History of Christianity

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{{Redirect|Christian history|the magazine|Christian History{{!}}''Christian History''}}
{{For timeline|Timeline of Christianity}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2019}}
[[File:Stele Licinia Amias Terme 67646.jpg|thumb|upright=1.21|Funerary [[stele]] of Licinia Amias on marble, in the [[National Roman Museum]]. One of the earliest Christian inscriptions found, it comes from the early 3rd century [[Vatican Necropolis|Vatican necropolis]] area in Rome. It contains the text {{lang|grc|ΙΧΘΥϹ ΖΩΝΤΩΝ}} ("fish of the living"), a predecessor of the [[Ichthys]] symbol.|alt=a photo of the Licinia Amias on marble, in the National Roman Museum from the early 3rd century Vatican necropolis area in Rome containing the text ("fish of the living"), a predecessor of the Ichthys symbol]]
{{Christianity}} 
{{history of religion}}

The '''history of Christianity''' follows the [[Christianity|Christian religion]] from the [[Christianity in the 1st century|first century]] to the [[Christianity in the 21st century|twenty-first century]] as it developed from its earliest beliefs and practices in both Eastern and Western [[Roman Empire]] and spread [[Christendom|geographically]] in the [[Near East]] and across the European continent, into the British Isles, the Americas, and the rest of the world, eventually becoming a [[World Christianity|global religion]].

Christianity originated with the [[Ministry of Jesus|ministry]] of [[Jesus]], a Jewish teacher and healer who proclaimed the imminent [[Kingdom of God]] and was [[Crucifixion of Jesus|crucified]] {{circa|AD&nbsp;30–33}} in [[Jerusalem]] in the [[Roman province]] of [[Judaea (Roman province)|Judea]]. The earliest followers of Jesus were [[Apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] [[Jewish Christian]]s. Christianity remained a Jewish sect for centuries in some locations, diverging gradually from Judaism over doctrinal, social and historical differences. In spite of occasional persecution in the [[Roman Empire]], the faith spread as a [[grassroots]] movement that became established by the third century both in and outside the empire. New Testament texts were written, and church government was loosely organized, in its first centuries, though the [[biblical canon]] did not become official until 382. 

The Roman Emperor [[Constantine I (emperor)|Constantine I]] became the first Christian emperor in 313. He issued the [[Edict of Milan]] expressing tolerance for all religions thereby legalizing Christian worship. He did not make Christianity the state religion, but did provide crucial support. Constantine called the first of [[seven ecumenical councils]] needed to resolve disagreements over defining Jesus' divinity. Eastern Christianity was already diverging from Western patterns, language and doctrines by the fourth century. [[Byzantium]] was more prosperous than the west, and what became [[Eastern Orthodoxy]] was more influential, organized and united with the state than Christianity in the west on into the [[Middle Ages]]. During the [[High Middle Ages]], Eastern and Western Christianity had grown far enough apart that differences led to the [[East–West Schism]] of 1054. Reunion was not achieved until the year before the fall of Constantinople. Both Islam and crusade negatively impacted Eastern Christianity, and the [[Fall of Constantinople|conquering of Constantinople in 1453]] put an end to the institutional church as established under Constantine, though it survived in altered form.

In the [[Early Middle Ages]], missionary activities spread Christianity west and north with monks and nuns playing a prominent role. Combined with politicization, it helped develop East Central Europe, influencing every aspect of medieval life up to and including the 1200s. Various catastrophic circumstances combined with a growing [[Criticism of the Catholic Church|criticism]] of the [[Catholic Church]] church in the 1300–1500s. This led to the [[Protestant Reformation]] and its related [[Protestantism|reform movements]]. Reform and counter-reformation were followed by the [[European wars of religion]], the return of tolerance as a theological and political option, and the [[Age of Enlightenment]]. Christianity also influenced the [[New World]] through its connection to [[colonialism]], its part in the [[American Revolution]], the dissolution of slavery in the west, and the long-term impact of Protestant missions.

In the twenty-first century, traditional Christianity has declined in the West, while new forms have developed and expanded throughout the world. Today, there are [[Christianity by country|more than two billion Christians worldwide]] and [[Major religious groups|Christianity has become the world's largest]], and most widespread religion.{{sfn|Pew Research|2011}}{{sfn|Britannica|2022|ps=: "It has become the largest of the world's religions and, geographically, the most widely diffused of all faiths."}} Within the last century, the center of growth has shifted from West to East and from the North to the [[Global South]].{{sfn|Jenkins|2011|pp=101–133}}{{sfn|Freston|2008|pp=109–133}}{{sfn|Robbins|2004|pp=117–143}}{{sfn|Robert|2000|pp=50–58}}

==Origins to 312==
{{See also|Jesus|Chronology of Jesus|Life of Jesus in the New Testament|Historical background of the New Testament|Roman Empire}}
{{Further|Historical Jesus|Historicity of Jesus|Quest for the historical Jesus|Hellenistic Judaism|Second Temple Judaism|Second Temple Period}}
Little is fully known of Christianity in its first 150 years. Sources are few.{{sfn|Hengel|2003|pp=1, 5, 20}} This and other complications have limited scholars to probable rather than provable conclusions, based largely on the biblical book of [[Acts of the Apostles|Acts]], whose historicity is [[Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles|debated as much as it is accepted]].{{sfn|Hengel|2003|pp=5, 10–12}}{{sfn|Phillips|2006|p=385}}

According to the [[Gospel]]s, Christianity began with the itinerant [[Ministry of Jesus|preaching and teaching]] of a deeply pious young Jewish man, [[Jesus|Jesus of Nazareth]].{{sfn|Young|2006|p=1}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=147}} His [[Disciple (Christianity)|followers]] came to believe Jesus was the [[Son of God]], the [[Christ (title)|Christ]], a title in Greek for the Hebrew term {{transliteration|he|meshiah}} (Messiah) meaning “the anointed one.” Jesus was [[Crucifixion of Jesus|crucified]] {{circa|AD&nbsp;30–33}} in [[Jerusalem]], and after his death and burial, his disciples proclaimed they had seen him alive and [[Resurrection of Jesus|raised from the dead]]. He was thereafter proclaimed [[Session of Christ|exalted by God]] heralding the future [[Kingdom of God]].{{sfn|Wilken|2013|pp=6–16}}{{sfn|Young|2006|p=1}}{{sfn|Wilken|2013|pp=6–16}}

Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that [[Historicity of Jesus|Jesus was a historical figure]].{{sfn|Law|2011|p=129}}{{sfn|Köstenberger|Kellum|Quarles|2009|p=114}} However, in the twenty-first century, tensions surround the figure of Jesus and the supernatural features of the gospels, creating, for many, a distinction between the '[[Historical Jesus|Jesus of history]]' and the 'Christ of faith'.{{sfn|Young|2006|p=1; 8–9}} In early Christianity, this was not yet a question. The belief that Christ was both divine and human  provided the foundation for Christianity.{{sfn|Young|2006|p=9}}

