On the pages of the novel by Igor Efimov (author of the books “The Seventh Wife”, “The Unfaithful”, “The Trial and the Case”, “Archives of the Last Judgment”, etc.) “The Emperor's Bride”, events and persons that relate to the period of the decline of the Roman Empire come to life. empire, with its bloody struggle for power, treason and betrayal, foreshadowing the death of a large state. Scrupulously recreating the historical outline of this turning point, the author focuses on the spiritual quest of the era and places at the center of the action the figure of the chronicler Albinus Paulinus, bit by bit collecting materials about his teacher and mentor - the Christian monk and thinker Pelagius the Briton, whose sermons were declared heresy and subjected to church prohibition. Along with philosophical debates about dissent, interpretation of the Bible, the role of the Church, the ability of a person to independently choose his own destiny, the novel develops the lyrical line of the beautiful Greek woman Athepais, the former lover of Albius Paulinus, who in the finale becomes the ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire, Eudokia, who, along with the august title, adopted Christianity...