Having got rid of the Latins' domination in the 13th century the empire of Palaiologos had never regained its former political and economic power. However, its cultural prestige still remained very high in the whole world. And if formerly historians used to emphasize the role of the Byzantine influence on the Italian Renaissance, now trying to diminish it, the decisive role of Byzantium in the cultural history of Slavic countries, which were traditionally included into the sphere of its influence, can not be challenged. Byzantium was that country which influenced the spiritual, literary, and artistic creations of Rus'.
Southern Slavs, due to the close connections with Constantinople, became the intermediaries in the elaboration of the sophisticated and ornamental style of 'word-netting', orthography regulation, enrichment and complication of the language, which glorified the literature of Constantinople and, under its influence, the architecture. The new features were found not only in the translations from Greek, basically made by Bulgarian and Serbian monks, but in the original works written in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Rus'.
Slavs did only not copy Byzantines, they had their own ways in painting, hagiography, preaching, and icon painting. The ideology spread by the Byzantine Church taught to more respect and pay attention to Slavs than it was done earlier, and Slavs were grateful for the friendship. The cultural supremacy of Byzantium was preserved and recognized everywhere especially among monks. The ideas of the Byzantine civilization penetrated to Rus' by translation activities, reformations, pilgrimages to Constantinople, and journeys of icon-painters, diplomats, and clergy.
There are many proofs that the Slavic Orthodox world and Byzantium made a multinational religious and cultural community that understood their unity and created preconditions for the exchange of new ideas.