It was amongst a small group of [[Second Temple]] Jews, looking for an "anointed" leader (messiah or king) from the [[Davidic line|ancestral line of King David]], that Christianity first formed in relative obscurity.{{sfn|Hanson|2003|pp=524–533}}{{sfn|Wilken|2013|pp=6–16}} Led by [[James, brother of Jesus|James the Just, brother of Jesus]], they described themselves as "disciples of the Lord" and followers "of the Way".{{sfn|Esler|1994|p=50}}{{sfn|Wilken|2013|p=18}} According to Acts 9<ref>{{Bibleverse||Acts|9:1–2|NRSV}}</ref> and 11,<ref>{{Bibleverse||Acts|11:26|NRSV}}</ref> a settled community of disciples at [[Early centers of Christianity#Antioch|Antioch]] were the first to be called "Christians".{{sfn|Klutz|2002|pp=178–190}}{{sfn|Thiessen|2014|pp=373–391}}{{sfn|Seifrid|1992|pp=310–211, 246–247}}

While there is evidence in the New Testament (Acts 10) suggesting the presence of [[Gentile Christians]] from the beginning, most early Christians were actively Jewish.{{sfn|Ehrman|2005|pp=95–112}} [[Jewish Christian]]ity was influential in the beginning, and it remained so in Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor into the second and third centuries.{{sfn|Wylen|1995|pp=190–193}}{{sfn|Marcus|2006|pp=96–99, 101}} Judaism and Christianity eventually diverged over disagreements about Jewish law, Jewish insurrections against Rome which Christians did not support, and the development of [[Rabbinic Judaism]] by the Pharisees, the sect which had rejected Jesus from the start.{{sfn|Marcus|2006|pp=87–88; 99–100}}
[[File:Lawrence-before-Valerianus.jpg|thumb|right|[[Lawrence of Rome|St. Lawrence]] (martyred 258) standing before [[Valerian (emperor)|Emperor Valerianus]]|alt=a painting by Fra Angelico with Emperor Valerian seated on throne and St. Lawrence who was martyred in 258 standing under arrest before him]]
Geographically, Christianity began in [[Early centers of Christianity#Jerusalem|Jerusalem]] in first-century [[Judea (Roman province)|Judea]], a province of the Roman Empire. The religious, social, and political climate of the area was diverse and often characterized by turmoil.{{sfn|Wilken|2013|pp=6–16}}{{sfn|Schwartz|2009|p=49}} The Roman Empire had only recently emerged from a long series of civil wars.{{sfn|Rankin|2016|pp=1–2}} Romans of this era feared civil disorder, giving their highest regard to peace, harmony and order.{{sfn|Rankin|2016|p=2}} 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.{{sfn|Rankin|2016|p=3}}

Christianity was largely tolerated, but some also saw it as a threat to "[[Romanitas|Romanness]]" which produced localized persecution by mobs and governors.{{sfn|Schott|2008|p=2}}{{sfn|Moss|2012|p=129}} The first reference to persecution by a Roman Emperor is under Nero, probably in 64 AD, in the city of Rome. Scholars conjecture that [[Saint Peter|Peter]] and [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]] were killed then.{{sfn|Cropp|2007|p=21}} In 250, the emperor [[Decius]] made it a capital offence to refuse to make sacrifices to [[Roman gods]], resulting in widespread persecution of Christians.{{sfn|Rives|1999|p=141}}{{sfn|Croix|2006|pp=139–140}} [[Valerian (emperor)|Valerian]] pursued similar policies later that decade. The last and most severe official persecution, the [[Diocletianic Persecution]], took place in 303–311.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|pp=30–31}} During these early centuries, Christianity spread into the [[Jewish diaspora]] communities, establishing itself beyond the Empire's borders as well as within it.{{sfn|Hopkins|1998|p=192}}{{sfn|Trombley|1985|pp=327–331}}{{sfn|Humfress|2013|pp=3, 76, 83–88, 91}}{{sfn|Bokenkotter|2007|p=18}}

===Mission in primitive Christianity===
{{Main|Christian mission}}
[[File:The Oxford and Cambridge Acts of the Apostles - with ontrod. and notes for the use of students preparing for examinations (1894) (14769867871).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|The Oxford and Cambridge Acts of the Apostles {{Endash}} [[Paul the Apostle]]'s missionary journeys|alt=map of Paul's missionary journeys]]
From its beginnings, the Christian church has seen itself as having a double mission: first, to fully live out its faith, and second, to pass it on, making Christianity a 'missionary' religion from its inception.{{sfn|de Pressensé|1870|p=21}} Driven by a universalist logic, missions are a multi-cultural, often complex, historical process.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=1}}

Evangelism began immediately through the [[Apostles in the New Testament|twelve Apostles]], and [[Paul the Apostle|the Apostle Paul]] making multiple trips to found new churches.{{sfn|Neely|2020|page=4}} Christianity quickly spread geographically and numerically, with interaction sometimes producing conflict, and other times producing converts and accommodation.{{sfn|Hengel|2003|pp=38, 125–128}}{{sfn|Kolp|1982|p=223}}

===Early geographical spread===
{{See also|Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation|Christianity in Asia|Christianity in Egypt|Christianity in Gaul|Christianity in the Roman Africa province|Christianity in Syria}}
{{further|Chronicle of Arbela|Religion in Rome|Christianity in Africa}}
[[File:Distribution of the documented presence of Christian congregations in the first three centuries.tif|upright=1.5|thumb|Map of the Roman empire with distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries displayed for each century{{sfn|Fousek|2018}}|alt=a digital map showing where congregations were in the first three centuries]]
Beginning with less than 1000 people, by the year 100, Christianity had grown to perhaps one hundred [[Early centers of Christianity|small household churches]] consisting of an average of around seventy (12–200) members each.{{sfn|Hopkins|1998|p=202}} It achieved [[Critical mass (sociodynamics)|critical mass]] in the hundred years between 150 and 250 when it moved from fewer than 50,000 adherents to over a million.{{sfn|Harnett|2017|pp=200, 217}} This provided enough adopters for its growth rate to be [[Self-sustainability|self-sustaining]].{{sfn|Harnett|2017|pp=200, 217}}{{sfn|Hopkins|1998|p=193}}

In [[Asia Minor]], ([[Athens]], [[Corinth]], [[Ephesus]], and [[Pergamum]]), conflicts over the nature of Christ's divinity first emerged in the second century, and were resolved by referencing apostolic teaching.{{sfn|Trevett|2006|pp=314; 320, 324–327}}

Egyptian Christianity probably began in the first century in Alexandria.{{sfn|Pearson|2006|pp=331; 334–335}} As it spread, [[Copts|Coptic Christianity]] developed.{{sfn|Pearson|2006|p=336}} Both [[Gnosticism]] and [[Marcionism|Marcionite Christianity]] appeared in the second century.{{sfn|Pearson|2006|pp=337, 338}} Egyptian Christians produced religious literature more abundantly than any other region during the second and third centuries. The church in Alexandria became as influential as the church in Rome.{{sfn|Pearson|2006|pp=332, 345; 349}}

[[Church of Antioch|Christianity in Antioch]] is mentioned in [[Pauline epistles|Paul's epistles]] written before AD&nbsp;60, and scholars generally see Antioch as a primary center of early Christianity.{{sfn|Harvey|2006|pp=351; 353}}

Early Christianity was also present in [[Gaul]], however, most of what is known comes from a letter, most likely written by [[Irenaeus]], which theologically interprets the detailed suffering and martyrdom of Christians from Vienne and Lyons during the reign of [[Marcus Aurelius]].{{sfn|Behr|2006|pp=369–371; 372–374}} There is no other evidence of Christianity in Gaul, beyond one inscription on a gravestone, until the beginning of the fourth century.{{sfn|Behr|2006|p=378}}

