Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan decriminalizing Christian worship. The emperor became a great patron of the Church and set a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor within the Church and raised the notions of orthodoxy, Christendom, ecumenical councils, and the state church of the Roman Empire declared by ...
Some scholars think that Helena adopted Christianity as an adult, and according to Eusebius she was converted by Constantine, [241] but other historians debate whether Constantine adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth or whether he adopted it gradually over the course of his life. [242] Pope Sylvester I and Emperor Constantine
337 – Roman Empire (baptism of Constantine I) 361 – Rome returns to paganism under Julian the Apostate; 364 – Rome returns to Christianity, specifically the Arian Church; c. 364 – Vandals (Arian Church) 376 – Goths and Gepids (Arian Church) 380 – Rome goes from Arian to Catholic/Orthodox (both terms are used refer to the same Church ...
In the year before the First Council of Constantinople in 381, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Theodosius I, emperor of the East, Gratian, emperor of the West, and Gratian's junior co-ruler Valentinian II issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, [1] which recognized the catholic orthodoxy [a] of Nicene Christians as the Roman Empire's state religion.
Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor to declare himself a Christian. In 313, he issued the Edict of Milan expressing tolerance for all religions. He did not make Christianity the state religion, but he did provide it with crucial support. Constantine called the first of seven ecumenical councils.
Although the Edict of Milan is commonly presented as Constantine's first great act as a Christian emperor, it is disputed whether the Edict of Milan was an act of genuine faith. The document could be seen as Constantine's first step in creating an alliance with the Christian God, whom he considered the strongest deity. [21]
[60]: 332 Constantine became the first Emperor in the Christian era to persecute specific groups of Christians. [62] Brown says Roman authorities had shown no hesitation in "taking out" the Christian church they saw as a threat to empire, and Constantine and his successors did the same, for the same reasons. [2]: 74
Christianity in the 4th century was dominated in its early stage by Constantine the Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325, which was the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787), and in its late stage by the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, which made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire.