History of Christianity

Frances M. Young writes in the Cambridge History of Christianity that "The death of Jesus by crucifixion, together with his resurrection from the dead, lies at the heart of Christianity."[24] Tensions surround the figure of Jesus as the historical instigator and foundation of Christianity around whom "apparently legendary features" have clustered.[24] These tensions can be seen in the twenty-first century distinction between the ‘Jesus of history’ and the ‘Christ of faith’.[24]

The primary, though not the only, sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels, and to a lesser extent the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure.[25][note 1]

Yet, since the nineteenth century, there have been repeated attempts to discern, by various methods, what might be history and what might be legend in the gospels.[29] Young lists some of the difficulties:

• Post-Enlightenment questions about the perspectives and beliefs of those who told the story, not least the belief in miracles and supernatural power
• The nature of the sources and the question of their mutual compatibility
• Considerable time-spans between the events and the accounts
• Questions about the validity of oral traditions
• Gaps in the evidence
• Issues about the authenticity of material remains
• Post-Reformation rejection of relics and their veneration.[30]

Yet it is precisely Christology, the dogmas concerning the divinity and humanity of Christ, which have made Christianity what it is. The clarification of these doctrines, against all the variant forms of Christianity around in the earliest period, was impelled by the ‘cult’ of Jesus, and by the fact that his story was quickly incorporated into an over-arching cosmic narrative.[31]

An approximate chronology of Jesus can be estimated from non-Christian sources, and confirmed by correlating them with New Testament accounts.[32][33] Jesus was most likely born between 7 and 2 BC and died 30–36 AD.[32][34] The baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist can be dated approximately from Josephus' references (Antiquities 18.5.2) to a date before AD 28–35.[35][36][37][38]

Amy-Jill Levine says "there is a consensus of sorts on the basic outline of Jesus' life. Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God’s will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in parables, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (26–36 CE)".[39]

According to the Gospels, Jesus is the Son of God, who was crucified c. AD 30–33 in Jerusalem.[1] His followers believed that he was raised from the dead and exalted by God, heralding the coming Kingdom of God.[1] Jesus had urged his followers to worship God, act without violence or prejudice, and care for the sick, hungry, and poor. He had also criticized the hypocrisy of the religious establishment which drew the ire of the authorities.[40] The Talmud says Jesus was executed for sorcery and for leading the people into apostasy.[41]

The religious, social, and political climate of 1st-century Roman Judea and its neighbouring provinces was extremely diverse, and often characterized by socio-political turmoil,[1][42][43] with numerous Judaic movements that were both religious and political.[44] The Jewish Messiah concept, promising a future "anointed" leader (messiah or king) from the Davidic line, had developed in apocalyptic literature over the previous centuries.[45][1]

When Christianity spread beyond Judaea, it first arrived in Jewish diaspora communities.[46] The dispersion of the Jewish people from their homeland had begun in BC 587/6 when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Israel and took slaves from Jerusalem into Babylon.[47] When later allowed to return, not everyone did so. Those remaining outside the homeland became a somewhat separate community unto themselves later referred to by scholars as the diaspora.[48] [note 2]

Panorama view of the reconstructed Southern Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, 6th century BC, Babylon, Iraq

Many scholars have emphasized differences between Palestinian Jews and diaspora Jews, but it is likely they still had a common Judaism. Being Jewish had both ethnic and religious elements, and the basic aspects of Jewish faith - circumcision, the Sabbath, and other central practices prescribed by the Torah - were most likely carried out by the individual within the context of home and family no matter where they lived.[49]

One real difference of diaspora Judaism was in their use of Greek as both a spoken and written language, not only in everyday usage, but also for religious purposes. This demonstrates a high level of acculturation called Hellenization whose extent, depth and significance has long been, and continues to be, contested.[50]

Tessa Rajak writes in the Cambridge History of Christianity that "The crushing of the revolt in [AD 70–73], celebrated by Rome’s issue of the famous ‘Judaea capta’ coins, ...resulted in a degradation of the standing of Jews everywhere”.[51] In AD 115/16, diaspora Jews revolted, and it was only in the second half of the second century that Judaism entered a less turbulent era.[52]

According to Rajak, the essence of diaspora lies in powerlessness more than in power, and "the early Christian communities shared many of the same experiences."[53]

The Roman province of Judea in the 1st century AD

St. Lawrence (martyred 258) before Emperor Valerianus by Fra Angelico

The Christian gospel came into a Roman Empire which had only recently emerged from a long series of civil wars, and which would experience two more major periods of civil war over the next centuries.[54] This period saw the growth of the cult of the emperor which regarded the emperor as the "elect" of god.[55] Romans of this era feared civil disorder believing it produced anarchy, giving their highest regard to peace, harmony and order.[55]

In order to reinforce order, society's class boundaries, which were most obvious in the courts where advantages and disadvantages based on class were convention, were turned into legislation.[55] Status, and the pursuit of status through wealth and the accumulation of possessions, was the pattern of Roman life.[56] Piety equaled loyalty to family, class, city and emperor, and it was demonstrated by loyalty to the practices and rituals of the old religious ways not by the individual faith of Christianity.[56]

Christianity was mostly seen as odd, but also as disruptive, and by some, as a threat to "Romanness".[57] While Christianity was largely tolerated, it was also persecuted, though persecution tended to be localized actions by mobs and governors until Christianity reached a critical juncture in the mid-third century.[58] In 250, Decius made it a capital offence to refuse to make sacrifices to Roman gods. The majority of scholars see Decius' decree as a requirement applied to all the inhabitants of the Empire, but they also see it as possible he intended it as an anti-Christian measure.[59] Still, Decius did not outlaw Christian worship.[60] Valerian pursued similar policies later that decade. These were followed by a 40-year period of tolerance known as the "little peace of the Church". The last and most severe official persecution, the Diocletianic Persecution, took place in 303–311.[61]

Map of the Roman empire with distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries displayed for each century

Beginning with less than 1000 people, by the year 100, Christianity had grown to perhaps one hundred small household churches consisting of an average of around seventy (12–200) members each.[62] It achieved critical mass in the hundred years between 150 and 250 when it moved from fewer than 50,000 adherents to over a million.[63] This provided enough adopters for its growth rate to be self-sustaining.[63][64]

Rodney Stark estimates that Christians made up around 1.9% of the Roman population in 250.[65] Scholars generally agree there was a significant rise in the absolute number of Christians in the third century.[66] Stark, building on earlier estimates by theologian Robert M. Grant and historian Ramsay MacMullen, estimates that Christians made up around ten percent of the Roman population by 300.[65]

In these early centuries, Christianity spread beyond the Roman Empire as well as within it. Armenia, Persia (modern Iraq), Ethiopia, Central Asia, India and China have evidence of early Christian communities.[67] Robert Louis Wilken writes that there is first hand evidence of Christian community in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and of the Syriac speaking church in Baghdad commissioning a bishop to send to Tibet.[68] By the mid-sixth century a merchant-traveler wrote of his discovery of fully formed Christian communities in Malabar on the southwestern coast of India, and on Socotra an island in the Arabian Sea. (These had originally been commissioned by the church in Persia.)[69] Georgia, where Christianity arrived before the third century, was North of Armenia. Two bishops from Georgia attended the Council of Nicaea in 325.[70][note 3]

In these early centuries, Christianity grew as individuals were drawn to the faith and instructed, often beginning with a King and Queen.[72]

Asia Minor in the 2nd century AD - general map - Roman provinces under Trajan - bleached - English legend

Map roman cities in Greece-en

Christine Trevett writes in the Cambridge History of Christianity that "Asia Minor and Achaea were nurseries for Christianity."[73] Christian churches grew within cities mentioned in the New Testament like Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and Pergamum where civic pride and diverse cultures proliferated.[73][note 4]

In the second and third centuries, conflicts over the degree and type of Christ's divinity and humanity emerged.[80] The belief in Jesus Christ as the incarnation of the pre-existent and creative 'logos' (word of god), held by many Christians of the east, fueled the later Arian controversy.[81]

In the Christian ‘mainstream’, the apostles, those who had known them, and the apostolic tradition were used as the theological basis for opposition.[82] By the end of the second century, catholic leaders were gathering formally to discuss major issues and form official statements of ‘orthodox’ Christian belief which included a ‘canon of truth’ and a ‘rule of faith’.[83] Trevett writes that "There was not just Christian diversity but a proud distinctiveness in Asia Minor. Its catholic leaders stood their ground, despite the claims and differing practices of Rome".[84]

1865 Spruner Map of the Roman Empire under Diocletian - Geographicus - ImperiumRomanumDiocletian-spruner-1865

There is no archaeological evidence of Christianity in Egypt before the fourth century, however, Birger Pearson writes in the Cambridge History of Christianity that the literary evidence of Christianity's presence there before the fourth century is "massive".[85][note 5]

Egyptian Christianity began in Alexandria probably very early.[90] According to Pearson, "Writings that would eventually become part of the New Testament canon were brought to Egypt ... probably in the first century".[85][note 6] The most plausible explanation comes from papyrologist Colin Roberts who concludes that the earliest Egyptian ‘Christians’ were not a separate community but were instead an integral part of the Jewish community of Alexandria.[93]

The Nile boat or, glimpses of the land of Egypt - by W.H. Bartlett (1849) (14775178261)

Jewish immigration into Egypt from Palestine had begun as early as the sixth century BC, and by the first century AD, the Jewish population in Alexandria numbered in hundreds of thousands.[94] With the coming of Roman rule in 30 BC, the situation of the Jews declined, leading to a pogrom against the Jews in 38 AD. In 115, diaspora Jews in Alexandria revolted. Under Trajan, this led to the virtual annihilation of the Alexandrian Jewish community in 117 AD.[92]

The revolt was also a crucial event for Christians.[93] Much of the literary legacy of the lost Jewish community was saved by Christians who treasured and preserved it, and this legacy heavily impacted their literary production.[93] From the first century on, countless Christian writings flowed into Alexandria from all over the Empire, and Alexandrian Christians were prolific in response.[95]

Gnosticism first appeared in Egypt in the second century.[96] According to Roberts, the early papyri provide no support for the view that Gnosticism was the earliest form of Christianity in Egypt.[93] Marcionite Christianity also came to Alexandria in the mid-second century.[96]

In Alexandria, Clement was a teacher and presbyter who wrote against gnosticism by distinguishing between ‘false’ knowledge and the 'true' knowledge that had come from the apostles.[97] Seen as the greatest scholar and theologian of the ancient church, Origen was one of the most prolific writers of antiquity.[98] Christians wrote of the church’s core apostolic faith as the same the world over. Pearson writes that, "The church inherited this claim ... from Judaism, which, ... was the only other religion in the history of Graeco-Roman religions to have this feature".[95]

Christian organization in Alexandria evolved following the model of the synagogue. Each Christian congregation had its own presbyter.[99] According to Pearson, "The writings of Clement and Origen attest to this evolution ‘from the Christian community to an institutional church’."[100]

In this early period, Christian religion expanded beyond Alexandria into the interior of Egypt where it was influenced by native Egyptian culture and language. This produced a distinctive Coptic Christianity which is still active in the twenty-first century.[91]

Monasticism played a greater role in Egyptian Christianity than in any other regional church.[101] Pearson says that "Roger Bagnall is probably right" that Christians were already a majority in Egypt by the time of the death of Constantine in 337.[102]

According to Pearson: "By the end of the third century, the Alexandrian church was at least as influential in the east as the Roman church was in the west".[103]

Roman Empire - Syria Coele (AD 210)

Christianity in Antioch is mentioned in Paul's epistles written before 60 AD, and scholars generally see Antioch as a primary center of early Christianity.[104][note 7] The Chronicle of Edessa records a flood in Edessa, in the year 201, that destroyed ‘the temple of the church of the Christians’. This demonstrates there was a community in Edessa that was large enough by the third century to have a building worth noting.[106]

Harvey attests that "Eusebius knew an independent tradition linking Thomas to the conversion of Edessa..." (HE 1.3; 2.1; 3.1). Edessa proudly held the relic of Thomas’ bones – attested both by Ephrem and by the western pilgrim Egeria, who saw them on her visit to the city in April 384". Thomas was also associated with the founding of Christianity in Mesopotamia and India. [107]

Syria preserved the earliest known collection of Christian hymns, the Odes of Solomon, which Harvey notes use "powerful feminine imagery ... for the Holy Spirit, a frequent characteristic of Syriac writings prior to the fifth century".[108] Especially prominent are images of healing and bodily wholeness, which is one of the most pervasive and enduring themes of Syrian Christianity throughout its regions and across its various doctrinal forms.[106]

The prophet Mani was born in Persian Mesopotamia in 216, and his religion, Manichaeism, was popular in Syria for some centuries.[109][110] Zoroastrian opposition led to Mani's imprisonment and death in 276.[110]

Christians in this region had little, if any, direct experience with persecution before the fourth century.[111] By the turn of the fourth century, foundation legends began to appear. "Most famous was the legendary correspondence between Jesus and king Abgar Ukkama (‘the Black’) of Edessa. The story is best known in the version of Eusebius (HE 1.13), in which the apostle Thaddaeus, one of the seventy, is sent by Thomas to convert the kingdom of Edessa. Eusebius claims to have translated this correspondence directly from Syriac into Greek (HE 1.13.6–10)".[112]

Founding members of Christianity in Gaul were probably from the already established communities in the East and Rome.[113]

Most of what is known of early Christianity in Gaul comes from the Letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons concerning the persecution of Christians under Marcus Aurelius.[114] Doubts have been raised about the letter's authenticity, but it is generally accepted.[115] Eusebius gives two dates for the persecution ten years apart, the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius’ reign (166–167), and the seventeenth year (177), which is the date most widely accepted.[114] The letter was written in response to the rise of Montanism in Asia and Phrygia.[116] The letter specifically refers to the martyrdom of eleven Christians from Vienne and Lyons, although later martyrologies record 49 names.[117] In the letter, grisly details of the suffering and martyrdoms are interpreted theologically.[118]

Irenaeus, who became bishop of Lyons after the martyrdom of Pothinus, is the most likely author of the letter, but his primary work, written between 174 and 189 is "Detection and refutation of gnosis falsely so-called", (usually known by its Latin title Adversus haereses).[117]

Irenaeus describes how, in his early youth, he had known Polycarp, the bishop of the church in Smyrna. This connection with Polycarp was important for Irenaeus: he emphasises that Polycarp had been appointed bishop of Smyrna by the apostles themselves and spoke often about his discussion with John and others who had seen the Lord. Irenaeus thus brought with him to Gaul a living connection with the age of the apostles...[119]

There is nothing more of Christianity in Gaul until the beginning of the 4th century excepting one inscription, which can possibly be dated to the early 3rd century, from the cemetery of Saint Pierre l’Estrier in Autun.[120]

During the first two and a half centuries, Christianity in Gaul is characterized by diversity.[121]

Roman provinces of North Africa

Roman Empire - Africa Proconsularis (125 AD)

The origins of Christianity in North Africa are unknown, but most scholars connect it to the Jewish communities of Carthage.[122]

The Pauline letters were available in Latin by 180 (M. Scil. 12), and the remainder of scripture by c.250, and African Christians had all the biblical books in Latin except James, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John.[122] North Africa formed church doctrines on the Trinity, the nature of the soul, biblical interpretation, the nature of the church itself, and roles for women, but did this mostly by solving practical problems rather than theological ones.[123] Women prophets were generally respected in the church, however, Tertullian opposed leadership roles for women. It's possible that is due to his personal association of women’s leadership with gnostic theology, since he stood alone in that opposition.[123] He was at odds with African trends and with members of the New Prophecy outside Africa.[124]

Standards of conduct, especially with regard to sexual mores, were stricter than that of the surrounding culture for both men and women.[125] Africans strongly defended the re-baptism of those who failed, but they did not break communion with Romans who did not re-baptise.[126] This 'collegiality' was a hallmark of African church governance in its first three centuries. Bishops might threaten excommunication but did not actually break communion.[127] There were internal issues in the church that produced division, but in spite of any and all disagreements, Tertullian and Cyprian both proclaimed the unity of the church.[128]

While there is no accurate count of the persons martyred in Africa, Christians were persecuted intermittently from 180 until 305.[129][note 8] In the first three centuries, the most serious threats occurred under Emperors Decius and Valerian when the requirement to sacrifice to the gods was universally enforced and documented.[131] Some Christians tried to acquire the necessary documents through proxies or bribery, while some went into exile, and others were executed. Many simply complied.[131] These were condemned by rigorists in the church as lapsi in contrast to the stantes who stood firm. Problems were created when the lapsi later tried to rejoin the church.[131]

In 253, a new persecution began under Valerian (r. 253–9) aimed at high-ranking clergy. Christian leaders were required to sacrifice and stop all Christian assemblies, while all Christians were forbidden to have their own cemeteries.[132] Maureen Tilley in the Cambridge History of Christianity writes that "Some clergy were sentenced to the imperial mines (Cypr. Ep. 76–9). During the summer of 256, the higher clergy became subject to the death penalty; upper-class men lost their status and property and, if they persisted in the faith, were also executed. Upper-class women were exiled and their property seized (Cypr. Ep. 80)."[132] Cyprian was arrested, tried and executed in 258.[132]

After Valerian’s death, there were four decades of relative peace. Then, according to Tilley, "in the 290s, the military began to execute soldiers, such as Maximilian of Theveste and Marcellus of Tingis, for refusal to serve after conversion".[133]

Martyrs reinforced Christian identity as something that included resistance to state authority when necessary.[133]

Gerd Theissen writes that church leadership in primitive Christianity transformed from itinerant preaching into resident leadership (those located in a particular community over which they exercised leadership) laying the foundation for the church structure that followed.[134]

Episkopoi were overseers – bishops – and presbyters were generally elders or priests. Deacons served. However, the terms were sometimes used interchangeably.[135]

Following the administrative pattern set by the Empire, the territory administered by a bishop came to be known by its ordinary civil term: diocese.[136] The bishop's actual physical location within his diocese was his "seat", or "see".[137]

A study by Edwin A. Judge, social scientist, shows that a fully organized church system had evolved before Constantine and the Council of Nicea in 325.[4]

A folio from Papyrus 46, an early-3rd-century collection of Pauline epistles.

During the rise of Christianity in the first century AD, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians eventually called these new scriptures the "New Testament", and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament".[138] New Testament books already had considerable authority in the late first and early second centuries.[139] Even in its formative period, most of the books of the NT that were seen as scripture were already agreed upon. Linguistics scholar Stanley E. Porter says "evidence from the apocryphal non-Gospel literature is the same as that for the apocryphal Gospels – in other words, that the text of [most of] the Greek New Testament was relatively well established and fixed by the time of the second and third centuries".[140]

When discussion of canonization began, there were disputes over including some texts, such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the First and Second Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle of John, and the Book of Revelation.[141][142] The list of books included in the canon of the early Catholic Bible was established by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397.[143]

Spanning two millennia, the Bible has become one of the most influential works ever written, having contributed to the formation of Western law, art, literature, literacy and education.[144][145]

The earliest orthodox writers of the first and second centuries, outside the writers of the New Testament itself, were first called the Apostolic Fathers in the sixth century.[146] The title "Church Father" is used by the church to describe those who were the intellectual and spiritual teachers, leaders and philosophers of early Christianity.[147] Writing from the first century to the close of the eighth, they defended their faith, wrote commentaries and sermons, recorded the Creeds, church history, and lived exemplary lives.[148][note 9]

Christianity originated in 1st-century Judea as a sect of apocalyptic Jewish Christians within Second Temple Judaism.[1][158] In the early first century, the temple in Jerusalem was still central to Judaism, though synagogues were also established as institutions for prayer and the reading of Jewish sacred texts.[159]

While there is evidence supporting the presence of Gentiles even in the earliest Christian communities (Acts 10), most early Christians, such as the Ebionites, remained actively Jewish.[158]

The early Christian community in Jerusalem, led by James the Just, brother of Jesus, was singularly influential.[160][161] According to Acts 9,[162] they described themselves as "disciples of the Lord" and [followers] "of the Way", and according to Acts 11,[163] a settled community of disciples at Antioch were the first to be called "Christians". [note 10]

The Church of Saint Peter near Antioch (modern-day Antakya), the city where the disciples were called "Christians".[167]

Christianity grew apart from Judaism for several reasons. Jerusalem fell to the Romans, and the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.[168] Christianity did not support the Jews in their rebellion against Rome and blamed Judaism's rejection of Jesus for the Temple's destruction.[164][2]

The fourth-century church fathers Eusebius and Epiphanius of Salamis cite a tradition that, before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 the Jerusalem Christians had been warned to flee to the mountains in the north (Mark 13:14), but instead they went to Pella in the East in the region of the Decapolis across the Jordan River, although the historicity of Christians in this location is also heavily debated.[169][170]

The Eastern Mediterranean region in the time of Paul the Apostle

James the Just, whose judgment was adopted in the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:19–29, c. 50 AD

Emerging Christianity embraced some theological, ecclesiological and regional diversity, but ‘insider-outsider’ boundaries were still being determined in this period.[171] ‘Orthodoxy’ was not the exclusive property of one group, and many of the ideas in Gnostic or New Prophecy/Montanist or Marcionite teachings overlapped with ideas from the 'norm'.[84] Defining ‘orthodoxy,’ therefore, took time.[172] According to Christine Trevett, "the lines of demarcation were not solid", making it questionable whether orthodoxy and heresy can even be spoken of as real categories of thought before the council of Nicaea.[171]

The Bauer-Ehrman thesis is the prevailing paradigm in popular American culture concerning varieties of Christianity, but it is not agreed upon by the majority of scholars around the world.[173] The thesis states that Christianity of the second and third centuries was highly diverse; that its heretical forms were early, widespread, and strong; and that orthodoxy came later when the Roman church enforced conformity to its views.[174][175]

Heresy was first to arrive in some regions, however, there is also unambiguous evidence in other regions (such as Ephesus and western Asia Minor) that heresy was neither early nor strong, that it was preceded by orthodoxy, and that orthodoxy was numerically larger.[176][93] There is also the problem that a powerful, united, Roman church capable of enforcing its will did not exist in this period.[177][178]

The earliest writers emphasized the unity of Christianity.[128][95] 'Core beliefs' on doctrine, ethos, fellowship and community as well as many doctrinal tenets such as monotheism, Jesus as Christ and Lord, and the Gospel as a message concerning salvation were based on apostolic authority.[179][82][97]

One of the oldest representations of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, made around 300 AD

Early Christian communities were highly inclusive in terms of social stratification and other social categories.[180] Paul's understanding of the innate paradox of an all powerful Christ dying as a powerless man created a new understanding of power and a new social order unprecedented in classical society.[181][note 11]

Historian Raymond Van Dam says conversion produced "a fundamental reorganization in the ways people thought about themselves and others".[187] Women were able to negotiate an expanded role in society that was not available in the current forms of Judaism or Romanism.[188]

Prior to Christianity, the wealthy elite of Rome mostly donated to civic programs designed to elevate their status.[189][190][191] Christians, on the other hand, offered last rites to the dying, buried them, distributed bread to the hungry, and showed the poor great generosity.[192][193][note 12]

An important cultural shift took place in the way Christians buried one another: they gathered unrelated Christians into a common burial space, then "commemorated them with homogeneous memorials and expanded the commemorative audience to the entire local community of coreligionists" thereby redefining the concept of family.[194][195]

Classics scholar Kyle Harper says "Christianity not only drove profound cultural change, it created a new relationship between sexual morality and society... [replacing the] ancient system where social and political status, power, and the transmission of social inequality to the next generation scripted the terms of sexual morality. ...There are risks in over-estimating the change in old patterns Christianity was able to begin bringing about; but there are risks, too, in underestimating Christianization as a watershed".[196]

Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine (centre) and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.