The origins of Christianity in North Africa are unknown, but most scholars connect it to the [[History of the Jews in Carthage|Jewish communities of Carthage]].{{sfn|Tilley|2006|p=386}} Christians were persecuted in Africa intermittently from 180 until 305.{{sfn|Tilley|2006|pp=387–388: 391}} Persecution under Emperors Decius and Valerian created long-lasting problems for the African church when those who had recanted tried to rejoin the Church.{{sfn|Tilley|2006|p=389}}

It is likely the Christian message arrived in the city of Rome very early, though it is unknown how or by whom.{{sfn|Edmundson|2008|pp=8–9}} Tradition, and some evidence, supports [[Saint Peter|Peter]] as the organizer and founder of the Church in Rome which already existed by 57 AD when Paul arrived there.{{sfn|Edmundson|2008|pp=14; 44, 47}} The city was a melting pot of ideas, and according to [[Markus Vinzent]], the Church in Rome was "fragmented and subject to repeated internal upheavals ... [from] controversies imported by immigrants from around the empire".{{sfn|Vinzent|2006|p=397}} [[Walter Bauer]]'s thesis that heretical forms of Christianity were brought into line by a powerful, united, Roman church forcing its will on others is not supportable, writes Vinzent, since such unity and power did not exist in Rome before the eighth century.{{sfn|Hartog|2015|p=242}}{{sfn|Robinson|1988|p=36}}{{sfn|Sanmark|2004|p=15}}

Christianity spread in the Germanic world during the latter part of the third century, beginning among the Goths. It did not originate with the ruling classes.{{sfn|Schäferdiek|2007|p=abstract}} Christianity probably reached Roman Britain by the third century at the latest.{{sfn|Schäferdiek|2007|p=abstract}}

From the earliest days of Christianity, there was a Christian presence in [[Edessa]] (ancient and modern [[Urfa]]). It developed in [[Adiabene]], [[Armenia]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Persia]] (modern Iran), [[Ethiopia]], [[Central Asia]], [[India]], [[Nubia]], [[South Arabia]], [[Soqotra]], [[Central Asia]] and [[China]]. Christianity's development followed the trade routes as it was spread east of Antioch and south of Alexandria by merchants and soldiers moving into eastern [[Turkey]], [[Azerbaijan]], [[Syria]], [[Afghanistan]], [[Pakistan]], the [[Arabian peninsula]], and the [[Persian Gulf]] in the fourth century.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|p=118}}{{sfn|Wilken|2013|p=4; 235; 238}} By the sixth century, there is evidence for Christian communities in [[Sri Lanka]] and [[Tibet]].{{sfn|Wilken|2013|pp=4, 235, 238}}

===Early beliefs and practices===
{{Further|History of Christian theology}}
[[File:Good shepherd 02b close.jpg|thumb|One of the oldest representation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd from the [[catacombs of Rome]], made around 300 AD|alt=photo of very old and slightly damaged representation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd from the catacombs, made around 300 AD]]
Early Christianity's system of beliefs and morality have been cited as a major factor in its growth.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=147}} In contrast to traditional Roman social stratification, early Christian communities were highly inclusive being open to men and women, rich and poor, slave and free.{{sfn|Meeks|2003|p=79}}{{sfn|Judge|2010|p=214}} In groups formed by Paul the Apostle, the role of [[women]] was greater than in other religious movements.{{sfn|Meeks|2003|p=81}}{{sfn|Lieu|1999|pp=20–21}} Intellectual [[egalitarianism]] made [[philosophy]] and [[ethics]] available to ordinary people that Roman culture deemed incapable of ethical reflection.{{sfn|Praet|1992|p=45–48}}{{sfn|Harper|2013|p=7}} Christian conceptions of sexual morality and free will produced dramatic change from the Roman understanding of sexual morality as determined by social and political status, power, and [[social reproduction|class]].{{sfn|Dunning|2015|p=397}}{{sfn|Harper|2013|pp=4, 7, 14–18, 88–92}}{{sfn|Harper|2013|pp=abstract; 14–18}} 

Christians distributed bread to the hungry, nurtured the sick, and showed the poor great generosity.{{sfn|Vaage|2006|p=220}}{{sfn|Muir|2006|p=218}} Family had previously determined where and how the dead could be buried, but Christians gathered those not related by blood into a common burial space, used the same memorials, and expanded the audience to include others of their community, thereby redefining the meaning of family.{{sfn|Yasin|2005|p=433}}{{sfn|Hellerman|2009|p=6}} 

Christianity in its first 300 years was also highly exclusive.{{sfn|Trebilco|2017|pp=85, 218}} Believing was the crucial and defining characteristic that set a "high boundary" that strongly excluded non-believers.{{sfn|Trebilco|2017|pp=85, 218}} The exclusivity of Christian [[monotheism]] has been cited as a crucial factor in maintaining Christian independence in the [[Syncretism|syncretizing]] Roman religious culture.{{sfn|Praet|1992|p=68;108}} Many scholars interpreted this exclusivity as an intolerance inherent in Christian belief, though this view has been challenged by modern scholarship.{{sfn|Drake|1996|p=4}}

In the mid-second century, Christian writers such as [[Justin Martyr]] (100–165&nbsp;CE), began using the term "[[heresy]]."{{sfn|Royalty|2013|p=3}}{{sfn|Lyman|2007|p=297}} The concept developed as a means of defining theological error, ensuring correct belief and establishing identity.{{sfn|Lyman|2007|p=297}} Tension from universality and diversity made the establishment of boundaries necessary.{{sfn|Lyman|2007|p=309}} In the early centuries, doctrinal variations were gradually regulated by literature that established a consensus of common beliefs thereby creating "unified diversity".{{sfn|Lyman|2007|pp=298–299}}

The modern understanding of freedom of conscience has been cited by some as beginning with Christianity's understanding of freedom to choose one's own religion. Starting with Justin Martyr, freedom of religious conscience is affirmed in the Milan edict of 313.{{sfn|Babii|2020|p=abstract}} Early Christians were told to love others, even enemies, and Christians of all classes and sorts called each other "[[Brother (Christian)|brother]]" and "[[Religious sister (Catholic)|sister]]". These concepts and practices were foundational to early Christian thought, have remained central, and can be seen as early precursors to later modern concepts of tolerance.{{sfn|Meeks|2003|pp=88–90}}

====Church hierarchy====
{{See also|Christianity in the ante-Nicene period}}
The Church as an institution began its formation quickly and with some flexibility. The New Testament mentions ''[[bishop]]s'' (or {{Lang|el|[[episkopoi]]}}), as overseers and ''[[presbyter]]s'' as [[Elder (Christianity)|elders]] or [[Priest#Christianity|priests]], with ''[[deacons]]'' as 'servants', sometimes using the terms interchangeably.{{sfn|Carrington|1957|pp=375–376}} According to [[Gerd Theissen]], institutionalization began when itinerant preaching transformed into resident leadership (those living in a particular community over which they exercised leadership).{{sfn|Horrell|1997|p=324}} A fully organized church system had evolved prior to Constantine and the Council of Nicaea in 325.{{sfn|Judge|2010|p=4}}

====New Testament====
{{Main|Bible}}{{Further|Development of the Christian biblical canon|Development of the New Testament canon}}
[[File:P46.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|A folio from [[Papyrus 46]], an early-3rd-century collection of [[Pauline epistles]]|alt=photo of an old page of writing from Papyrus 46 in a third century collection of Paul's Epistles]]
In the first century, new scriptures were written in [[Koine Greek]]. For Christians, these became the "New Testament", and the Hebrew Scriptures became the "Old Testament".{{sfn|Brown |2010 |loc=Intro. and ch. 1 }} Even in the formative period, these texts had considerable authority, and those seen as "scriptural" were generally agreed upon.{{sfn|Barton|1998a|p=14}}{{sfn|Porter|2011|p=198}}

