by the Greeks, on condition of their receiving aid against the Turks (A.D. 1439). This fresh attempt at union was repudiated by the Eastern Church at large, but a troop of French and Italian crusaders started for the East. Constantinople was, however, doomed, and the good and brave Constantine Palaeologus (A.D. 1448-A.D. 1433) was the last, as he was one of the best, of the Greek emperors. [Sidenote: Fall of Constantinople] The city fell, after an obstinate defence, on the 29th May, A.D. 1453, and Constantine was among the slain. The Turks pillaged and slaughtered indiscriminately, and turned into a mosque the beautiful Church of St. Sophia, built by the Emperor Justinian in honour of the "Holy Wisdom" of God. {139} [Sidenote: and the Greek Empire.] All the Greek Empire had now fallen into the hands of the Turks, except the small mountainous district of Albania, which held out until the death of George Castriota (dreaded by the Turks under the name of Scanderbeg), A.D. 1467. The rocky strip of land known as Montenegro has been enabled to maintain an unbroken independence. [Sidenote: State of the Church of Greece under Turkish rule.] The Church of Greece was now no longer the dominant and recognized religion of the country, but it was not extinguished. The numerous mountain monasteries, inaccessible from their construction and position, were the chief strongholds of the Christian Faith; and so, "cast down, but not destroyed," the Church in Greece struggled on, until, after nearly three centuries of Turkish rule, Greece itself once more became a Christian kingdom. Section 9. The Church of Russia. [Sidenote: Decay of the Church after its first planting in Russia.] The Church, founded in the South of Russia by St. Andrew, appears not to have spread to the other parts of this vast country, and to have died out, perhaps under the influence the hordes of barbarians who poured westward from Asia to Europe. [Sidenote: Foundation of the present Church.]