A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Constantine quadrupled Byzantium in size, and although virtually none of the buildings which he provided survive, the Great Palace of the emperors remained on the same site from its first completion in 330 until the death of the last emperor in 1453. This new Rome reflected the new situation of tolerance for all, but with Christianity more equal than others. Traditional religion was put in a subordinate place: the core centres of worship were Christian churches of great magnificence. They included a church in which Constantine proposed to gather the bodies of all twelve Apostles to accompany his own corpse: a mark of how he now saw his role in the Christian story, although the coffins alongside his own had to remain mainly symbolic in default of enough relics of the Twelve.