Epiphanius began to interrogate the Blessed One and said: “Tell me, please, how and when the end of this world shall occur? What are the beginnings of the throes? And how will men know that the end is close, at the doors? By what signs will the end be indicated? And whither will pass this city, the New Jerusalem? What will happen to the holy temples standing here, to the venerated icons, the relics of the Saints, and the books?”
—Life of Saint Andrew the Simple, tenth century

The Turkish emir Osman I, father of the Ottoman dynasty,…