Following the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, there were movements in western Europe to begin a crusade to reconquer the Byzantine Empire. Just a year later, Phillip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, attempted to rally his people to crusade by holding the Feast of the Pheasant. This event saw great pageantry, including a giant leading an elephant into the room, which was ridden by a woman, personifying the Orthodox Church in Constantinople in peril. Attendants of the feast took the 'Oath of the Pheasant', yet nothing significant came of it.

In 1459, Pope Pius II held the Congress of Mantua, with the express aim of calling a Europe-wide crusade to take back Constantinople. This meeting was reasonably well attended, representatives came from France, Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Italian Peninsula, as well as from various states in the Balkans who were directly threatened by the Ottomans. This included Thomas Palaiologos, Despot in the Morea and brother of the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI. Although there was agreement that a crusade should take place, and pledges from various states of men and ships, this ultimately came to nothing. Pius II died in 1464 at the port of Ancona, desperately trying to put together a fleet and army until his dying breath. With his death, the fleet that had assembled melted away, the states of Europe continued their conflicts and the western dream of a crusade for Constantinople ended with Pius.

The idea of restoring Constantinople to the Greeks laid largely dormant until the nineteenth century and the invention of the 'Megali Idea'. This was a nationalistic movement that looked to have all regions of eastern Europe that had a Greek populations form one state, with its capital at Constantinople. In 1844, a Greek minister stated

""There are two great centres of Hellenism. Athens is the capital of the Kingdom. Constantinople is the great capital, the City, the dream and hope of all Greeks."

The independence of Greece was seen as a step in the directions of the Megali Idea, and various wars in the later nineteenth century had the express of aim of retaking these lands, including Constantinople. After the First World War, the army of Greece went to war with the extremely weak Turkey, planning to seize Constantinople. They were stopped and subsequent treaties ended.

Today it is largely recognised that the return of Istabul to Greek sovereignty is politically impossible, although some right-wing nationalist groups in Greece, such as the Golden Dawn continue to promote the ideas of the Megali Idea, including the return of Constantinople to Greek hands.