Averil Cameron, in the Cambridge History of Christianity, writes that, "The reign of Constantine ... was momentous for Christianity".[198] The Roman Emperor Constantine I became the first Christian emperor in 313, (though he did not become sole emperor until after defeating Licinius the emperor in the East in 324).[199] In 313, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, (which had been the policy of Licinius), expressing tolerance for all religions, thereby legalizing Christian worship.[199] Christianity did not become the official religion of the empire under Constantine, but he took steps to support and protect it that became vitally important in the history of Christianity.[200]

He established equal political footing for Christian clergy by granting them the same immunities pagan priests had long enjoyed.[200] He gave bishops an important privilege by granting them judicial power. [201] He initiated a momentous precedent for Christian rulers by intervening in church disputes.[202][203][note 13] Bishops were grateful to Constantine, (instead of rejecting state authority), and this attitude proved to be critical to the further growth of the church.[201]

Constantine's church building was one of his most influential steps supporting the spread of Christianity.[201] He devoted imperial and public funds to his building program, endowed his churches with wealth and lands, and provided revenue for their clergy and upkeep.[204] Cameron explains that, "In a sense he was simply following the example set by his pagan predecessors ... Nevertheless his activities set a pattern for others, and by the end of the fourth century every self-respecting city, however small, had at least one church".[204]

How much Christianity Constantine personally adopted is difficult to discern.[7][205] Constantine was over 40, had most likely been a traditional polytheist, and according to historian Peter Brown, was a savvy and ruthless politician when he declared himself a Christian.[206] His religious belief has always been a matter for speculation, but as Cameron says, it is clear that whatever zeal he held for the church "did not absolve him from the harsh realities of power";[207] "Constantine was a pragmatist".[208]

While he did pursue public policies that were favorable to Christianity, there are few obviously Christian elements in the surviving laws of Constantine.[202][209] Contemporary scholars are in general agreement that Constantine did not support the suppression of paganism by force.[210][211][212][213][note 14]

Constantine did apparently author several laws that threatened and menaced any who continued to practice sacrifice.[241][242][note 15] There is no evidence of any of the horrific punishments ever being enacted.[246] There is no record of anyone being executed for violating religious laws before Tiberius II Constantine at the end of the sixth century (574–582).[247] Constantine did not stop the established state support of the traditional religious institutions, nor did society substantially change its pagan nature under his rule.[238]

Yet Cameron still concludes that Constantine brought the Christian church and the Roman state together "in a completely new way, and in this his reign was fundamental for subsequent history".[248]

Part of a series on
Christian mysticism
Theology · Philosophy Apophatic Ascetical Cataphatic Catholic spirituality Hellenistic Mystical theology Neoplatonic Henosis
Practices Monasticism Monasticism Asceticism Spiritual direction Meditation Meditation Lectio Divina Invoking of Mystic Saints Active asceticism Contemplation Hesychasm Jesus Prayer Quietism Stages of Christian perfection Hesychia Divinization Catharsis Theosis Kenosis Spiritual dryness Religious ecstasy Passive asceticism Abstinence Esoteric Charismatic Esoteric
People (by era or century) Antiquity Ancient African Origen Thomasines Gregory of Nyssa Pseudo-Dionysius Desert Fathers Paul of Thebes Anthony the Great Arsenius the Great Poemen Macarius of Egypt Moses the Black Syncletica Athanasius John Chrysostom Hilarion John Cassian 11th · 12th Bernard of Clairvaux Guigo II Hildegard of Bingen Symeon the New Theologian 13th · 14th Dominican Dominic de Guzmán Franciscan Francis of Assisi Anthony of Padua Bonaventure Jacopone da Todi Angela of Foligno English Richard Rolle Walter Hilton Julian of Norwich Margery Kempe Flemish Beatrice of Nazareth Lutgardis Hadewijch John van Ruysbroeck German Meister Eckhart Johannes Tauler Henry Suso Female Beatrice of Nazareth Bridget of Sweden Catherine of Siena Mechthild of Magdeburg Marguerite Porete 15th · 16th Spanish Ignatius of Loyola Francisco de Osuna John of Ávila Teresa of Ávila John of the Cross Others Catherine of Genoa 17th · 18th French Margaret Mary Alacoque Pierre de Bérulle Jean-Jacques Olier Louis de Montfort Charles de Condren John Eudes John of St. Samson Others Mary of Jesus of Ágreda Anne Catherine Emmerich Veronica Giuliani Francis de Sales 19th Dina Bélanger Catherine Labouré Mélanie Calvat Maximin Giraud Bernadette Soubirous Conchita de Armida Luisa Piccarreta Mary of the Divine Heart Thérèse of Lisieux Gemma Galgani 20th Padre Pio Therese Neumann Marthe Robin Alexandrina of Balazar Faustina Kowalska Sister Lúcia of Fátima Edgar Cayce Simone Weil Alfred Delp Thomas Merton Charles de Foucauld Edvige Carboni Elena Aiello Contemporary papal views Aspects of meditation (Orationis Formas, 1989) Reflection on the New Age (2003)
Literature · Media Lingua ignota Ordo Virtutum Scivias Ascent of Mount Carmel Dark Night of the Soul Spiritual Canticle Way of Perfection Book of the First Monks The Interior Castle Abbey of the Holy Ghost A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart The Glories of Mary The Imitation of Christ The Ladder of Divine Ascent Philokalia Revelations of Divine Love The Story of a Soul Theologia Germanica Devotio Moderna Fatima in Lucia's Own Words Calls from the Message of Fatima The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima Sol de Fátima The Cloud of Unknowing On the Consolation of Philosophy The Mirror of Simple Souls Sister Catherine Treatise Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii The Vision of Adamnán Divine Comedy Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso Fatima

Christian monasticism grew from roots in certain strands of Judaism and views in common with Graeco-Roman philosophy and religion, and was modeled upon Scriptural examples and ideals such as John the Baptist who was seen as an archetypical monk.[249][250] Christian monasticism emerged separately from these other previous forms in the third century; by the 330's, it had become a significant social and religious force.[249] By the fifth century, Christian monasticism was a dominant force in all areas of late antique culture.[251][note 16]

Coptic icon of St. Anthony the Great, father of Christian monasticism and early anchorite. The Coptic inscription reads Ⲡⲓⲛⲓϣϯ Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓ ('the Great Father Anthony').

Monastic communities were, in general, devoted to prayer, moderate self denial, manual labor and mutual support.[255] Early monastics also developed a health care system which allowed the sick to remain within the monastery as a special class afforded special benefits and care.[256] This destigmatized illness and formed the basis for future public health care. The first public hospital (the Basiliad) was founded by Basil the Great in 369.[257]

Central figures in the development of monasticism were Basil in the East and, in the West, Benedict, who created the Rule of Saint Benedict, which would become the most common rule throughout the Middle Ages and the starting point for other monastic rules.[258]

Imagined portrait of Arius; detail of a Cretan School icon, c. 1591, depicting the First Council of Nicaea.

The ceiling mosaic of the Arian Baptistery, built in Ravenna by the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great.

During Antiquity, the Eastern church produced multiple doctrinal controversies that attempted to define how, and when, the Christ became both human and divine.[259] These were often dubbed heresies by their opponents, and during this age, the first ecumenical councils were convened to deal with them.

"Hospitality of Abraham", icon by Andrei Rublev; the three angels represent the Godhead according to Trinitarian Christians.

The first, and most influential, was between Arianism and orthodox trinitarianism. Arianism argued that the Christ was divine, but was a creation, and was therefore not equal to the Father. This spread throughout most of the Roman Empire from the 4th century onwards.[note 17][note 18] The First Council of Nicaea (325) and the First Council of Constantinople (381) resulted in a condemnation of Arian teachings as heresy and produced the Nicene Creed. Arianism was eventually eliminated by orthodox opposition and empirical law, though it remained popular for some time.[260][261]

The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth ecumenical councils are generally considered the most important of the remaining councils, and all are characterized by Nestorianism vs. Monophysitism.[262] The West came down firmly on the side of stressing the humanity of Christ and the reality of His moral choices. To preserve His Divine nature, the unity of His person was described in a looser way than in Eastern theology. It was primarily this difference which was at the heart of the Nestorian controversy.[263]

The Church of the East during the Middle Ages

The resulting schism created a communion of churches, including the Armenian, Assyrian, and Egyptian churches.[264] By the end of the 5th century, the Persian Church had become independent of the Roman Church eventually evolving into the modern Church of the East.[265] Though efforts were made at reconciliation in the next few centuries, the schism remained permanent, resulting in what is today known as Oriental Orthodoxy. Most Christians in Asia belonged to branches of the Nestorian church from the end of the fifth century into the thirteenth century.[266]

In the fourth century, Augustine argued that the Jewish people should not be forcibly converted or killed, but that they should be left alone. Until the thirteenth century, that left the Jews in an odd position in society as both protected and condemned by Christian teaching. According to Anna Sapir Abulafia, most scholars agree that Jews and Christians in Latin Christendom lived in relative peace with one another until the thirteenth century.[267][268] Scattered violence toward Jews occasionally took place during riots led by mobs, local leaders, and lower level clergy without the support of church leaders who generally followed Augustine's teachings.[269] [270]

Sometime before the fifth century, the church took its universally held traditional interpretation of Revelation 20:4–6 (Millennialism), and augmented it with supersessionism.[271][272] Millennialism is the hope of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah on earth, centered in Jerusalem, ruling with the redeemed Israel.[273] Supersessionism is a historicized and allegorized version of this which sees the church as the metaphorical Israel, thereby eliminating the Jews altogether.[274]

Supersessionism is significant because "It is undeniable that anti-Jewish bias has often gone hand-in-hand with the supersessionist view".[275] Many Jewish writers trace anti-semitism, and the consequences of it in World War II, to this particular doctrine among Christians.[276][277] Supersessionism has been a part of Christian thought for much of Christian history.[278] However, it has never been an official doctrine and has never been universally held.[273]

The first countries to make Christianity their state religion were Armenia (301), Georgia (4th century), Ethiopia and Eritrea in 325.[279][280][281]

Theodosius I's empire

Concerning the Roman Empire, Theodosius I (347–395) was described, after his death, by fourth century Christian writers as the emperor who established Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the empire. Contemporary scholars see this more as part of the narrative those authors created in their battle against Arianism than they see it as actual history.[282][283][284][285]

Cameron explains that, since Theodosius's predecessors Constantine, Constantius, and Valens had all been semi-Arians, it fell to the orthodox Theodosius to receive credit for the triumph of Christianity from Christian literary tradition.[286][note 19]

Cameron has concluded there is no solid evidence that a universal ban on paganism in the Roman empire ever existed.[296] Some twentieth century scholars thought a universal ban on paganism, and the establishment of Christianity as the "official" religion of the empire, (though never explicitly stated), could be implied from Theodosius' law of November 392.[293][297][298] However, this law was sent only to Rufinus in the East;[299] it is concerned solely with private domestic sacrifice, and bans the magic and idolatry magic associated with it.[300][301] It makes no mention of Christianity.[302][303] Sozomen, the Constantinopolitan lawyer, wrote a history of the church around 443 where he evaluates the law of 392 as having had only minor significance at the time it was issued. Sacrifice had mostly ended by the mid-300s.[304][305]

Peter Brown has written that, "it is impossible to speak of a Christian empire as existing before Justinian I" in the sixth century.[306]

Informal primacy was exercised by the Archdiocese of Carthage, a metropolitan archdiocese also known as "Church of Carthage". The Church of Carthage thus was to the Early African church what the Church of Rome was to the Catholic Church in Italy.[307] Famous figures include Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicitas, and their Companions (died c. 203), Tertullian (c. 155–240),[308] Cyprian (c. 200–258), Caecilianus (floruit 311), Saint Aurelius (died 429), Augustine of Hippo (died 430), and Eugenius of Carthage (died 505).

