The fall of Constantinople in 1453 under the Ottoman Turks did not mark the disappearance of the Byzantine civilization and of its whole institutional, religious and cultural, thesaurus. The Byzantine idea and the values of the Byzantine world were taken over by a number of peoples from South-East Europe, which were later transmitted to future generations. The Byzantine institutional tradition was also continued in the Country of Moldova (Ţara Moldovei), whose rulers used the Byzantine precedent for the organization of the state and its institutions. Without officially declaring themselves as successors of the Byzantine kings, the rulers of Moldova perpetuated the political and religious values of this great civilization. They assumed the role of defenders of Christianity against the Ottoman expansion and raised Moldova to the rank of a new center of Eastern Christianity.