In the Roman Empire, the transformation of Christianity into a state religion occurred after Constantine became a Christian.  In my previous post, I discussed the fact that the early Church was separate from the Roman state, which often considered Christians unpatriotic and persecuted them.  Indeed, the early Christians refused to worship the Roman gods who were believed to protect the empire.  They also refused to participate in the cult of the emperor and serve in the army.

The last major persecution was under Diocletian who later stepped down from his position.  Flavius Valerius Constantinus, known as Constantine, rose to power in the period following Diocletian’s resignation, at a time as many as six rulers were fighting each other for supremacy.

Constantine was born around AD 272.  He developed his skills as a soldier early by participating in wars in Egypt and then joining his father, Constantius, in a British campaign.  He earned the loyalty of the Gallic army which, after the death of his father, acclaimed him as “Caesar.”  In 310, he defeated Maximian who had tried to replace him as commander of the Gallic armies.  After the death of Galerius in AD 311, he crossed the Alps, defeated a competing army in Turin and advanced toward Rome.  In AD 312, he met the forces of Maxentius nine miles north of Rome, and this is where a life-changing experience presumably occurred to him.  In the afternoon before the battle, he saw a “flaming cross in the sky” with, on it, Greek words meaning “in this sign conquer.”  The next morning, he said he dreamed that a voice told him to have his soldiers mark their shields with the symbol of Christ, the letter X with a line drawn through it and curling upward.  He then went to battle with a standard that had on it the initials of Christ interwoven with a cross.  This was in contrast to Maxentius’ banner, which displayed the symbol of the pagan god Mithras.  Constantine won the battle and became the uncontested ruler of the Western Empire, while Licinius ruled the east.

In AD 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, which confirmed the policy of religious toleration that had already started by Galerius, and extended it to all religions.  Christian properties that had been seized during the last persecution were restored to their owners.  However, the partnership between Constantine and Licinius was short-lived since they both dreamed of being sole rulers.  In AD 314, after being defeated by Constantine in a battle at Pannonia, Licinius, seeking revenge against Christian supporters of Constantine, restarted persecution of Christians in Asia and Egypt.  The final showdown between the two emperors occurred in 323, when Constantine and his 130,000 men supporting Christianity met in battle Licinius and his 160,000 men supporting paganism, at Adrianople and Chrysopolis.  Constantine won, and after initially granting a pardon to Licinius, he had him executed a year later.  Following his victory, he became the sole ruler of the empire and restored freedom of religion for all, while declaring himself a Christian.

Constantine’s commitment to the Christian faith has been a matter of debate.  As a true Christian, he would have been expected to put God far above his political ambitions.  There is evidence that he did the opposite, using the Church to serve his purposes.  Therefore, while his rule was instrumental in changing the status of Christianity from persecuted religion to state religion, it also helped derail it from the pursuit of the kingdom of God that was its calling.

Constantine must have had an early exposure to Christianity from his mother, who embraced it after his father divorced her.  However, before his conversion, he had surrounded himself with pagan scholars and philosophers.  Even though he embraced Christianity, he did not get baptized until the end of his life, and did not participate routinely in the ceremonies associated with Christian worship.  He took control of the Church, treating its bishops as political aides and presiding over councils.

Constantine must have been impressed with the resilience and unity of the Church, which survived persecution and continued to grow while the pagan cults were divided and declining.  Christians had high moral character and discipline, traits that could have been useful in the unification of Rome and the cleansing of Roman society.  Christians were also taught to respect authority and, accordingly, never rebelled even under persecution.  Indeed, there was much that could have been used to his advantage.  Even the hierarchical structure of the Church, with its bishops and priests, was attractive for the needs of the empire.

Constantine was initially cautious in his embrace of Christianity.  When he became the undisputed emperor, he maintained a balance in his support of both Christian and pagan practices.  But in time, he began to show his preference for Christianity more openly.  By 323, the Roman coins no longer carried pagan effigies.  The bishops were given the authority of judges in their dioceses.  Church real estate was freed from taxation.