In North Africa of the fourth century, a reaction to the reinstatement of Bishops who had fled during the persecution of Diocletian formed Donatism as a Christian sect that withdrew from Catholicism. It mainly flourished among the indigenous North African Berber population during the fourth and fifth centuries.[309][310][311] By the time Augustine became coadjutor Bishop of Hippo in 395, Donatists had been fomenting protests and street violence, refusing compromise, and attacking random Catholics without warning for decades. They often did serious and unprovoked bodily harm such as beating people with clubs, cutting off hands and feet, and gouging out eyes.[312]

Augustine began defending violence by the imperial authorities as a means of coercing the Donatists to repent, though he always opposed execution.[313][309] His authority on coercion was undisputed for over a millennium in Western Christianity, and according to Brown "it provided the theological foundation for the justification of medieval persecution".[314]

The integration of barbarian people into the Roman world of the fourth century transformed both Roman culture and the barbarians. One aspect of this change was religious. Beginning with the Goths around 369, various Germanic people adopted Christianity, and began to form into the distinct ethnic groups that would become the future nations of Europe.[315] Vandals converted shortly before they left Spain for northern Africa in 429.[316] Clovis I converted to Catholicism sometime around 498, founding what would eventually become the Carolingian Dynasty.[317]

In all cases, Christianization meant "the Germanic conquerors lost their native languages" as these languages became Latinized.[318] At least one historian of the time, Orosius, wrote that conversion made the barbarians milder and set limits on their "savagery".[319]

Historian Geoffrey Blainey writes that the Catholic Church in the period between the Fall of Rome (476 C.E.) and the rise of the Carolingian Franks (750 C.E.) was like an early version of a welfare state. "It conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young; hospices for the sick of all ages; places for the lepers; and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal". It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor.[320][321]

Monasteries preserved classical craft and artistic skills while maintaining intellectual culture within their schools, scriptoria and libraries. As well as providing a focus for spiritual life, they functioned as agricultural, economic and production centers, particularly in remote regions.[322]

These early monasteries were models of productivity and economic resourcefulness, teaching their local communities animal husbandry, cheese making, wine making, and various other skills.[323] Medical practice was highly important and medieval monasteries are best known for their contributions to medical tradition. They also made advances in sciences such as astronomy, and St. Benedict's Rule (480–543) impacted politics and law.[321][324]

The formation of these organized bodies of believers distinct from political and familial authority, especially for women, gradually carved out a series of social spaces with some amount of independence thereby revolutionizing social history.[325]

After the Fall of Rome in the late fifth century, the church gradually replaced the Roman Empire as the unifying force in Europe, providing what security there was, actively preserving ancient texts and literacy.[326][327]

Pope Celestine I (422–430) sent Palladius to be the first bishop to the Irish in 431, and in 432, Gaul supported St Patrick as he began his mission there.[328] Relying largely on recent archaeological developments, Lorcan Harney has reported to the Royal Academy that the missionaries and traders who came to Ireland in the fifth to sixth centuries were not backed by any military force.[328]

Recent archaeology indicates Christianity had become an established minority faith in some parts of Britain by the fourth century. It was largely mainstream, and in certain areas, was continuous.[329] Irish missionaries led by Saint Columba, went to Iona (from 563), and converted many Picts.[330] The court of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, and the Gregorian mission who landed in 596 sent by Pope Gregory I and led by Augustine of Canterbury, did the same for the Kingdom of Kent.[331]

The Franks first appear in the historical record in the 3rd century as a confederation of Germanic tribes living on the east bank of the lower Rhine River. The largely Christian Gallo-Roman inhabitants of Gaul (modern France and Belgium) were overrun by the Franks in the early 5th century. They were persecuted until the Frankish King Clovis I converted from Paganism to Roman Catholicism in 496.[332] Clovis I became the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler.[333]

In 416, the Germanic Visigoths had crossed into Hispania as Roman allies.[334] They converted to Arian Christianity shortly before 429.[316] An important shift took place in 612 when the Visigothic King Sisebut declared the obligatory conversion of all Jews in Spain, contradicting Pope Gregory who had reiterated the traditional ban against forced conversion of the Jews in 591.[335] Scholars refer to this shift as a "seismic moment" in Christian history.[336]

The Eastern Roman Empire, with its heartland in Greece and Asia Minor, became the Byzantine Empire after the fall of the Roman West.[337] With its autocratic government, stable farm economy, Greek heritage and Orthodox Christianity, the Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453 and the Fall of Constantinople.[259]

The extent of the Byzantine Empire under Justinian's uncle Justin I is shown in the darker color. The lighter color shows the conquests of his successor, Justinian I also known as Justinian the Great

During Byzantium's first major historical period, from 476 to 641, its borders reached its furthest limits under the Emperor Justinian I.[338] In an attempt to reunite the empire, Justinian went to Rome to liberate it from barbarians leading to a guerrilla war that lasted nearly 20 years.[339]

After fighting ended, Justinian used a Pragmatic Sanction to assert control over Italy.[340] The Sanction effectively removed the supports that had allowed the Roman Senate to retain power.[341] Thereafter, the political and social influence of the Senate's aristocratic members disappeared, and by 630, the Senate ceased to exist. Its building was converted into a church.[341] Bishops stepped into civic leadership in the Senator's places.[341] The position and influence of the pope rose.[342]

A mosaic of Justinian I in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

Before the eighth century, the Pope as the 'Bishop of Rome,' had not had special influence over other bishops outside Rome and had not yet manifested as the central ecclesiastical power.[343] From the late seventh to the middle of the eighth century, eleven of the thirteen men who held the position of Roman Pope were the sons of families from the East. Before they could be installed, these Popes had to be approved by the head of State, the Byzantine emperor.[344]

This Byzantine papacy, along with losses to Islam and changes within Christianity itself, helped put an end to Ancient Christianity in the West.[345][346] This helped transform Christianity into its eclectic medieval forms.[347][348][349]

An Eastern Roman mosaic showing a basilica with towers, mounted with Christian crosses, 5th century, Louvre

In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire of this period forms one of the high points of Christian history and Christian civilization,[350] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[351] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy and science, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[352] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[353]

Following a series of heavy military reversals against the Muslims, Iconoclasm emerged within the provinces of the Byzantine Empire in the early 8th century. In the 720s, the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian banned the pictorial representation of Christ, saints, and biblical scenes. In the Latin West, Pope Gregory III held two synods at Rome and condemned Leo's actions. The Byzantine Iconoclast Council, held at Hieria in 754 AD, ruled that holy portraits were heretical.[354] The iconoclastic movement destroyed much of the Christian Church's early artistic history. The iconoclastic movement was later defined as heretical in 787 AD under the Second Council of Nicaea (the seventh ecumenical council) but had a brief resurgence between 815 and 842 AD.

The rise of Islam (600 to 1517) unleashed a series of military campaigns that conquered Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia by 650, adding North Africa and most of Spain by 740. Only the Franks and Constantinople were able to withstand this medieval juggernaut. Historians Matthews and Platt have written that, "At its height, the Arab Empire stretched from the Indus River and the borders of China in the East, to the Atlantic in the West, and from the Taurus mountains in the North to the Sahara in the South". Islam was the colossus of the Middle Ages.[355]

The Umayyad Mosque was built on the site of a church

Since they are considered "People of the Book" in the Islamic religion, Christians under Muslim rule were protected as dhimmi.[356][357] However, dhimmi are inferior to Muslims in Muslim culture, and Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries AD suffered religious persecution, religious violence, forced conversion to Islam,[356][358] and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers.[357][359][358][360] Many were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith.[359][358][360]

Roderick is venerated as one of the Martyrs of Córdoba

In general, Christians subject to Islamic rule were allowed to practice their religion with some notable limitations stemming from the apocryphal Pact of Umar. This treaty, supposedly enacted in 717 AD, forbade Christians from publicly displaying the cross on church buildings, from summoning congregants to prayer with a bell, from re-building or repairing churches and monasteries after they had been destroyed or damaged, and imposed other restrictions relating to occupations, clothing, and weapons.[361]The Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, who slowly converted to Islam.[362]

The Abbasid Caliphate was less tolerant of Christianity than had been the Umayyad caliphs.[357] Those such as Elias of Heliopolis, monks and prisoners of war who refused to convert were frequently killed.[363]

Nonetheless, Christian officials continued to be employed in the government, and the Christians of the Church of the East and the Jacobite Church were often tasked with the translation of Ancient Greek philosophy and Greek mathematics.[357][364][note 20]

The Coronation of Charlemagne, by assistants of Raphael, c. 1516–1517.

Saxon resistance to rule by the Carolingian kings was fierce and often targeted Christian churches and monasteries.[373] In 782 Saxons broke yet another treaty with Charlemagne, attacking the Franks when the king was away, dealing the Frankish troops heavy losses.[332][374][375] In response, the Frankish King returned, defeated them, and "enacted a variety of draconian measures" beginning with the massacre at Verden.[376] He ordered the decapitation of 4500 Saxon prisoners offering them baptism as an alternative to death.[377] These events were followed by the severe legislation of the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae in 785 which prescribes death to those that are disloyal to the king, harm Christian churches or its ministers, or practice pagan burial rites.[378] His harsh methods raised objections from his friends Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquileia.[379] Charlemagne abolished the death penalty for paganism in 797.[380]

Charlemagne also began the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of intellectual and cultural revival of literature, arts, and scriptural studies, a renovation of law and the courts, the founding of feudalism and the promotion of literacy.[381] Charlemagne himself could not read or write, but he admired it, so in order to address the problems of illiteracy, Charlemagne founded schools and attracted the most learned men from all of Europe to his court. They had many accomplishments including the development of lower case letters called Carolingian minuscule.[382] Beginning in the late 8th century under Charlemagne, renaissance continued into the 9th century under his son, Louis the Pious.[383]

The church of this era had immense authority, but the key to its power were three monastic reformation movements that swept Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries.[384][385] Prior to this, the church had become riddled with corruption, the buying and selling of church offices, and disregard for the sacraments.[386] The monks formed a new focus on reforming the world as well as themselves and this influenced the next 400 years of European history.[372]

Owing to its stricter adherence to the reformed Benedictine rule, the Abbey of Cluny became the leading centre of Western monasticism from the later 10th century.[387] The monastery at Cluny was established in 910 by the Benedictine Order without feudal obligations, allowing it to institute reforms.[386] The Cluniac spirit was a revitalising influence on the Norman Church, at its height from the second half of the 10th century through the early 12th century.[372]

The spread of Cistercians from their original sites in Western-Central Europe during the Middle Ages

The next wave of monastic reform came with the Cistercian movement. The first Cistercian abbey was founded in 1098, at Cîteaux Abbey. The keynote of Cistercian life was a return to a literal observance of the Benedictine rule, rejecting the developments of the Benedictines. Inspired by Bernard of Clairvaux, the primary builder of the Cistercians, they became the main force of technological advancement and diffusion in medieval Europe.[388]

A third level of monastic reform was provided by the establishment of the Mendicant orders. Beginning in the 12th century, the Franciscan Order was instituted by the followers of Francis of Assisi, and thereafter the Dominican Order was begun by St. Dominic. Ancient Christians had not thought of their movement in terms of social reform, whereas a "profound revolution in religious sentiment" led the new monastics to see their calling as actively working to reform the world.[389][390] Commonly known as "friars", mendicants live under a monastic rule with traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience but they emphasize preaching, missionary activity, and education.

