This resulted in the development of the institution of the papacy. The patriarch of Constantinople was an important religious leader in the Byzantine Empire. Power struggles increased over the centuries, and theological differences widened. Finally, after Pope Nicholas I denounced Patriarch Photius in the eleventh century, the eastern cleric declared he was no longer under the pope's authority. The final break between what became known as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches occurred in 1054.
Islam was also spreading rapidly in the Middle Ages. Founded by the prophet Muhammad in A.D. 610, by the eleventh century it extended from Spain to India, and circled the Mediterranean Sea. Its dominions included the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, where Jesus had been born, taught, and died. Before the Muslim takeover the eastern Mediterranean had been part of the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire before that. The "Holy Land" was now sacred to three religions. At its center was Jerusalem: the ancient capital of the Jews where the last remaining wall of the Second Temple still stands; the scene of many events in Jesus' life and the site of his crucifixion; and the location from which, according to Muslim belief, Muhammad ascended to Heaven to talk with God.
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