While the term comes to Paul from the Septuagint, with strong connotations of the "assembly" of (all) Israel, its primary meaning in the Greek-speaking eastern Roman empire was the citizen "assembly" of the Greek city (Liddell, Scott, & Jones, GREEK ENGLISH LEXICON [henceforth LSJ] 509, and texts; THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT [henceforth TDNT] 3.

It covered the period from 843 to 1261, the time stretching from just after the resolution of the iconoclastic crisis until the restoration of the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire, following its fall to the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

This element, which suggests a reference to the Eastern Roman Empire, is most strikingly employed by Bernini, whose colonnade encircling Piazza San Pietro alludes purposefully to the Forum of Constantine at Constantinople.