Dominicans came to dominate the new universities; they traveled about preaching against heresy, and eventually became notorious for their participation in the Medieval Inquisition, the Albigensian Crusade and the Northern crusades.[391] Christian policy denying the existence of witches and witchcraft would later be challenged by the Dominicans allowing them to participate in witch trials.[392][393]

While the Middle Ages was a difficult time for most women, abbesses and female superiors of monastic houses were powerful figures whose influence could rival that of male bishops and abbots.[394][395]

The Gregorian Reform also impacted women in general by establishing new law requiring the consent of both parties before a marriage could be performed, a minimum age for marriage, and by codifying marriage as a sacrament.[396][397] That made the union a binding contract, making abandonment prosecutable with dissolution of marriage overseen by Church authorities.[398] Although the Church abandoned tradition to allow women the same rights as men to dissolve a marriage, in practice men were granted dissolutions more frequently than women.[399][400]

Western Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, Kievan Rus', and the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages (year 1000)

Throughout central and eastern Europe, the Balkan Peninsula (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia), and the area north of the Danube (Poland, Hungary, Russia), Christianization and political centralization went hand in hand.[401][402] Local elites wanted to convert because they gained prestige and power through matrimonial alliances and participation in imperial rituals.[403][note 21]

Duchy of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire in 11th century

Czech Rep. – Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia IV (en)

Significant missionary activity in this region only took place after Charlemagne defeated the Avar Khaganate several times at the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the ninth centuries.[404]

St. Cyril and St. Methodius monument on Mt. Radhošť

Two Byzantine brothers, Saints Constantine-Cyril and Methodius, played the key missionary roles in spreading Christianity to Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia territories beginning in 863.[405] They spent approximately 40 months in Great Moravia continuously translating texts, teaching students, and developing the first Slavic alphabet while translating the Gospel into the Old Church Slavonic language.[406][407] Old Church Slavonic became the first literary language of the Slavs and, eventually, the educational foundation for all Slavic nations.[406]

Many differences between East and West had existed since Antiquity. Disagreements over whether Pope or Patriarch should lead the church, whether that should be done in Latin or Greek, whether priests must remain celibate and other points of doctrine such as the Filioque Clause which was added to the Nicene creed by the west, were intensified by cultural, geographical, geopolitical, and linguistic differences between East and West.[259][408][409] Eventually, this produced the East–West Schism, also known as the "Great Schism" of 1054, which separated the Church into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.[408]

Modern western universities have their origins directly in the Medieval Church.[410][411][412][413][414] They began as cathedral schools then formed into self-governing corporations with charters.[415] Students were considered clerics.[416] This was a benefit that imparted legal immunities and protections. Schools were divided into faculties which specialized in law, medicine, theology or liberal arts (largely devoted to Aristotle), awarded degrees and held the famous quodlibeta theological debates amongst faculty and students.[415][417] The earliest were the University of Bologna (1088), the University of Oxford (1096), and the University of Paris where the faculty was of international renown (c. 1150).[418][419][420] Matthews and Platt say "these were the first Western schools of higher education since the sixth century".[415]

Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor at the gate of Canossa Castle in 1077, during the Investiture controversy.

The Investiture controversy was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers that took place in medieval Europe.[421] It began as a dispute in the 11th century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII concerning who would appoint bishops (investiture).[422] Ending lay investiture threatened to undercut the power of the Holy Roman Empire and the ambitions of the European nobility. But allowing lay investiture meant the Pope's authority over his own people was limited.[423][note 22] It took "five decades of excommunications, denunciations and mutual depositions...spanning the reign of two emperors and six popes" to settle the controversy in 1122.[426]

A similar controversy occurred in England between King Henry I and St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, over investiture and episcopal vacancy.[427] The English dispute was resolved by the Concordat of London (1107).[426]

The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Crusader states with their strongholds in the Holy Land at their height, between the First and the Second Crusade (1135)

Generally, the Crusades (1095–1291) refer to the European Christian campaigns in the Holy Land sponsored by the Papacy against Muslims in order to reconquer the region of Palestine.[428][429][430] The crusades produced cultural changes in both East and West fundamentally altering the political map of both. Crusades contributed to the decline of Byzantium and to the development of national identities in the newly forming European nations. The West's polarization and militarization increased its alienation from the East, and contact between Islamic and Christian cultures led to the exchange of medical knowledge, art and architecture and increased trade.[431][432]

The Holy Land had been part of the Roman Empire, and thus subsequently of the Byzantine Empire, until the Arab Muslim invasions of the 7th and 8th centuries. Thereafter, Christians had generally been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks closed Christian pilgrimages and assailed the Byzantines, defeating them at the Battle of Manzikert. Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from Pope Urban II against Islamic aggression. He probably expected money from the pope for the hiring of mercenaries. Instead, Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom in a speech made at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, combining the idea of pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of defending the defenseless by waging a holy war against infidels.[433]

The First Crusade captured Antioch in 1099 and then Jerusalem. The Second Crusade occurred in 1145 when Edessa was taken by Islamic forces. Jerusalem was held until 1187 and the Third Crusade, after battles between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. The Fourth Crusade, begun by Innocent III in 1202, intended to retake the Holy Land but was soon subverted by the Venetians. When the crusaders arrived in Constantinople, they sacked the city and other parts of Asia Minor and established the Latin Empire of Constantinople in Greece and Asia Minor. Five numbered crusades to the Holy Land culminated in the siege of Acre of 1219, essentially ending the Western presence in the Holy Land.[434]

Jerusalem was held by the crusaders for nearly a century, while other strongholds in the Near East remained in Christian possession much longer. The crusades in the Holy Land ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms. Islamic expansion into Europe remained a threat for centuries, culminating in the campaigns of Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century.

Baltic Tribes c 1200

Danish Bishop Absalon destroys the idol of Slavic god Svantevit at Arkona in a painting by Laurits Tuxen

When the Pope (Blessed) Eugenius III (1145–1153) called for a Second Crusade in response to the fall of Edessa in 1144, Saxon nobles in Eastern Europe refused to go.[435] From the days of Charlemagne (747–814), the free barbarian people around the Baltic Sea had raided the countries that surrounded them, stealing crucial resources, killing, and enslaving captives.[436] For the leaders of these Eastern European countries, (many of which were young countries with new monarchies), that meant subduing the Baltic area was more important to them than going to the Levant.[435] In 1147, Eugenius' Divini dispensatione, gave the eastern nobles crusade indulgences for the Baltic area.[435][437][438] The Northern, (or Baltic), Crusades followed, taking place, off and on, with and without papal support, from 1147 to 1316.[439][440][441]

These rulers saw holy war as a tool for territorial expansion, alliance building, and the empowerment of their own young church and state.[442] Taking the time for peaceful conversion did not fit in with these plans.[443] Conversion by these princes was almost always a result of conquest, either by the direct use of force, or indirectly, when a leader converted and required it of his followers.[444]

According to Fonnesberg-Schmidt, "While the theologians maintained that conversion should be voluntary, there was a widespread pragmatic acceptance of conversion obtained through political pressure or military coercion".[445] There were often severe consequences for populations that chose to resist.[446][447][448]

By 1150, European culture in the West was at a watershed. Kings and their nations were leaving the concept of Christendom behind and becoming more secular. Therefore they actively worked to centralize power into themselves and their newly forming nation-states.[391] Centralization was accomplished by taking legal, military, and social powers away from local level aristocrats, and local church leaders, who had traditionally held such powers. The state gained power by attacking these older kinship-based systems.[449]

The state redefined being a member of a minority (such as being Jewish or homosexual) as a threat to the social order. This allowed the state to proactively pursue the punishment of minorities by creating new laws and systems controlled by the state. Stereotyping, propaganda and the legal prosecution of minorities functioned socially and politically to legitimize the state and its authority and enable the transfer of power.[449] By 1200, local authority had been replaced by inquisition that was dependent upon state support.[450][note 23]

Moore writes that persecution became a functional tool of power and a core element in the social and political development of Western society.[460][461][462] By the 1300s, "The maintenance of civil order through legislated separation [segregation] and discrimination was part of the institutional structure of all European states ingrained in law, politics, and the economy".[463][455][464]

The church did not have the leading role in this but had a part in it through new canon laws.[465][466][467] According to the Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, during this period the religion that had begun by decrying the role of law as less than that of grace and love (Romans 7:6) developed the most complex religious law the world has ever seen, and in it, Christianity's concepts of equity and universality were largely overlooked.[468]

Canon law of the Catholic Church (Latin: jus canonicum)[469] was the first modern Western legal system, and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West,[470] predating European common law and civil law traditions.[471] Justinian I's reforms had a clear effect on the evolution of jurisprudence, and Leo III's Ecloga influenced the formation of legal institutions in the Slavic world.[472]

By the 1300s, most bishops and Popes were trained lawyers rather than theologians.[468]

The Medieval Inquisition, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230) and the later Papal Inquisition (1230s–1240s), was a type of criminal court established and run by the Roman Catholic Church from around 1184. Inquisition placed an overseeing authority into the position of the "wronged party" who made the accusation against the suspect; then that same authority did the investigating and also judged their guilt.[473]

Dependent upon undependable secular support, inquisitions dealt largely, but not exclusively, with religious issues such as heresy.[473] Inquisition was not a unified single bureaucratic institution.[474][475] Jurisdiction was often local and limited; lack of support and outright opposition often obstructed it; and many parts of Europe had erratic inquisitions or none at all.[474]

Historian Christine Caldwell Ames writes that Dominican inquisitors saw their work as proving the "true faith" by interpreting Christ as the just persecutor of evil.[473] Ames calls this a "measured manipulation of the Christian faith" supported by circumstance, since heresy had exploded across Christendom in the 11th century.[476]

At the same time, inquisition was contested stridently through continuous and various kinds of opposition and complaint, both in and outside the church. Opponents charged heresy inquisitions with proving the Roman church was "unchristian" and "a destroyer of its gospel legacy, or even the real enemy of Christ".[477]

Languedoc_Map_1209

Map of Languedoc on the eve of the Albigensian Crusade

Languedoc_in_France_(1789)

Cathars, also known as Albigensians, were the largest of the heretic groups that began reappearing in the High Middle Ages.[note 24] They were concentrated in the Languedoc region which was not then a part of France. After decades of having called upon secular rulers for aid in dealing with the Cathars and getting no response,[478] Pope Innocent III and the king of France, Philip Augustus, joined in 1209 in a military campaign that was, allegedly, about eliminating the Albigensian heresy.[479][480] Scholars disagree on whether war was determined more by the Pope or by King Philip and his proxies for his own purposes.[481][note 25]

The war began on 22 July 1209, in the first battle of the Albigensian Crusade, when mercenaries rampaged through the streets killing all they came across in what came to be known as the Massacre of Béziers. Some twenty years later, a story that historian Laurence W. Marvin calls apocryphal, arose about this event claiming the papal legate, Arnaud Amaury, was said to have responded: "Kill them all, let God sort them out". Marvin says it is unlikely the legate ever said any thing at all. "The speed and spontaneity of the attack indicates that the legate probably did not know what was going on until it was over".[486] Other scholars argue that the statement is not inconsistent with what was recorded by the contemporaries of other church leaders, or with what is known of Arnaud Amaury's character and attitudes.[487][488]