He built churches in Constantinople and elsewhere, and provided funding to struggling congregations.  He even supported his mother’s philanthropy.  He sought to protect orthodoxy in the Church, prohibiting meetings held by those considered heretics.  However, he could not avoid the onset of dissent in the Church, which manifested itself in three main movements: the monastic one, the Donatist one and the Arian one.

Christianity had been, in time, growing not only in numbers, but also in wealth, and Christians had been finding it increasingly difficult to resist the influence of paganism.  Many bishops had been pursuing lives of luxury and competing with each other for power.  Moral standards had been in decline.  Instead of transforming the world, Christianity was now being transformed by the world.  The monastic movement was born in reaction to this decay, and was represented by individuals who renounced the world to pursue ascetic living in isolation, and groups that also separated themselves from the world, but lived in communities under rules defined by their leaders, thereby forming the early monasteries.

The Donatist movement was started by Donatus, a bishop of Carthage, who strongly felt that bishops who had failed to stand firm during times of persecution, and had surrendered the Scriptures to pagan authorities, should not have been allowed to conduct their duties.  In particular, baptisms and ordinations performed by them had to be considered null.  The resulting schism was accompanied with violence, another indication of moral decay in the Church.  Constantine, who had hoped that the Church would be a unifying force, called a council of bishops at Arles in AD 314.  Donatism was denounced by the council, and Constantine ordered the Donatists to rejoin the Church or lose their properties and civil rights.  Later, he rescinded his order, which was not consistent with the Edict of Milan.

The Arian movement was led by a priest named Arius who, around AD 318, began to challenge accepted theological beliefs about Christ’s nature and place in the Trinity.  He argued that the Son was begotten of the Father and could be neither coeternal nor consubstantial (same substance) with him.  Furthermore, the Holy Spirit was begotten by the Son and was lower than the Father and the Son.  The argument was a result of the introduction of Platonist thought patterns into Christianity.  Unfortunately, it introduced much turmoil into the Church.  A letter sent by Constantine to the parties involved in the dispute, urging them to resolve the issue peacefully and quietly, only showed his lack of understanding of the theological issues at stake.  In AD 325, he gathered the bishops at the Council of Nicaea, over which he presided.  The resolution that came out of the council owes a great deal to a brilliant theologian named Athanasius, and is the basis for the Nicene Creed, which is still used today.

The interactions between Constantine and Church leaders illustrate the growing influence of the state over the Church.  The state could now use its tools, including violence, to enforce Church decisions.  According to Matthew 18:17, the most severe punishment recommended by Jesus in the Church is “treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector,” which means ending social interactions with the offending person.  That rule has, in the Church, taken the form of excommunication.

The three bishops, including Arius, who refused to sign the Nicaea resolution, were anathematized by the Council, and were exiled by the emperor.  Constantine ordered the burning of all books by Arius, and capital punishment for anyone hiding such books.  The Catholic Church survived, Christianity further gained ground against paganism in Rome, and Constantine continued to build a Christian civilization in the Roman Empire.

But Christianity did not become a state religion until Emperor Theodosius, in AD 380, signed a decree which not only made it the religion of the empire, but banned all other religions.  By declaring that the practice of pagan cults would be punished, the state opened the door for persecution of non-Christian religions in the empire.  The persecuted had now become the persecutors.

Christianity remained a state religion in Europe long after those events.  The use of violence became so normalized by the Roman Catholic Church that today, the notion that Christianity is non-violent has been forgotten.  The Sixteenth Century Reformation, while denouncing many questionable practices in the Roman Catholic Church, accepted the idea of a state religion which was, in particular, strongly supported by John Calvin.  Not surprisingly, the idea of a state religion relies on a questionable blending of theological and ethical concepts from the Old and New Testaments.  Jesus’ vision was that his disciples would live in the world by the principles of the kingdom of God, and by their example, be a light that would remove the darkness in the world, rather than blend with it to create a world of semidarkness.