Christianity has been nipped and tucked over and over by the time periods, different leaders, and many other forces shaping it. Christianity had a large impact on the Roman Empire as well as it served as an institution to unify Europe following the fall of Rome. Even in todays age Pope Francis is making a change to unify the church and state around Europe and has a vision for Christianity. The rise of Christianity was in the early centuries of C.E. times. Christianity’s uprising had a large impact on the Roman Empire. In the beginning the early Christians were made up of the loosely organized communities, with both men and women and upholding different roles (Spielvogel #173). These communities were spreading very quickly in Rome. The Romans persecuted many Christians for their beliefs, although that didn’t stop their growth. That made them stronger, and they were fast to …show more content…
Pope Francis similarly is trying to unify Europe once again with religion. The government and political life in Europe to Pope Francis seems, “to give the impression of being somewhat elderly and haggard, feeling less and less a protagonist in a world which frequently regards it with aloofness, mistrust and even, at times, suspicion” (Armstrong). Pope Francis has the plan to fix all of these problems with the unification of Europe just as Constantine did with Rome before his death. “Pope Francis’s solution is to embrace religion, specifically Roman Catholicism. Religion has been sliding in Europe in recent decades and the pope hopes to reverse such a trend…Pope Francis says Europeans must not forget the 2,000-year-old history between Christianity and Europe” (Armstrong). The pope is very knowledgably of the history of Europe and bringing it to service the world now and in the early centuries Christianity and Roman Catholicism is what unified Europe centuries
From 300-600 CE The Roman Empire allowed new religions to be formed and universalized. The Religion that was associated with The Roman empire was Christianity. Christianity became the religion of Rome because of a man named Constantine who allowed Christianity to spread and flow throughout the empire create a harmony throughout the people. Constantine allowed for the Roman officials to adopt Christianity and this led to the building of the Constantinople. Christianity had basilicas which were opulent churches that were open to all which meant any person could go there allowing Christianity to be very universal. Christianity was also very appealing because the worshiped deity walked on land with the people. Christianity split and became the Roman Catholic church which consisted
After hearing about Pope Urban II’s pronouncement, huge amounts of people are now moving across Europe! However, most of these first responders seem to be religious people as opposed to lords and knights. Since taking back the Holy Land is not as important to these knights and lords, it is understandable that they haven’t been rushing to fight.
It is amazing how much political and military supremacy the papacy position gained when the Crusades began. The First Crusade (1096-1099) was a military expedition initiated by Pope Urban the II to regain the Holy Lands in Jerusalem from the Muslim conquest. The Pope gave a speech requesting military action against Muslim takeover to the French people of Clermont. The speech eventually propagated to other nations for further recruitment. Urban’s political and military involvement helped regain the Holy Lands and save the Christian Crusaders souls. His famous speech changed the course of history in part because its dissemination was overly successful, and assembled over 40,000 Crusaders to do the will of God. Why was Pope Urban II so victorious in recruiting people for the First Crusade, and why was his influence so important?
Christianity has gone through many phases, but has primarily become characterized by the way of the heart, especially in Catholicism. The way of the heart has lead lots of people to become disillusioned with the faith, and to abandon it in pursuit of something a bit more individualized, like
Pope Urban II naturally had a religious control over his people and when he gave his speech at the Council of Clermont in November 1905, he constantly referred to it as the will of God. His speech reminded them that the Crusades were their “concerns as well as God’s” . Throughout his speech, the Pope is constantly trying to align the need for men to fight with t...
The rise of Christianity in Rome did not come easily. It came with much destruction and death. The spark of Christianity in Rome came from an appearance of Martyrs in Rome. Martyrs were people that were executed for going against the common beliefs of pagan (polytheistic) ways. (Tignor, 2011, p. 286) Because of these awful executions, Christianity is said to be based off of “the blood of martyrs.” One of their main ways of spreading Christianity was through the sharing of their writings and by 300 CE there was an exceptional amount of book production throughout Rome. (Tignor, 2011, p. 289) “Christianity operated as one among many minority religions in the Roman Empire, and on several occasions experienced widespread persecution, especially under the emperors Nero (r. 54–68), Decius (r. 249–251), and Diocletian (r. 284–305). However, the situation changed radically under the emperor Constantine (r. 306–337), who in 313 issued the Edict of Milan that made Christianity a legitimate religion in the empire.” (Melton, 2010, p. 634)
With the decline of the Western Roman empire Western Europe was a disjointed land that had no true unifying structure till the rise of Christianity. In Roman antiquity people used the State or empire of Rome to define themselves and give them a sense of unity despite having a diverse group of people within the empire. When Western Rome fell this belief based on a Roman cultural identity disappeared and no longer were people able to identify themselves with any particular group as they once have. The Christian religion was able to fill this vacuum by having the people associate themselves to a religion instead of a given state or cultural group. During Medieval Europe Christianity became the unifying force that would define what it meant to be European. Christianity gave political leaders legitimacy by showing that they have been favored by the gods. The clergyman that recorded the histories surrounding the kings of the Medieval Europe also provided a link to the Roman Empire to give the Kings a link to Roman empire of antiquity. Christianity became the center of the cultural life in western Europe and created a new social elite in Europe which would dominate literacy and knowledge within Europe for centuries. Christianity provided Europe with an escape from the disorder of the Medieval ages and give them a spiritual outlet for their fears and desires for a better life, whether in the physical life or in the spiritual world after death.