Four years later, in a 1213 letter to Amaury, the pope rebuked the legate for his conduct in the war and called for an end to the campaign.[489] The campaign continued anyway. The Pope was then reversed by the Fourth Lateran council which re-instituted crusade status two years later in 1215; afterwards, the Pope removed it yet again.[490] Throughout the rest of the campaign, Innocent vacillated unable to make up his mind if the crusade had been right; he sometimes took the side favouring crusade then sided against it.[491]

By the end of the campaign, 16 years later, the campaign no longer had the status of a crusade nor were its fighters rewarded with dispensations. The army had seized and occupied the lands of nobles who had not sponsored Cathars but had been in the good graces of the church; Albigensia thereby became southern France. Catharism continued for another hundred years (until 1350).[492][493]

Palais des Papes; it is one of the largest and most important medieval Gothic buildings in Europe

The popes of the fourteenth century worked to amass power into the papal position, building what is often called the papal monarchy.[494][495] This was accomplished partly through the reorganization of the ecclesiastical financial system. The poor had previously been allowed to offer their tithes in goods and services, but these popes revamped the system to only accept money. A steady cash flow brought with it the power of great wealth. The papal states were thereafter governed by the pope in the same manner the secular powers governed. The pope became a pseudo-monarch.[494]

These fourteenth century popes were greedy and politically corrupt, so that pious Christians of the period became disgusted, leading to the loss of papal prestige.[494][496][note 26] Devoted and virtuous nuns and monks became increasingly rare. Monastic reform had been a major force in the High Middle Ages, but it is largely unknown in the Late Middle Ages.[498]

People living during the fourteenth century experienced plague, famine and war that ravaged most of the continent; there was social unrest, urban riots, peasant revolts and renegade feudal armies, and this was in addition to the religious changes often forced upon them by their new monarchies. They faced all of this with a church unable to provide much moral leadership as a result of its own internal conflict and corruption.[499]

The church reached its low point in the early 1400s when there were three different men claiming to be the rightful Pope.[500][494]

In 1309, Pope Clement V moved to Avignon in southern France in search of relief from Rome's factional politics.[494] Seven popes resided there in the Avignon Papacy until 1378.[501] Troubles grew while the prestige and influence of Rome decreased without a resident pontiff, and in 1377 Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome. After his death, the papal conclave met in 1378 in Rome and elected an Italian Urban VI to succeed Gregory.[494] The French cardinals did not approve. They held a second conclave electing Robert of Geneva instead. This began the Western Schism.[500][494]

Different secular leaders threw their support behind one or the other. Papal authority declined. In 1409, both sets of cardinals called the Pisan council electing a third pope and calling on the other two to resign, but they refused, leaving the church with three popes. The Council of Constance (1414–1418), called by the Holy Roman Emperor, finally resolved the conflict by electing Pope Martin V to replace the rest.[494]

In 1418, the Papacy regained control of the church, consolidated the Papal States and focused on the pursuit of power.[502] During this time, wealthy Italian families secured episcopal offices for themselves. The individuals who became Pope Alexander VI and Pope Sixtus IV were known for ignoring the moral requirements of their position. Pontiffs such as Julius II often waged campaigns to protect and expand their domains, and popes spent lavishly pursuing personal grievances, private luxuries and public works.[503]

Jan Hus defending his theses at the Council of Constance (1415), painting by the Czech artist Václav Brožík

John Wycliffe, an English scholastic philosopher and Christian theologian best known for denouncing the abuses and corruption of the Catholic Church, was a precursor of the Protestant Reformation.[504] He emphasized the supremacy of the Bible and called for a direct relationship between God and the human person, without interference by priests and bishops.[504] The Lollards, a Proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of Wycliffe, played a role in the English Reformation.[504][505][506][507] Jan Hus, a Czech Christian theologian based in Prague, was influenced by Wycliffe and spoke out against the abuses and corruption he saw in the Catholic Church.[508] His followers became known as the Hussites, a Proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation.[508][504] He was a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation,[508][504] and his legacy has become a powerful symbol of Czech culture in Bohemia.[509] Both Wycliffe and Hus were accused of heresy and subsequently condemned to the death penalty for their outspoken views about the Catholic Church.[510][508][504]

Michelangelo's Pietà (1498–99) in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

High Renaissance was the most brilliantly creative period of western history, and it was the Popes who became the leading patrons of the new style, and the Church which commissioned and supported such artists as Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Donatello, and Leonardo da Vinci.[502]

Scholars of the Renaissance created textual criticism which revealed writing errors by medieval monks and exposed the Donation of Constantine as a forgery. Popes of the Middle Ages had depended upon the document to prove their political authority.[511]

Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation leading to the development of classical music and all its derivatives.[512]

Christian liturgical procession from the Ottoman Empire (Constantinople), depicted by Lambert de Vos in 1574.

In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire. The flight of Eastern Christians from Constantinople, and the Greek manuscripts they carried with them, is one of the factors that prompted the literary renaissance in the West.[513]

The Ottoman government followed Islamic law when dealing with the conquered Christian population. The Church's canonical and hierarchical organization were not significantly disrupted and its administration continued to function.

Hagia Sophia; was the religious and spiritual centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly one thousand years

However, these rights and privileges, including freedom of worship and religious organization, were often established in principle but seldom corresponded to reality.[514][515] The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had been Christian churches for nearly a millennium, were converted into mosques. Violent persecutions of Christians were common and reached their climax in the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides.[516][517]

San Pedro de la Nave, one of the oldest churches in Spain.

Between 711 and 718, the Iberian peninsula had been conquered by Muslims in the Umayyad conquest. [note 27] The military struggle to reclaim the peninsula from Muslim rule took place for centuries until the Christian Kingdoms reconquered the Moorish states of Al-Ándalus in 1492.[521]

Depiction of the Battle of Navas de Tolosa by 19th-century painter Francisco de Paula Van Halen.

Isabel and Ferdinand married in 1469, united Spain with themselves as the first king and queen, fought the Muslims in the Reconquista and soon after established the Spanish Inquisition.[522]

During this time, "New Christians" had begun to appear as a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire.[521] Most of the history of the "New Christians" refers to the Jewish converts, who were generally known as Conversos or Marranos,[523] while the Muslim converts were known as Moriscos.[524]

The Spanish inquisition was originally authorized by the Pope in answer to royal fears that Conversos and Muranos were spying and attempting to sabotage the new state. The initial inquisitors proved so severe that the Pope soon opposed it and unsuccessfully attempted to shut it down.[525] Ferdinand is said to have pressured the Pope, and in October 1483, a papal bull conceded control of the inquisition to the Spanish crown.[526] According to Spanish historian José Casanova, the Spanish inquisition became the first truly national, unified and centralized state institution.[527] It functioned as Ferdinand and Isabella's personal police force, existing separately and above even the nobles of the state.[528]

Clerks studying astronomy and geometry. Early 15th century, France.

Between 1150 and 1200, Christian scholars had traveled to Sicily and Spain to retrieve the writings of Aristotle, which had been lost to the West after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Insights gained from Aristotle triggered a period of cultural ferment that one "modern historian has called the twelfth century renaissance".[415] Thomas Aquinas responded to this intellectual challenge to faith by writing his monumental summas in support of human reason as compatible with faith.[529] Christian theology adapted to Aristotle's secular and humanistic natural philosophy, adjusting the church's understanding of several sciences, including astrophysics, for the next 500 years - until Galileo.[530]

By the Late Middle Ages, Aquinas's rationalism was being heatedly debated in the new universities.[531] William Ockham resolved the conflict by arguing that faith and reason should be pursued separately so that each could achieve its own end.[531] Historians of science David C. Lindberg, Ronald Numbers and Edward Grant have described what followed as a "medieval scientific revival".[530][532]

Science historian Noah Efron has written that Christianity provided the early "tenets, methods, and institutions of what in time became modern science".[533][note 28]

American Discovery Viewed by Native Americans (Thomas Hart Benton, 1922). European discovery and colonization had many, though not exclusively, disastrous effects on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and their societies.[16][17][534][535]

Following the geographic discoveries of the 1400s and 1500s, increasing population and inflation led the emerging nation-states of Portugal, Spain, and France, the Dutch Republic, and England to explore, conquer, colonize and exploit the newly discovered territories.[536] While colonialism was primarily economic and political, it also opened the door for Christian missions.[537][538] Some missionaries supported colonialism and an almost equal number opposed it.[539] According to historical theologian Justo González, colonialism and missions each sometimes aided and sometimes impeded the other.[540]

Different state actors created colonies that varied widely.[541] Some colonies had institutions that allowed native populations to reap some benefits. Others became extractive colonies with predatory rule that produced an autocracy with a dismal record.[542] For 200 years, European society had legislated discrimination as part of its institutional structure.[463][455][464] Therefore, beginning with the first wave of European colonization, many colonies also practiced religious discrimination along with racialism and political discrimination, persecution, and violence toward the people and their native religions.[543][15][16][17][534][535]

Portugal practiced extractive colonialism, and the Spanish military was known for its ill-treatment of Amerindians.[544] Spanish missionaries are generally credited with championing efforts to initiate protective laws for the Indians and for working against their enslavement.[545] Historian Jacob Schacter says "ambivalent benevolence" was at the heart of most British and American attitudes toward Natives.[546]

A catastrophe was wrought upon the Amerindians by contact with Europeans. Old World diseases like smallpox, measles, malaria and many others spread through Indian populations. "In most of the New World 90 percent or more of the native population was destroyed by wave after wave of previously unknown afflictions. Explorers and colonists did not enter an empty land but rather an emptied one".[547]

Having continued as a dhimmi community under the Sunni Caliphate after the Muslim conquest of Persia (633–654), the Church of the East played a major role in the history of Christianity in Asia. Between the 9th and 14th centuries, it represented the world's largest Christian denomination in terms of geographical extent. It established dioceses and communities stretching from the Mediterranean Sea and today's Iraq and Iran, to India (the Saint Thomas Syrian Christians of Kerala), the Mongol kingdoms in Central Asia, the Turkic tribes in Central Asia,[548] and China during the Tang dynasty (7th–9th centuries). In the 13th and 14th centuries, the church experienced a final period of expansion under the Mongol Empire, where influential Church of the East clergy sat in the Mongol court.[549]

Martin Luther initiated the Reformation with his Ninety-five Theses in 1517.

