How did the political and religious ideas of the Byzantine Empire compare with the Western Empire?
a. The Byzantine emperor was considered to be the highest political and religious figure. In the Western Empire, the highest political and religious figures were two different people.
b. The Byzantine emperor was considered the political leader, but did not have authority over the church. In the Western Empire, the king had the highest political and religious authority.
c. The emperor of the Byzantine Empire was in favor of the use of religious icons, but the pope and bishops in the West were opposed, and excommunicated those who supported this.
d. The Patriarch, as the religious authority in the Byzantine Empire, passed a law criminalizing iconoclasts, while the religious leaders in Western Empire supported iconoclasts and their religious ideas.

The correct answer is A) The Byzantine emperor was considered to be the highest political and religious figure. In the Western Empire, the highest political and religious figures were two different people.

The political and religious ideas of the Byzantine Empire compared with the Western Empire in that the Byzantine emperor was considered to be the highest political and religious figure. In the Western Empire, the highest political and religious figures were two different people.

In the western part of the Roman Empire, the Emperor was the ruler and decided on military, politic, and economic matters, but in religion, it was the Pope the ruler of the Church.

The issue regarding religion that faced the Byzantine Empire was the spread of Islam. The religion that became the strongest rival of Christianity in that time was Islam.

Islam spread basically by conquests, trade, and evangelization during the Byzantine Empire times. Traders and conquerors took Islam from the Arabian peninsula to North Africa, the Middle East as far as the Iberian Peninsula. The Ottoman Turks, who were Muslims, spread Islam in the Byzantine Empire.