When discussion of canonization began, there were disputes over whether or not to include some books.{{sfn|Noll|1997|pp=36–37}}{{sfn|De Jonge|2003|p=315}} A list of accepted books was established by the [[Council of Rome]] in 382, followed by those of [[Council of Hippo|Hippo]] in 393 and [[Council of Carthage#Synod of 397|Carthage]] in 397.{{sfn|Brown|2010|loc=Intro.}} Spanning two millennia, the Bible has become one of the most influential works ever written, having contributed to the formation of [[Western law]], [[Western art|art]], [[Western literature|literature]], literacy and education.{{sfn|Koenig|2009|p=31}}{{sfn|Burnside|2011|p=XXVI}}

===Church fathers===
{{Main|Church Fathers}}{{See also|Apostolic Fathers}}
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.{{sfn|Grant|2020|p=v}} The title is used by the Church to describe the intellectual and spiritual teachers, leaders and philosophers of early Christianity.{{sfn|Duncan|2008|p=669}} Writing from the first century to the close of the eighth, they defended their faith, wrote commentaries and sermons, recorded the Creeds and church history, and lived lives that were exemplars of their faith.{{sfn|Haykin|2011|p=16}}

==Late Antiquity to Early Middle Ages (313–600)==
{{See also|Christianity in late antiquity|Christianity in the 4th century|Christianity in the 5th century}}
===Influence of Constantine in Late Antiquity===
{{Main|Constantine the Great and Christianity}}
{{Further|Historiography of Christianization of the Roman Empire|Religious policies of Constantine the Great}}
[[File:Nicaea icon.jpg|thumb|Icon depicting the [[Constantine I|Emperor Constantine]] (centre) and the [[bishop]]s of the [[First Council of Nicaea]] (325) holding the [[Nicene Creed#Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed|Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381]]|alt=this is a photo of an old eastern icon depicting the Emperor Constantine in the center and a few bishops holding the Nicene Creed in front of them]]
The Roman Emperor [[Constantine I (emperor)|Constantine the Great]] became the emperor in the West and the first Christian emperor in 313. He became sole emperor when he defeated [[Licinius]], the emperor in the East, in 324.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=542}} In 313, Constantine issued the [[Edict of Milan]], expressing tolerance for all religions, thereby legalizing Christian worship.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=542}} Christianity did not become the official religion of the empire under Constantine, but the steps he took to support and protect it were vitally important in the history of Christianity.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|pp=538, 544}}

Constantine established equal footing for Christian clergy by granting them the same immunities polytheistic priests had long enjoyed.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|pp=538, 544}} He gave bishops judicial power.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=546}} By intervening in church disputes, he initiated a precedent.{{sfn|Gerberding|Moran_Cruz|2004|pp=55–56}}{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=545|ps=: "In one of the most momentous precedents of his reign, during Constantine’s twentieth anniversary celebrations in 325, some 250 bishops assembled at Nicaea in the emperor’s presence and at his order to settle difficult issues of contention across the empire about the date of Easter, episcopal succession and Christology. Constantine made a point of deferring to the bishops. He did not preside himself and only took his seat when they did, but it was the emperor who had summoned the council, and the sanctions that followed for the small number of dissenters including Arius were also imposed by him."}} He wrote laws that favored Christianity,{{sfn|Southern|2015|p=455–457}}{{sfn|Gerberding|Moran_Cruz|2004|pp=55–56}} and he personally endowed Christians with gifts of money, land and government positions.{{sfn|Bayliss|2004|p=243}}{{sfn|Leithart|2010|p=302}} Instead of rejecting state authority, bishops were grateful, and this change in attitude proved to be critical to the further growth of the Church.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=546}}

Constantine's church building was influential in the spread of Christianity.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=546}} He devoted imperial and public funds, endowed his churches with wealth and lands, and provided revenue for their clergy and upkeep.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=547}} This led to similar efforts on a local level, leading to the presence of churches in essentially all Roman cities by the late fourth century.{{sfn|Cameron|2006b|p=547}}

===Synthesis or state religion===
{{See also|Christianity as the Roman state religion|Christianity and Judaism|Supersessionism}}
{{Further|Christianity and paganism|Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire|Theodosius I|Religious policies of Constantius II|Christian monasticism|Chronology of early Christian monasticism}}
Late Roman culture accommodated both Christian and Greco-Roman heritage. Christian intellectuals adapted Greek philosophy and Roman traditions to Christian use.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=179}} 

Substantial growth in the third and fourth centuries made Christianity the majority religion by the mid-fourth century. All Roman emperors after Constantine, except [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]], were Christian. Christian Emperors wanted the empire to become a Christian empire.{{sfn|Salzman|1993|pp=362–365}}{{sfn|Stark|1996|pp=5, 7–8}} In the centuries following his death, Roman Emperor [[Theodosius I]] (347–395) was acclaimed by the Christian literary tradition, as the emperor who destroyed paganism and established Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the empire. Many twenty-first century scholars see this as a distortion created by Nicene  Christian authors as part of their war with the Arians.{{sfn|MacMullen|1986|p=337}}{{sfn|Cameron|1993|p=74 (note 177)}}{{sfn|Errington|2006|pp=248–249}}{{sfn|Hebblewhite|2020|loc=chapter 8}}{{sfn|Rosser|1997|p=795}} New explanations of "multiculturalism, cohabitation, cooperation, identity and group cohesion" have shifted modern understanding.{{sfn|Sághy|Schoolman|2017|pp=1-3}}{{refn|group=note|[[R. Malcolm Errington]] studied responses to imperial law by Christian and non-Christian historians and commentators who wrote during and following the publication of the [[Theodosian Code]] of 438.{{sfn|Errington|1997|p=398}} Errington writes that these authors were almost universally unaware of the existence of these laws, "even about rulings such as [[Edict of Thessalonica|''Cunctos Populos'']] or ''Episcopis Tradi'' which in modern times have been stylized into turning points in the history of Christianity".{{sfn|Errington|1997|p=435}}
{{paragraph break}}
Some previous scholars interpreted the [[Edict of Thessalonica]] (380) as establishing Christianity as the state religion.{{sfn|Sáry|2019|pp=67; 70}} German ancient historian {{ill|Karl Leo Noethlichs|de}} and Hungarian legal scholar Pál Sáry say the Edict made no requirement for pagans or Jews to convert to Christianity, since in the years after 380, Theodosius said "the sect of the Jews was forbidden by no law."{{sfn|Sáry|2019|pp=72–74; fn. 32, 33, 34; 77}}
{{paragraph break}}
Ehrman says these laws lacked empire wide enforcement clauses.{{sfn|Ehrman|2018|pp=251, 258}} According to S. L. Greenslade, Theodosius's immediate concern was heresy. The ''Episcopis tradi'' uses communion with named orthodox bishops to reveal heretics, not convert pagans against their will.{{sfn|Greenslade|1972|p=14}}}} Errington has written that none of the imperial laws recorded in the [[Theodosian Code]] made a noticeable contribution to establishing Christian Orthodoxy in the west, nor did Theodosius ever see himself "as a destroyer of the old cults".{{sfn|Errington|2006|p=251}}{{sfn|Cameron|2011|p=71}}{{sfn|Errington|1997|p=435}} No legislation forcing the conversion of pagans existed until the reign of [[Justinian I|Justinian]] in A.D. 529.{{sfn|Salzman|1993|p=364}} 

