The book explores the history of Justiniana Prima, a city built by Emperor Justinian I (527-565) in his birthplace near Niš in present-day Serbia. Previous studies focused on determining the city's location, underestimating the significance of analyzing written sources for the reconstruction of this city's genesis and importance. Using information from Emperor Justinian's Novels XI and CXXXI, as well as Book IV of Procopius of Caesarea's De aedificiis, Stanislaw Turlej endeavors to show that Justiniana Prima's historic significance resulted from granting its Church the status of an archbishopric with its own province in 535, which was independent of Rome. Justinian wanted to introduce profound changes to the ecclesiastical organization based on state law.

Stanislaw Turlej is an assistant professor in the Institute of History at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He is the author and editor of numerous published works, including the book The Chronicle of Monemvasia: The Migration of the Slavs and Church Conflicts in the Byzantine Source from the Beginning of the 9th Century (2001).