In the early 16th century, attempts were made by the Christian theologians Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli, along with many others, to reform the Catholic Church. They considered the roots of corruption within the Catholic Church and its ecclesiastical structure to be doctrinal, rather than simply a matter of depravity, moral weakness, or lack of ecclesiastical discipline, and thus advocated for God's autonomy in redemption, and against voluntaristic notions that salvation could be earned by people. The Reformation is usually considered to have started with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517, although there was no schism until the 1521 Diet of Worms. The edicts of the Diet condemned Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[550]

The word Protestant is derived from the Latin protestatio, meaning declaration, which refers to the letter of protestation by Lutheran princes against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which reaffirmed the edict of the Diet of Worms ordering the seizure of all property owned by persons guilty of advocating Lutheranism.[551] The term "Protestant" was not originally used by Reformation era leaders; instead, they called themselves "evangelical", emphasising the "return to the true gospel (Greek: euangelion)".[552]

Early protest was against corruptions such as simony (the buying and selling of church offices), the holding of multiple church offices by one person at the same time, episcopal vacancies, and the sale of indulgences. The Protestant position also included the Five solae (sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria), the priesthood of all believers, Law and Gospel, and the two kingdoms doctrine. The three most important traditions to emerge directly from the Reformation were the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican traditions, though the latter group identifies as both "Reformed" and "Catholic", and some subgroups reject the classification as "Protestant".[553]

Unlike other reform movements, the English Reformation began by royal influence. Henry VIII considered himself a thoroughly Catholic king, and in 1521 he defended the papacy against Luther in a book he commissioned entitled, The Defence of the Seven Sacraments, for which Pope Leo X awarded him the title Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith). However, the king came into conflict with the papacy when he wished to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, for which he needed papal sanction. Catherine, among many other noble relations, was the aunt of Emperor Charles V, the papacy's most significant secular supporter. The ensuing dispute eventually led to a break from Rome and the declaration of the King of England as head of the English Church, which saw itself as a Protestant church navigating a middle way between Lutheranism and Reformed Christianity, but leaning more towards the latter.[554]

Consequently, England experienced periods of reform and also Counter-Reformation. Monarchs such as Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Archbishops of Canterbury such as Thomas Cranmer and William Laud, pushed the Church of England in different directions over the course of only a few generations. What emerged was the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and a state church that considered itself both "Reformed" and "Catholic" but not "Roman", and other unofficial more radical movements, such as the Puritans. In terms of politics, the English Reformation included heresy trials, the exiling of Roman Catholic populations to Spain and other Roman Catholic lands, and censorship and prohibition of books.[555]

Protestantism has promoted economic growth and entrepreneurship, especially in the period after the Scientific and the Industrial Revolution.[556][557] Scholars have identified a positive correlation between the rise of Protestantism and human capital formation,[558] work ethic,[559] economic development,[560] and the development of the state system.[561] According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[562][563][564]

Max Weber in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905) asserted that Protestant ethics and values along with the Calvinist doctrine of asceticism and predestination gave birth to capitalism.[565][566] Weber says this contributed to economic growth and the development of banking across Northern Europe.[567][568] As one of the most influential and cited books in sociology, its thesis has been controversial since its release. In opposition to Weber, historians such as Fernand Braudel and Hugh Trevor-Roper assert that capitalism developed in pre-Reformation Catholic communities. Joseph Schumpeter, an economist of the twentieth century, has referred to the Scholastics as "they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics".[569]

Beginning in Germany and Switzerland in the 16th century, the Radical Reformation was a disorderly collection of loosely related reformation groups that included Anabaptists, Spiritualists, and Evangelical Rationalists.[570] They opposed the traditional church-state theories of classical Protestantism (Lutherans, Reformed and Elizabethans), were often indifferent to governmental jurisdiction altogether, and supported a full separation from the state. Rejecting Luther's key teachings on salvation by faith alone and predestination, along with Catholic transubstantiation, places them "equally distant from classical Protestantism and Tridentine Catholicism, according to historian George Huntston Williams.[553]

The Counter-Reformation was the response of the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation. It consisted of the Confutatio Augustana, the Council of Trent, the Roman Catechism, and the Defensio Tridentinæ fidei, heresy trials, the exiling of Protestant populations from Catholic lands, the seizure of children from their Protestant parents for institutionalized Catholic upbringing, a series of wars, and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Protestant Christians were excommunicated and persecuted, prompting some to live as crypto-Protestants (also termed Nicodemites), against the urging of John Calvin who urged them to live their faith openly.[571] Crypto-Protestants were documented as late as the 19th century in Latin America.[572]

The Council in Santa Maria Maggiore church; Museo Diocesiano Tridentino, Trento

The Council of Trent (1545–1563) initiated by Pope Paul III addressed issues of corruption such as simony, absenteeism, nepotism, the holding of multiple church offices by one person, and other abuses. It also reasserted traditional practices and doctrines of the Church, such as the episcopal structure, clerical celibacy, the seven Sacraments, transubstantiation (the belief that during mass the consecrated bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ), the veneration of relics, icons, and saints (especially the Blessed Virgin Mary), the necessity of both faith and good works for salvation, the existence of purgatory and the issuance (but not the sale) of indulgences. Protestant doctrinal objections and changes were rejected. The council fostered an interest in education for parish priests to increase pastoral care. Milan's Archbishop Saint Charles Borromeo set an example by visiting the remotest parishes and instilling high standards.

Simultaneous to the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Reformation consisted of improvements in art and culture, anti-corruption measures, the founding of the Jesuits, the establishment of seminaries, a reassertion of traditional doctrines and the emergence of new religious orders aimed at both moral reform and new missionary activity. Also part of this was the development of new yet orthodox forms of spirituality, such as that of the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.[note 29]

In the Early modern Era, religious wars were waged in Europe after the Protestant Reformation. They ranged from international wars to internal conflicts.

They began in the Holy Roman Empire with the minor Knights' Revolt (1522) which called for governmental reform and almost immediately inspired the larger and more serious Peasants' War (1524–1525).[574][575] Warfare intensified in the First Schmalkaldic War (1546-470) and the Second Schmalkaldic War (1552-1555) after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation.[576]

The rise of Calvinism triggered a second wave of wars, beginning in France in 1562 as well as the Dutch revolt of 1566.[576] Seven years after the Peace of Augsburg had established a truce in Germany on the basis of territorialism, France became the centre of religious wars which lasted for 36 years.[577]

The final wave of religious wars triggered the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) following the erosion of the settlement at Augsburg. The involvement of foreign powers made it the largest and most disastrous.[576]

The causes of these wars are debated.[note 30] Political scientist James Bernard Murphy writes that "Virtually all major [political] theorists ... cite the ‘‘wars of religion’’ to ... demonstrate the dangers that religious belief poses to political order".[582] However, scholars have largely interpreted these wars as struggles for independence that coincided with the break up of medieval empires into the modern nation states.[576] Many scholars agree the wars of this period were partly fought to obtain security and freedom for each religious confession, but mostly fought for political gain, since national, dynastic, and mercenary interests generally prevailed, although there is, as yet, no consensus.[583][577]

Until the 1300s, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church was that witches did not exist.[584][note 31] While historians have been unable to pinpoint a single cause of what became known as the "witch frenzy", scholars have noted that, without changing church doctrine, a new but common stream of thought developed at every level of society that witches were both real and malevolent.[588] Records from inquisitions show the belief in magic had remained so widespread among the rural people that it has convinced some historians Christianization had not been as successful as previously supposed.[589] Since it was believed witches could call up hail storms at will, Wolfgang Behringer ties witch frenzy to climate change caused by the Little Ice Age which began around 1300 and lasted into 1850 CE. Scapegoating is observed by 1560.[590] There is broad agreement that approximately 100,000 people were prosecuted, (about 80% women, most over 40), while approximately forty to fifty thousand people were executed between 1561 and 1670.[591][588][note 32]

History of the Inquisition divides into two major parts: its Papal creation in the early thirteenth century, and its transformation into permanent secular governmental bureaucracies between 1478 and 1542.[600]

Historian Helen Rawlings says, "the Spanish Inquisition was different [from earlier inquisitions] in one fundamental respect: it was responsible to the crown rather than the Pope and was used to consolidate state interest.[601]

The Portuguese Inquisition, in close relationship with the church, was also controlled by the crown who established a government board, known as the General Council, to oversee it. The Grand Inquisitor, chosen by the king, was nearly always a member of the royal family.[602]

T. F. Mayer, historian, writes that "the Roman Inquisition operated to serve the papacy's long standing political aims in Naples, Venice and Florence".[603] Its activity was primarily bureaucratic. The Roman Inquisition is probably best known for its condemnation of Galileo.[604]

Galileo before the Holy Office, a 19th-century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

The Galileo affair has been considered by many to be a defining moment in the history of the relationship between religion and science. Since the creation of the Conflict thesis by Andrew Dickson White and John William Draper in the late nineteenth century, religion has been depicted as oppressive and oppositional to science.[605] Edward Daub explains that, while "twentieth century historians of science dismantled White and Draper’s claims, it is still popular in public perception".[606] Casting Galileo's story as a contest between science and religion is an oversimplification, writes Jeffrey Foss.[607] Galileo was heir to a long scientific tradition with deep medieval Christian roots.[533]

In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing observations made with his new telescope. These and other discoveries exposed difficulties with the understanding of the heavens that was common at the time. Scientists, along with the Catholic Church, had adopted Aristotle's view of the earth as fixed in place, since Aristotle's rediscovery 300 years prior.[608] Jeffrey Foss writes that, by Galileo's time, the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of the universe had become "fully integrated with Catholic theology".[609]

Scientists of the day largely rejected Galileo's assertions, since most had no telescope, and Galileo had no physical theory to explain how planets could orbit the sun which, according to Aristotelian physics, was impossible. (That would not be resolved for another hundred years.) Galileo's peers alerted religious authorities to his "errors" and asked them to intervene.[610] In response, the church forbade Galileo from teaching it, though it did not forbid discussing it, so long as it was clear it was merely a hypothesis. Instead, Galileo published books and asserted scientific superiority.[609] He was summoned before the Roman Inquisition twice. First warned, he was next sentenced to house arrest on a charge of "grave suspicion of heresy".[607]

Pilgrims Going to Church by George Henry Boughton (1867)

The Puritans, or Pilgrims, left England and established Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628, so they could have the religious freedom to build their own churches and create an area with Puritanism as the established religion.[611] They founded Harvard College eight years later.[612][613] Unlike the Spanish or French, the English colonists made little effort to evangelize the native peoples.[614] Puritans supported public education, and in 1642, Massachusetts required parents to ensure their children's ability to read. In the Old Deluder Satan Act in 1647, the state mandated community schooling, laying the basis for public schools in America.[615]

According to Robert K. Merton, the values of English Puritanism and German Pietism led to the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. (The Merton Thesis is both widely accepted and disputed.) Merton explained that the connection between religious affiliation and interest in science was the result of a significant synergy between the ascetic Protestant values and those of modern science.[616][617]

With roots in German Pietism and British Evangelicalism, and in order to counter the extreme rationalism of biblical criticism of the Age of Enlightenment, a revitalization of religious piety known as the first Great Awakening swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s.[618][619][620]

Beginning among the Presbyterians, it quickly spread to Congregationalists (Puritans) and Baptists, creating American Evangelicalism and Wesleyan Methodism.[621] Moderates disapproved and battles over the movement and its dramatized style raged in both congregations and denominations. This caused the division of American Protestantism into 'Parties' for the first time, which eventually led to critical support for the American Revolution.[622] In places like Connecticut and Massachusetts where one denomination received state funding, other churches now began to lobby local legislatures to end that favoured treatment, separating church and state.[618]

The Second Great Awakening (1800–1830s) led to the beginnings of the Mormons, the Restoration Movement and the Holiness movement. In 1801, over 25,000 people gathered in the small frontier community of Cane Ridge, Kentucky.[623] They united in extolling moral reform as the Christian alternative to armed revolution, and established societies that operated separately from any church to "teach the poor to read, suppress sexual vice and ungodly amusements such as cockfighting and bear-baiting, and to abolish the slave trade".[624] These were pioneers in developing nationally integrated forms of organization which produced the mergers and business consolidations that reshaped the American economy.[625] The beginnings of social reform movements concerning the abolition of slavery, women's rights, and temperance have been directly connected to this religious revival.[626]

The Third Great Awakening began from 1857 and was most notable for taking the movement throughout the world, especially in English speaking countries.[627]

The final group to develop from the "great awakenings" in North America was Pentecostalism, which had its roots in Holiness movements, and began in 1906 on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Pentecostalism would later lead to the Charismatic movement.[628]

The beginning of American Protestant missions abroad followed the sailing of William Carey from England to India in 1793 after the Great awakening. A great effort was also made to evangelize America.[629] Missionaries played a crucial role in the acculturation of the American Indians.[630][631]

Restorationism refers to the belief that a purer form of Christianity should be restored using the early church as a model.[632][633] In many cases, restorationist groups believed that contemporary Christianity, in all of its forms, had deviated from the true, original Christianity, which they then attempted to "reconstruct", often using the Book of Acts as a "guidebook" of sorts. Usually, Restorationists do not describe themselves as "reforming" a Christian church which has continuously existed since the time of Jesus, instead, they describe themselves as restoring the Church that they believe was lost at some point in the history of Christianity. "Restorationism" is frequently used to describe the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.