====Relations with polytheists====
Christians of the fourth century believed Constantine's conversion was evidence the Christian God had conquered the many polytheist gods in Heaven.{{sfn|Stark|1996|p=5}}{{sfn|Brown|1993|p=90}}{{sfn|Brown|1998|p=634}} This "triumph of Christianity" became the primary Christian narrative in writings of the late antique age in spite of the fact that Christians represented only ten to fifteen percent of the population in 313. As a minority, triumph did not generally involve an increase in violence aimed at polytheists – with some exceptions.{{sfn|Johnson|2015|p=xx}}{{sfn|Brown|1998|pp=632–635}}{{sfn|Salzman|2006|pp=266–267, 272, 285}} In general, there was more violent rhetoric than actual violence.{{sfn|Bremmer|2020|p=9}}

Constantine wrote the first laws against sacrifice. Thereafter, sacrifice largely disappeared by the mid-fourth century.{{sfn|Drake|1995|pp=3, 7}}{{sfn|Kahlos|2019|p=35}}{{sfn|Boyd|2005|p=21}} [[Peter Brown (historian)|Peter Brown]] notes that the language of these anti-sacrifice laws "was uniformly vehement", and the "penalties they proposed were frequently horrifying", evidencing the intent of "terrorizing" the populace into accepting removal of this tradition.{{sfn|Brown|1998|p=638}} Even so, polytheistic religions continued.{{sfn|Cameron|1993|pp=4, 112}} 

The fourth century historian [[Eusebius]] also attributes to Constantine widespread temple destruction, however, while the destruction of temples is in 43 written sources, only four have been confirmed archaeologically.{{sfn|Lavan|Mulryan|2011|pp=xxvii; xxiv}}{{refn|group=note| At the sacred oak and spring at [[Mamre]], a site venerated and occupied by Jews, Christians, and pagans alike, the literature says Constantine ordered the burning of the idols, the destruction of the altar, and erection of a church on the spot of the temple.{{sfn|Bradbury|1995|p=131}} The archaeology of the site shows that Constantine's church, along with its attendant buildings, occupied a peripheral sector of the precinct leaving the rest unhindered.{{sfn|Bayliss|2004|p=31}}{{paragraph break}} Sources on what happened to the temples conflict. The ancient chronicler [[John Malalas|Malalas]] claimed Constantine destroyed all the temples; then he said Theodisius destroyed them all; then he said Constantine converted them all to churches.{{sfn|Trombley|2001|pp=246–282}}{{sfn|Bayliss|2004|p=110}}{{paragraph break}}A number of elements coincided to end the temples, but none of them were strictly religious.{{sfn|Leone|2013|p=82}} Earthquakes caused much of the destruction of this era.{{sfn|Leone|2013|p=28}} Civil conflict and external invasions also destroyed many temples and shrines.{{sfn|Lavan|Mulryan|2011|p=xxvi}}
{{paragraph break}}
Neglect led to progressive decay that was accompanied by an increased trade in salvaged building materials, as the practice of [[recycling]] became common in Late Antiquity.{{sfn|Leone|2013|p=2}} Economic struggles meant that necessity drove much of the destruction and conversion of pagan religious monuments.{{sfn|Leone|2013|p=82}}{{sfn|Bradbury|1995|p=353}}{{sfn|Brown|2003|p=60}} In many instances, such as in [[Tripolitania]], this happened before Constantine the Great became emperor.{{sfn|Leone|2013|p=29}}}} What is known with some certainty is that Constantine was vigorous in reclaiming confiscated properties for the Church, and he used reclamation to justify the destruction of some Greco-Roman temples such as [[Aphrodite|Aphrodite's]] temple in Jerusalem. For the most part, Constantine simply neglected them.{{sfn|Wiemer|1994|p=523}}{{sfn|Bayliss|2004|p=30}}{{sfn|Bradbury|1995|p=132}}

====Relations with Jews====
In the fourth century, [[Augustine of Hippo]] argued against the persecution of the Jewish people. A relative peace existed between Jews and Christians until the thirteenth century.{{sfn|Abulafia|2002|p=xii}}{{sfn|Bachrach|1977|p=3}} Significant Jewish communities existed throughout the Christian Roman empire, and attitudes varied in different areas.{{sfn|Stroumsa|2007|p=abstract}} Jews and Christians were both religious minorities claiming the same inheritance, and competing in a direct and sometimes violent clash.{{sfn|Stroumsa|2007|p=abstract}} Although anti-Semitic violence erupted occasionally, attacks on Jews by mobs, local leaders and lower level clergy were carried out without the support of church leaders who generally followed Augustine's teachings.{{sfn|Cohen|1998|pp=78–80}}{{sfn|Roth|1994|pp=1–17}}

Sometime before the fifth century, the theology of [[supersessionism]] emerged, claiming that Christianity had displaced Judaism as God's chosen people.{{sfn|Tapie|2017|p=3}} Supersessionism was not an official or universally held doctrine, but replacement theology has been part of Christian thought through much of history.{{sfn|Aguzzi|2017|pp=xi, 3, 5, 12, 25, 133}}{{sfn|Vlach|2010|p=27}} Many attribute the emergence of [[antisemitism]] to this doctrine while others make a distinction between supersessionism and modern anti-Semitism.{{sfn|Kim|2006|pp=2,4, 8–9}}{{sfn|Gerdmar|2009|p=25}}

====Relations between East and West====
Eastern Christianity was becoming more and more distinct from Western Christianity by the fourth century. The western church spoke Latin, while the East spoke and wrote in at least five other languages. Theological differences became more pronounced. The Christian church related to the State in almost opposite ways in these different regions.{{sfn|Brown|1976|pp=1-8}}{{sfn|Eastern Christianity|2024|p=n/a}} 

In the Roman west, the church condemned Roman culture as "demonic" and sinful, keeping itself as separate as possible, remaining resistant to State control for the next 800 years.{{sfn|Brown|1976|pp=7-8}}{{sfn|Rahner|2013|pp=xiii, xiv}}{{sfn|Eichbauer|2022|p=1}}{{sfn|Thompson|2016|pp=176–177}} This is in pointed contrast with eastern Christianity which acclaimed harmony with Greek culture, and whose emperors and Patriarchs upheld unanimity between church and state.{{sfn|Brown|1976|pp=7-8}}{{refn|group=note| This difference was determined largely by how East and West defined what was "holy" in relation to society.{{sfn|Brown|1976|p=8}} In the west, holiness was only truly achieved after death and was, therefore, increasingly connected to the monastery and great basilica-shrines with relics of dead saints and martyrs. In the Byzantine empire, holiness remained a part of the vast ceremoniousness of Byzantine urban life.{{sfn|Brown|1976|p=20}}}} 

Increasing diversity formed competing orthodoxies.{{sfn|Löhr|2007|p=abstract}} Theological controversies led to the Armenian, Assyrian, and Egyptian churches combining into what is today known as [[Oriental Orthodoxy]], one of three major branches of Eastern Christianity, along with the [[Church of the East]] in Persia and [[Eastern Orthodoxy]] in Byzantium.{{sfn|Adams|2021|pp=366–367}}{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=375}}{{sfn|Bussell|1910|p=346}}

