The book encompasses a broad historical panorama and considers the presence of litanic prayers and songs in different religions, beginning with written records in the Egyptian, Sumerian and Hebrew languages and finishing with Christian works of diverse denominations.

This book challenges long-held assumptions over New Rome’s meteoric growth in ecclesiastical standing, offering in their place a fundamentally different reading of the early Constantinopolitan episcopate during the two landmark councils of 381 and 451 and the seven tumultuous decades between them.