The term "restorationist" is also used to describe movements such as Adventism, a movement which originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher William Miller first publicly shared his belief that the Second Coming would occur at some point between 1843 and 1844, and the Jehovah's Witness movement, founded in the late 1870s by Charles Taze Russell. The term can also be used to describe the Latter Day Saint movement, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the Community of Christ and numerous other Latter Day Saint denominations. Latter Day Saints, also known as Mormons, believe that Joseph Smith was chosen to restore the original organization which was established by Jesus, now "in its fullness", rather than reform the church.[634][635][636][637]

Churches of the Moscow Kremlin, as seen from the Balchug

The Russian Orthodox Church held a privileged position in the Russian Empire, expressed in the motto of the late empire from 1833: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Populism. Nevertheless, the Church reform of Peter I in the early 18th century had placed the Orthodox authorities under the control of the tsar. An ober-procurator appointed by the tsar ran the committee which governed the Church between 1721 and 1918: the Most Holy Synod. The Church became involved in the various campaigns of russification,[638] and was accused of involvement in Russian antisemitism,[639] despite the lack of an official position on Judaism as such.[640]

The Bolsheviks and other Russian revolutionaries saw the Church, like the tsarist state, as an enemy of the people. Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden and sometimes led to imprisonment.[641][642][643] Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers included torture, being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals, as well as execution.[644][645]

Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on the orders of Joseph Stalin, 5 December 1931, consistent with the doctrine of state atheism in the USSR.[646]

In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, one journalist reported 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.[647] This included people like the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna who was at this point a monastic.[note 33] Recently released evidence indicates over 8,000 were killed in 1922 during the conflict over church valuables.[648] More than 100,000 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941.[649]

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, New Imperialism was a second wave of economic and political colonialism that lasted until World War II.[650] During this time, colonial powers gained territory at almost three times the rate of the earlier colonial period, opening many new territories with some assurance of safety for Christian missionaries who soon followed.[651] The sixteenth century had been the "great age of Catholic expansion" whereas the nineteenth century was that for Protestantism.[652]

Protestantism initiated translations of the Bible into native languages which supported the development of national literatures, and was instrumental in generating a democratic legacy for many colonies.[653] Translating developed a dictionary, a written record of native customs, spread literacy, mass printing, and developed voluntary organizations.[654] This profoundly impacted native cultures in Africa which responded with "movements of indigenization and cultural liberation".[655] According to Sanneh, that means western missionaries began the "largest, most diverse and most vigorous movement of cultural renewal in [the] history" of Africa.[656][657]

"Although contact with Christian missionaries might have had beneficial long-term effects for human capital, political participation, and eventually democratization, contact with the colonial slave trade has had pernicious effects".[658]

In the post-colonial world, it has become necessary for Christianity to break free of its colonial moorings, says Sanneh.[659] After World War II, Christian missionaries played a transformative role for many colonial societies moving them toward independence in the development of decolonization.[660]

Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term for religious movements within late 18th, 19th and 20th-century Christianity. According to theologian Theo Hobsen, liberal Christianity has two traditions. Before the secular Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, a specifically Christian Idealism imagined a liberal state. Its concepts took form in the Radical Reformation's view of political and cultural liberty, and was essential to the creation of the modern secular state.[661]

This has largely been eclipsed by the second tradition of liberal Christianity born of seventeenth century rationalism. Rationalistic humanism sought to wean Christianity from its "irrational" cultic roots.[662] Lacking any grounding in Christian "practice, ritual, sacramentalism, church and worship", liberal Christianity lost touch with the fundamental necessity of faith and ritual in maintaining Christianity.[663] This eventually led to the twentieth century revolt against liberal Christianity, the birth of fundamentalism, and liberalism's recent decades of decline.[664]

Fundamentalist Christianity is a movement that arose mainly within British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century in reaction to modernism.[665] Before 1919, fundamentalism was loosely organized and undisciplined. Its most significant early movements were the holiness movement and the millenarian movement with its premillennial expectations of the second coming.[666]

In 1925 fundamentalists participated in the Scopes trial, and by 1930, the movement appeared to be dying.[667] Then in the 30s, Neo-orthodoxy began uniting moderates of both sides.[668] In the 1940s, "new-evangelicalism" established itself as separate from fundamentalism.[669] Today, fundamentalism is less about doctrine than political activism.[670]

Pope Pius XI

Under the state atheism of countries in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, Christians of many denominations experienced persecution, with many churches and monasteries being destroyed, as well as clergy being executed.[note 34][note 35][note 36]

The position of Christians affected by Nazism is highly complex.[674] Pope Pius XI declared – Mit brennender Sorge – that Fascist governments had hidden "pagan intentions" and expressed the irreconcilability of the Catholic position and totalitarian fascist state worship, which placed the nation above God, fundamental human rights, and dignity. His declaration that "Spiritually, [Christians] are all Semites" prompted the Nazis to give him the title "Chief Rabbi of the Christian World".[675]

Catholic priests were executed in concentration camps alongside Jews; for example, 2,600 Catholic priests were imprisoned in Dachau, and 2,000 of them were executed (cf. Priesterblock). A further 2,700 Polish priests were executed (a quarter of all Polish priests), and 5,350 Polish nuns were either displaced, imprisoned, or executed.[676] Many Catholic laymen and clergy played notable roles in sheltering Jews during the Holocaust, including Pope Pius XII. The head rabbi of Rome became a Catholic in 1945 and, in honour of the actions the pope undertook to save Jewish lives, he took the name Eugenio (the pope's first name).[677] A former Israeli consul in Italy claimed: "The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all the other churches, religious institutions, and rescue organisations put together".[678]

Most leaders and members of the largest Protestant church in Germany, the German Evangelical Church, which had a long tradition of nationalism and support of the state, supported the Nazis when they came to power.[679][680] A smaller contingent formed the Confessing Church which strongly opposed Nazism. In a study of sermon content, William Skiles says "Confessing Church pastors opposed the Nazi regime on three fronts... first, they expressed harsh criticism of Nazi persecution of Christians and the German churches; second, they condemned National Socialism as a false ideology that worships false gods; and third, they challenged Nazi anti-Semitic ideology by supporting Jews as the chosen people of God and Judaism as a historic foundation of Christianity".[681]

Nazis interfered in church affairs, harassed members, executed mass arrests and targeted well known pastors like Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.[682][683][note 37] Bonhoeffer, a pacifist, was later found guilty in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and executed.[685]

On 11 October 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council, the 21st ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council was "pastoral" in nature, interpreting dogma in terms of its scriptural roots, revising liturgical practices, and providing guidance for articulating traditional Church teachings in contemporary times. The council is perhaps best known for its instructions that the Mass may be celebrated in the vernacular as well as in Latin.[686]

Patriarch Kirill (left) and Pope Francis (right) issued the Joint Declaration of Havana in 2016, calling for an end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.[687]

On 21 November 1964, the Second Vatican Council published the Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio.[688] With a pre-history of its own, it can also be seen within the overall context of the many rapid changes taking place in relationships among Christian churches in the United States between 1961 and 1964.[688] Protestant Bible scholar and leader in the World Council of Churches, Paul S. Minear (1906 - 2007) describes these changes as "revolutionary" while Robert Wuthnow calls them a complete "restructuring of American religion".[689]

The Roman Catholic goals of ecumenism, (as given to the World Council of Churches and propagated by the Second Vatican Council), are to establish full communion amongst all the various Christian churches in faith, sacramental life and ministry.[690] Not all churches engaged in the pursuit of ecumenism have accepted these goals.[691] Amongst Evangelicals, there has not been an agreed upon definition, strategy or goal.[692]

Pentecostalism is the largest and fastest growing movement in Christianity of the early twenty-first century.[693] It has a different ecclesiology which has prevented its involvement in, and produced some hostility toward, the formal, creedal and institutional practices that have characterized the ecumenism of the WCC.[694] Pentecostals do not see ecumenism as the pursuit of unifying all into one. Instead, they see it as a many centered unity of faith.[694]

Historically, divisions in Christianity have been caused by theological differences, but also by political and cultural differences.[695] In the U.S. after WWII, political and cultural lines were crossed in the name of "individual freedom, equality, national unity and a shared faith in God". Ecumenical debates over religious liberty and biblical studies intertwined historically with cultural and social changes such as support for the Civil Rights movement. The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy was symbolic of the change in American attitudes.[696]

In the twenty-first century an indifference to ecumenism has developed, but scholars see this as reflective of difficulties faced by the churches themselves.[697] Churches have become captive to culture, and sentiment is widespread that ecumenism has stalled.[697] Modern proponents of ecumenism take the approach that the ecumenical movement is best served operating from within each confessional identity as the framework which will eventually make ecumenism possible.[698]

Laying on of hands during a service in a neo-charismatic church in Ghana

World Christianity, otherwise known as "global Christianity", has been defined both as a term that attempts to convey the global nature of the Christian religion[20][23][699] and an academic field of study that encompasses analysis of the histories, practices, and discourses of Christianity as a world religion and its various forms as they are found on the six continents.[700] However, the term often focuses on "non-Western Christianity" which "comprises (usually the exotic) instances of Christian faith in 'the global South', in Asia, Africa, and Latin America".[701]

Historian Philip Jenkins observes that Christianity is growing rapidly in China and some other Asian countries.[702][703] Sociologist and specialist in Chinese religion Fenggang Yang from Purdue University writes that Christianity is "spreading among the Chinese of South-East Asia", and "Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity is growing more quickly in China".[704] In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Pentecostalism is the largest and fastest growing form of Christianity.[705]

Countries by percentage of Protestants 1938

Christian distribution globally[706]

Social Anthropologist Juliette Koning and sociologist Heidi Dahles of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, agree there has been a "rapid expansion of charismatic Christianity from the 1980s onwards. Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia are said to have the fastest-growing Christian communities and the majority of the new believers are "upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class Chinese". Allan Anderson and Edmond Tang have reported in their book Asian and Pentecostal: The Charismatic Face of Christianity in Asia that "Asia has the second largest number of Pentecostals/charismatics of any continent in the world, and seems to be fast catching up with the largest, Latin America."[707] The World Christian Encyclopedia estimated 135 million in Asia compared to 80 million in North America.[707]

It has been reported in America Magazine that increasing numbers of young people are becoming Christians in several countries, such as China,[708][709] Hong Kong,[710] Indonesia,[711] Iran,[712][713] Japan,[714] Singapore,[715][716][717] and South Korea.[718] The Council on Foreign Relations says the "number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 percent annually since 1979".[719]

Award-winning historian of Christianity, Todd Hartch of Eastern Kentucky University, has written that by 2005, around 6 million Africans were converting annually to Christianity.[720]

According to Iranian historian Ladan Boroumand "Iran today is witnessing the highest rate of Christianization in the world".[721]

The gospel in South India - or the religious life, experience, and character of the Hindu Christians (1880)

According to a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity has grow in India in recent years due to conversion. Most converts are former Hindus, though some are former Muslims.[722][723] While the exact number of Dalit converts to Christianity in India is not available, religion scholar William R. Burrow of Colorado State University has estimated that about 8% of Dalits have converted to Christianity.[724]

Since the 1960s, there has been a substantial increase in the number of conversions from Islam to Christianity, mostly to the Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions of Christianity.[725] The 2015 study Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census estimated that 10.2 million Muslims converted to Christianity.[726] Countries with the largest numbers of Muslims converted to Christianity include Indonesia (6,500,000), Nigeria (600,000), Iran (500,000 versus only 500 in 1979), the United States (450,000), Ethiopia (400,000), and Algeria (380,000).[727] Indonesia is home to the largest Christian community of converts from Islam. Since the mid and late 1960s, between 2 and 2.5 million Muslims converted to Christianity.[728][729][730]