Asian and African Christians did not have access to structures of power, and their institutions developed without state support.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|pp=118-119}}{{refn|group=note|There is no consensus on the origins of Christianity beyond Byzantium in Asia or East Africa. Though it is scattered throughout these areas by the fourth century, there is little documentation and no complete record of it from this period.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|pp=119-122; 125}} There are some good sources from Syria, Armenia and Georgia, a few "suggestive" ones from Soghdia, China and India, while Coptic and Ethiopic sources tend to be recent, and in other places only a few sources survive at all.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|pp=119-120}}}} Practicing the Christian faith sometimes brought opposition and persecution.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|p=118}} Asian Christianity never developed the social, intellectual and political power of Byzantium or the Latin West.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|p=118}} Yet, in 314 [[Urnayr|King Urnayr]] of [[Caucasian Albania]] adopted Christianity as the state religion. [[Christianization of Armenia|Armenia]] also adopted Christianity as their [[state religion]] in the fourth century,{{sfn|Cowe|2006|pp=404–405}} as did [[Christianization of Iberia|Georgia]], [[Ethiopia]] and [[Eritrea]].{{sfn|Cohan|2005|p=333}}{{sfn|Rapp|2007|p=138}}{{sfn|Brita|2020|p=252}} In an environment where the religious group was without cultural or political power, the merging of church and state is thought to instead represent survival of the ethnic group.{{sfn|Bundy|2007|p=144}} 
[[File:Justinien 527-565.svg|thumb|The extent of the Byzantine Empire under Justin I is shown in the darker color. The lighter color shows the conquests of Justinian I|alt=this is a map showing the area that Justinian I conquered]]
Events in the Western Roman Empire after 476 had little direct impact on the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=181; 198–199}} By the time of the Byzantine emperor [[Justinian I]] (527–565), Constantinople was the largest, most prosperous and powerful city on the Mediterranean.{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=3}} Justinian attempted to unite East and West by fighting the western tribes, taking territory and control of the Church. From 537 to 752, this meant [[Byzantine Papacy|Roman Popes had to be approved by the Eastern emperor]] before they could be installed. This required consistency with Eastern policies, such as forcing conversion of pagans, that had not previously been policies in the west.{{sfn|Ekonomou|2007|pp=245–247}}{{sfn|Salzman|1993|p=364}}

=== Regional developments (300–600) ===
{{See also|Christianization|Byzantine Empire|Justinian I|Byzantine Papacy}}
Christianity had no central government, and differences developed in different locations.{{sfn|Hartog|2015|p=242}}{{sfn|Robinson|1988|p=36}}{{sfn|Sanmark|2004|p=15}} [[Donatism]] developed in North Africa. Some Germanic people adopted Arian Christianity while others, such as the Frankish King [[Clovis I]], (who was the first to unite the [[Franks|Frankish tribes]] under one ruler), converted to Catholicism.{{sfn|Brown|2003|p=137}}{{sfn|Nelson|1996|p=100}}{{sfn|Clark|2011|pp=1–4}}{{sfn|Cameron|2015|pp=39, 52}} [[Migration Period|Various Germanic peoples]] in the West — many of whom had [[Arianism#Among medieval Germanic tribes|already converted to Christianity]] — sacked Rome, invaded Britain, France, and Spain, seized land, and disrupted economies. For multiple and various reasons, the [[Fall of the Western Roman Empire|Western Roman Empire]] began to split into separate kingdoms.{{sfn|Cameron|2015|pp=10, 17, 42, 50}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=163}}
[[File:StAnthony.jpg|thumb|[[Coptic Orthodox Church|Coptic]] [[icon]] of St. [[Anthony the Great]], father of Christian monasticism and early [[anchorite]]. The [[Coptic language|Coptic]] inscription reads {{lang|cop|Ⲡⲓⲛⲓϣϯ Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓ}} ('the Great Father Anthony')|alt=picture of icon of St.Anthony]]
Though dates and details are disputed by a minority, archaeology supports the slow conversion of the Irish as beginning in the early fifth century.{{sfn|Harney|2017|p=103; 122}}

[[Pope Gregory I|Pope Gregory the Great]] sent a long-distance mission to Anglo-Saxon England.{{sfn|Schäferdiek|2007|p=abstract}} The [[Gregorian mission]] landed in 596, and converted the [[Kingdom of Kent]] and the court of Anglo-Saxon [[Northumbria]].{{sfn|Wood|2007|pp=20–22}} However, archaeology indicates Christianity had become an established minority faith in some parts of Britain in the second century. Irish missionaries went to [[Iona]] (from 563) and converted many [[Picts]].{{sfn|Sharpe|1995|pp=30–33}}{{sfn|Thomas|1997|p=506–507}}

A "seismic moment" in Christian history took place in 612 when the [[Visigoths|Visigothic]] [[Sisebut|King Sisebut]] declared the obligatory conversion of all Jews in Spain, overriding Pope Gregory who had reiterated the traditional ban against forced conversion of the Jews in 591.{{sfn|García-Arenal|Glazer-Eytan|2019|pp=5–6; 15}}

Christian monasticism had emerged in the third century, and by the fifth century, was a dominant force in all areas of late antique culture.{{sfn|Crislip|2005|p=3}}{{sfn|Rubenson|2007|p=abstract}} [[Basil of Caesarea|Basil the Great]] was the central figure in the East, founding the first public hospital ([[History of hospitals|the Basiliad]]) in 369.{{sfn|Crislip|2005|pp=103-106}} In the West, [[Benedict of Nursia|Benedict]] wrote the [[Rule of Saint Benedict]] which would become the most common rule throughout the Middle Ages and the starting point for other monastic rules.{{sfn|Dunn|2003|p=137}}

Monastics developed an unprecedented [[Health system|health care system]] which allowed the sick to remain within the monastery as a special class afforded special benefits and care by those dedicated to that care.{{sfn|Crislip|2005|pp=8-9, 38-39}} This [[Social stigma|destigmatized]] illness, transformed health care in Antiquity, formed the basis of public health care in the Middle Ages, and led to the development of the [[hospital]].{{sfn|Crislip|2005|pp=99-103}}

==== Heresy and the Ecumenical councils (325–681) ====
{{Main|First seven ecumenical councils}}{{See also|Arianism|Arian controversy|Nestorian schism|Monophysitism}}
{{Further|Diversity in early Christian theology|Germanic Christianity|Gothic Christianity}}
[[File:Ariusz.JPG|thumb|Imagined portrait of [[Arius]]; detail of a [[Cretan School]] [[icon]], {{circa|1591}}, depicting the [[First Council of Nicaea]]|alt=this is a photo of a detail from an icon by the Cretan school, painted around 1591, depicting Arius at the First Council of Nicaea holding his head as if in pain]] 
From the fourth century on, [[seven ecumenical councils]] were convened to resolve theological controversies.{{sfn|Lyman|2007|p=298}} The first major disagreement was between [[Arianism]], which said the divine nature of Jesus was not equal to the Father's, and [[Trinity|orthodox trinitarianism]] which says it is equal. Arianism spread throughout most of the Roman Empire from the fourth century onwards.{{sfn|Berndt|Steinacher|2014}} The [[First Council of Nicaea]] was called by Constantine in (325) to address it and other disagreements. Representatives of some 150 episcopal sees in Asia Minor attended along with many others.{{sfn|Trombley|2007|p=abstract}} Nicaea and the [[First Council of Constantinople]] (381) resulted in a condemnation of Arian teachings and produced the [[Nicene Creed]].{{sfn|Berndt|Steinacher|2014}}{{sfn|Kohler|Krauss|1906}}

