirely banned from the city some twelve years after this but retained its reputation as the centre for classical learning.
==Hierarchy==
