The Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki was founded as a centre for the preservation, research and study of Byzantine cultural features still surviving in the Macedonian area, above all in Thessaloniki. As is well known, the city was the second most important centre after Constantinople in the European part of the Byzantine Empire.

The museum is housed in a prize-winning building designed by architect Kyriakos Krokos.

Opened to the public in 1994, the 11 galleries present various aspects of Byzantine culture in an original and educational way, covering the period from the 3rd to the 19th century.

The first three galleries in the museum present three important aspects of the Early Christian (4th-7th c.) art and culture. These concern the architecture and decoration of Early Christian churches, and the layout of an Early Christian city and private dwelling, alongside a gallery entitled "From the Elysian Fields to Christian Heaven". The latter documents the critical changes wrought by Christianity on ideas about death, and thus about burials and burial customs. Next comes the Middle Byzantine period (8th-12th cent.), presented in sections entitled "From Iconoclasm to the Splendour of the Macedonian and Komnenian dynasties", "Byzantine Imperial Dynasties," and "Byzantine Castles." The final centuries of the empire are shown in "The Twilight of Byzantium (1204-1453)." The following two galleries present selected works from two large private collections donated to the museum by Dori Papastratou and Dimitrios Ekonomopoulos. The tour ends with sections on "Byzantium after Byzantium: The Byzantine Legacy in the Years After the Fall of Constantinople (1453-19th c.)" and "Discovering the Past ", which presents the conceptual and technical processes involved in transforming an archaeological discovery into an object to be displayed in a museum.

The museum’s permanent exhibition and the sum total of its operations blazed a new trail in museum practice within Greece and beyond. Of note are the shift in exhibition focus from artifacts to the ideas behind them; the emphasis on issues concerning material culture; the use of new technologies and contemporary art to enhance the meaning of archaeological objects; and a holistic approach to the three key areas of museum operation.

In 2005 the Council of Europe awarded the museum a prize for its significant contribution to the understanding of Byzantine culture as a key component of European culture. It was the first ever time that one of the highest European honours in the field of cultural heritage was awarded to a Greek museum.