The [[Council of Ephesus|Third]] (431), [[Council of Chalcedon|Fourth]] (451), [[Second Council of Constantinople|Fifth]] (583) and [[Third Council of Constantinople|Sixth ecumenical councils]] (680{{Endash}}681) are characterized by attempts to explain Jesus' human and divine natures.{{sfn|Sabo||2018|p=vii}} The category of ‘[[schism]]’ developed as a middle ground, so as not to exclude all who disagreed as ‘heretic’.{{sfn|Lyman|2007|pp=297–298}} Schisms within the churches of the Nicene tradition broke out after the [[Council of Chalcedon]] in 451.{{sfn|Löhr|2007|p=abstract}}

==Early Middle Ages (600–1100)==
{{Main|Christianity in the Middle Ages}}
{{See also|Christianization of Europe|Christianity in the 7th century|Christianity in the 8th century}}{{Further|Syriac Christianity|Church of the East|Carolingian Renaissance|Carolingian church|Donation of Pepin|Frankish Papacy|Celtic Christianity|Germanic Christianity}}
In the early part of this period Christianity's “nerve centers” remained urban bishoprics. Frankish Gaul had 116 bishops. Visigothic Spain had 66, Italy had 237, and North Africa had 242. The Sassanian Empire supported over 50 bishops. The church of Armenia had 20. With over 680 bishops, Byzantium was the center of the Christian world.{{sfn|Brown|2008|pp=7, 13}}

In the 600s, Byzantium faced invasion by the [[Persian Empire]], which took land, and the rise of Islam and the establishment of an Arab Empire to Byzantium's east, which also took land.{{sfn|Louth|2008|p=47}}{{refn|group=note| The Sassanid Persian Empire was destroyed by the Muslims in 637.{{sfn|Louth|2008|p=46}} By 635, upper-class Christian refugees had already moved [[Church of the East in China|further east to China]] at [[Chang'an|Hsian-fu]].{{sfn|Brown|2008|pp=3, 5–6}}}} In the 720s, the Byzantine Emperor [[Leo III the Isaurian]] banned the pictorial representation of Christ, saints, and biblical scenes, destroying much early art history. The West condemned Leo's [[iconoclasm]].{{sfn|Halsall|2021}} By the nine hundreds, Byzantine culture began to recover.{{sfn|Louth|2008|p=46}}{{sfn|Shepard|2006|p=3}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=182}} By the tenth and early eleventh centuries, Orthodoxy was again manifested in the realms of art, scholarship, monastic revival and missionary expansion.{{sfn|Louth|2008|p=46}} 

Christianity in the 600s saw itself as established, but religion in the Middle Ages was not unified and piously Christian.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|pp=519, 552}}{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=6}} Christianity and many of the old beliefs existed side-by-side in the emerging Western European world.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|pp=519, 521, 526}}{{sfn|Brown|2008|pp=7–8}} 

The church of this period allowed "simple folk" who held an "implicit faith" without complete doctrinal understanding.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|pp=545, 551}}{{sfn|Swanson|2021|p=7}} These centuries stand alone as a period without major controversy over orthodoxy.{{sfn|Matter|2008|pp=510, 516, 518}} 

Throughout this period, the western church functioned like an early version of a welfare state sponsoring public hospitals, orphanages, hospices, and hostels (inns).{{sfn|Blainey|2011|pp=214–215}}{{sfn|Butler|1919|loc=intro.}} The steadily increasing number of monasteries and convents supplied food during famine and distributed food to the poor.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=198}} Monasteries actively preserved ancient texts, classical craft and artistic skills, while maintaining an intellectual and spiritual culture. They supported [[literacy]] within their schools, [[Scriptorium|scriptoria]] and libraries.{{sfn|Woods|Canizares|2012|p=5}}{{sfn|LeGoff|2000|p=120}} They were models of productivity and economic resourcefulness, teaching their local communities animal husbandry, cheese making, wine making, and various other skills.{{sfn|Dunn|2016|p=60}} 

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.{{sfn|Butler|1919|loc=intro.}}{{sfn|Koenig|King|Carson|2012|pp=22–24}} The formation of these organized bodies of believers gradually carved out a series of social spaces with some amount of independence, distinct from political and familial authority, thereby revolutionizing social history.{{sfn|Haight|2004|p=273}}

The Middle Ages were complex, with diverse elements, but the concept of [[Christendom|''Christendom'']] was pervasive and unifying.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=532}} Medieval writers and ordinary folk used the term to identify themselves, their religious culture, and even their civilization.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|pp=526, 539-541}}{{sfn|Whalen|2015|p=5}}{{refn|group=note| Membership in Christendom began with baptism at birth. Participation included rudimentary knowledge of the [[Apostles' Creed]] and the [[Lord's Prayer]]. From peasant to pope, all were required to rest on Sunday and feast days, attend mass, fast at specified times, confess once a year (after 1215), take communion at Easter, pay various fees, tithes and alms for the needy, and receive last rites at death. These were overseen and enforced by the king and his lords and bishops.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=540}}}} From the ninth to the eleventh century, Christendom encompassed a loose federation of churches across the European continent under the spiritual headship of the Pope.{{sfn|Thompson|2016|p=176}} However, the Pope had no clearly established authority over those churches. He gave little general direction, and the few councils that occur in this period were called by kings not popes.{{sfn|Thompson|2016|p=176}}

A symbiotic relationship existed between ecclesiastical institutions and civil governments between the sixth and the mid-eighth centuries with churches dependent upon lay rulers; ruling kings, dukes and counts made all appointments to ecclesiastical offices on their land.{{sfn|Thompson|2016|pp=176–177}}{{sfn|Althoff|2019b|pp=173, 175}}{{sfn|Eichbauer|2022|p=3}}

===Church and society===
{{See also|History of European universities}}
[[File:Mapa cister.svg|thumb|The spread of [[Cistercians]] from their original sites in [[Western Europe|Western]]-[[Central Europe]] during the Middle Ages|alt=this is an image of a map showing the original sites of the Cistercians in Central Europe]]
There was substantial growth in heretical movements over the five or six decades at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries. Nobles were overstepping in church affairs, many clergy were untrained, church posts were being bought and sold (simony), and there was a general sexual laxity.{{sfn|Dowley|2018|p=157}}{{sfn|Matter|2008|pp=529-530}} Religious leaders spoke out against the moral abuses of other ecclesiastical leaders.{{sfn|Matter|2008|p=529}} The eleventh century became an age of religious reform and renewal.{{sfn|Dowley|2018|p=157}}{{sfn|Matter|2008|pp=529-530}}

Owing to its stricter adherence to the reformed [[Rule of St Benedict|Benedictine rule]], the [[Cluny Abbey|Abbey of Cluny]], first established in 910, became the leading center of Western monasticism into the early twelfth century.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=216, 218}}{{sfn|Constable|1998|pp=4–5}} The [[Cistercians|Cistercian movement]] was a second wave of reform. After 1098, they became a primary force of [[Medieval technology|technological advancement and diffusion in medieval Europe]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=218}}
[[File:ChesterMysteryPlay 300dpi.jpg|thumb|Copper engraving by David Gee (1793-1872) that recreates a 15th-century Passion play. Details are based on written accounts, including pageant wagon design and the people in the street.|alt=re-creation of a fifteenth century mystery play ]]
Beginning in the twelfth century, the pastoral [[Franciscans|Franciscan Order]] was instituted by the followers of [[Francis of Assisi]]; later, the [[Dominican Order]] was begun by [[Saint Dominic|St. Dominic]]. Called [[Mendicant orders]], they represented a change in understanding a monk's calling as contemplative, instead seeing it as a call to actively reform the world through preaching, missionary activity, and education.{{sfn|Fox|1987|p=298}}{{sfn|Jestice|1997|p=1, 5–6}} 