The most important historical fact of Christianity is the life of Jesus, the prophet that the faith of Christians is centered around. The historical Jesus grew up in Nazareth where John the Baptist baptized him, thus beginning his career as a teacher and healer of God. Little is known about where Jesus came from or what he looks like, only his personality through actions and words. Like most prophets, Jesus looked to the spiritual world to find answers to remove the suffering; John was the prophet to open Jesus’ eyes to heaven, leading him into a state solitude until he became empowered by the Spirit. The actions that speak for his personality are of power to heal sickness, cast away evil, and perform miracles, all that the prophets gave credit to Jesus, but this what not the focus of his ministry. What drew people into Jesus was his hope to heal humanity, not just people; he urged peace and loving of the enemies, which created ties with the Pharisees. However, the Pharisees did not see God as compassion, so they created categories of clean and unclean people. Christianity is originally created for the undesirables, so Jesus felt that the boundaries were not exemplifying His compassion, thus he set out to change the system. This did not sit well with the Pharisees, so Jesus began to compiled enemies of Rome, which would lead to his crucifixion. It was the death of Jesus that began the Christianity faith, but his words and deeds that empowered the people. Jesus had no new teachings that were different from those before him, but he had a weight of meaning to his words. Christ’s teachings were mostly in the forms of stories where lessons of the heart lay behind the message. Not only did he speak with authority, but he spoke out ag...
Some accounts say the change from Paganism to Christianity was immediate following the Emperor Constantine legitimizing it in 313 CE. However this is not the case. The changes that arose were too complex for it to be just Emperor Constantine’s legitimization of Christianity. Even though Christianity was legitimized and it began to rise, paganism did not die out. It survived through the middle ages and the Renaissance. The main reason Christianity survived and grew is because the converts mainly consisted of patricians. They had the power to uphold it, and they saw that Christianity could open many political doors for them. Even so, many of the Roman communities outside of the major cities did not want to convert to Christianity. The masses
There are certain traits the Roman Empire possessed which contributed greatly to the growth of Christianity. The Roman Empire, most importantly, united a great variety and cultures and people into what became one nation; the resulting unity and communication between so many peoples eased the spread of Christianity all over the world. Of the Roman emperors, even the extremely rude ones assisted in spreading the Christian faith; not despite, but relieved by their pursuit Christianity grew rapidly. Finally, the oppressed and broken nature of the plebeians made them very liable to and eager of the Christian message.
Jesus’ teachings created the religion of Christianity. Though Christians were persecuted during the beginning of time in which they began to spread, many factors helped to shape Christianity into the popular religion it is today. Christianity was able rise from just a Jesus ministry to a popular religion with the help of martyrdom, missionaries, governmental support and Jesus himself.
Christianity took hold on the ancient world because it was spread exceptionally fast. Missionary journeys were made every set of to three years and teach people Christianity (Document F). Roman judges held trials for reported Christians, and executed them because they admitted that they were Christian. The trials were held to execute Christians so the Roman religion would continue to flourish and so Christian citizens won’t be more powerful than the government (Documents F and G). This shows that Christianity was gaining a lot of members, really fast, in comparison to the government.
Christianity was first brought about by Jesus, who preached he was the son of God. After Jesus was hung on the cross and then resurrected one of his apostles, Paul, started the church. It first became popular in Jerusalem, and then continued to spread throughout the rest of the Middle-East, eventually reaching ...
...ho guarded the food. Christianity was not a popular religion at around 50 A.D.; as Nero had started persecuting Christians. However, at around 300 A.D., Constantine had a vision from Christ. Constantine continued and defeated his rival in battle and became a Christian Emperor. He granted money and support to the Christian church and with his support, the Christianity became the dominant religion and the traditional Roman religion was gradually forgotten.
Factors Which Led to the Spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire Christianity was not born in a vacumn. There were many social, geographical, historical and religious issues prevailing at the time of Christ and all of which were favorable to the spread of Christianity. Geograpicly, Christianity came into being in the Meditation world, the largest of the various centers of civilization at that time. Israel stands almost central to the five continents, dividing the east and west.