The means and methods of teaching an illiterate populace included mystery plays (which had developed out of the mass), wall paintings, vernacular sermons and treatises, and saints' lives in epic form.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=552}} Rituals, art, literature, and cosmology were shaped by Christian norms but also contained some pre-Christian elements.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=549}} Christian motifs could function in non-Christian ways, while practices of non-Christian origin became endowed with Christian meaning.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=550}} In the synthesis of old and new, influence cut both ways, but the cultural dynamic lay with Christianization.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|pp=550–552}}

As literacy spread, [[Medieval university|western universities]], the first institutions of higher education since the sixth century, began as [[cathedral school]]s, or were directly formed into self-governing corporations chartered by popes and kings.{{sfn|Verger|1995|p=257}}{{sfn|Rüegg|1992|pp=xix–xx}}{{sfn|Den Heijer|2011|p=65|ps=: "Many of the medieval universities in Western Europe were born under the aegis of the Catholic Church, usually as cathedral schools or by papal bull as Studia Generali"}} Divided into faculties which specialized in [[law]], [[medicine]], [[theology]] or [[liberal arts]], each held ''[[quodlibeta]]'' (free-for-all) theological debates amongst faculty and students and awarded degrees.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=221}}{{sfn|Piron|2006|pp=404–406}} 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 ({{circa|1150}}).

=== Regional developments (600–1100) ===
{{See also|Christianity in the Middle Ages|Christianization of Serbs|Christianization of Bohemia|Christianization of Moravia|Crusades|Northern Crusades}}
{{Further|Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy|History of the Eastern Orthodox Church|History of Oriental Orthodoxy|East–West Schism|Degrees of Eastern Orthodox monasticism}}
[[File:Rome, S. Maria del Rosario; Madonna of San Sisto (after restoration).png|thumb|upright=.8|The Madonna of San Sisto (after restoration) dating from the 6th century is perhaps the oldest existing image of Mary|alt=restored painting from the 6th century of Mary mother of Jesus]]
In the West, [[Charlemagne]] began the [[Carolingian Renaissance]] in the 800s. Sometimes called a Christian renaissance, it was a period of intellectual and cultural revival of literature, arts, and scriptural studies, a renovation of law and the courts, and the promotion of literacy.{{sfn|Collins|1998|p=1}}

[[Gregorian Reform]] (1050–1080) established new canon law. That included laws requiring the consent of both parties for marriage, a minimum age for marriage, and laws making it a sacrament.{{sfn|Shahar|2003|p=33}}{{sfn|Witte|1997|pp=20–23}} This made the union a binding contract, which meant abandonment was prosecutable with dissolution of marriage overseen by Church authorities.{{sfn|Witte|1997|pp=29–30}} 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.{{sfn|Witte|1997|pp=20, 25}}{{sfn|Shahar|2003|p=18}}

The veneration of the [[Virgin Mary]] grew dramatically in the Middle Ages within the monasteries in western medieval Europe. It spread through society and flourished in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries with the emergence of [[affective piety]], which grew from empathy with the human Christ and his suffering, and exhibited itself in compassion toward the suffering of others. People of the time praised Mary for making God tangible.{{sfn|Shoemaker|2016|p=21}}{{sfn|Fulton|2009|pp= 284–285, 294}} 

Throughout the Middle Ages, abbesses and female superiors of monastic houses were powerful figures whose influence could rival that of male bishops and abbots.{{sfn|Oestereich|1907}}{{sfn|Hunt|2020}} 

Having begun in Christianity's first 500 years, [[Christian mysticism]] came to its full flowering in the Middle Ages.{{sfn|King|2001|pp=4, 22}}{{sfn|Hollywood|2009|pp=298–299}} This period included a longing for the genuine "apostolic life" with particular sensitivity to the practice of voluntary holy poverty.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=523}}

====Near East, Byzantium and schism====
[[File:Church of the East in the Middle Ages.svg|thumb|The [[Church of the East]] during the Middle Ages|alt=map showing Church of the East in the Middle Ages]]
[[File:Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (focused on the original Roman building).jpg|thumb|[[Hagia Sophia]] was the religious and spiritual centre of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]] for nearly one thousand years. The [[Hagia Sophia]] and the [[Parthenon]] were converted into mosques. Violent persecutions of Christians were common and reached their climax in the [[Armenian genocide|Armenian]], [[Assyrian genocide|Assyrian]], and [[Greek genocide|Greek]] genocides.{{sfn|Barton|1998b|p=vii}}{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|pp=3–5}}|alt=image of Hagia Sophia]]
Towards the end of the sixth century, two main kinds of Christian communities had formed in [[Syria]], [[Egypt]], [[Persia]], and [[Armenia]]: urban churches which upheld the [[Council of Chalcedon]] (451 CE) saying Christ had one human/divine nature, and Nestorian churches which came from the desert monasteries asserting Christ had two separate natures.{{sfn|Dorfmann-Lazarev|2008|pp=65-66}} The distinctive doctrinal and cultural identities of these churches played a decisive role in their history after the Arab conquest.{{sfn|Dorfmann-Lazarev|2008|pp=66-67}}

Intense missionary activity between the fifth and eighth centuries led to eastern [[Iran]], [[Arabia]], central [[Asia]], China, and the coasts of [[India]] and Indonesia adopting [[Nestorian Christianity]]. Syrian Nestorians had settled in the [[Persian Empire]] which spread over modern [[Iraq]], [[Iran]], and parts of Central Asia.{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=5}}{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=378}} The rural areas of Upper Egypt were all Nestorian. [[Copts|Coptic]] missionaries spread the faith up the Nile to [[Nubia]], [[Eritrea]], and [[Ethiopia]].{{sfn|Dorfmann-Lazarev|2008|pp=66-67}}

From the early 600s, a series of Arab military campaigns conquered Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=192, 199}}{{sfn|Barton|2009|p=xvii}} Conquest, conflict, and persecution exercised a lasting influence on the churches in these regions.{{sfn|Dorfmann-Lazarev|2008|p=85}} Under Islamic rule, persecution of non-Muslims was particularly devastating in cities where Chalcedonian churches were located. The monastic background of the Nestorians made their churches more remote, so they often escaped direct attention. In the following centuries, it was the Nestorian churches who were best able to survive and cultivate new traditions.{{sfn|Dorfmann-Lazarev|2008|p=66}}

[[Mozarabs|''Andalusi Christians'']],{{sfn|Bennison|2016|p=166}} from the [[Iberian Peninsula]] lived under [[Muslims|Muslim]] rule from [[Muslim conquest of Spain|711]] to [[Granada War|1492]].{{sfn|Fierro|2008|pp=137–164}} The martyrdoms of forty-eight Christians for defending their Christian faith took place in [[Emirate of Córdoba|Córdoba]] between 850 and 859.{{sfn|Graves|1964|p=644}}{{sfn|Sahner|2020|pp=1–28}}{{sfn|Fierro|2008|pp=137–164}}{{sfn|Trombley|1996|pp=581–582}} Executed under [[Abd al-Rahman II]] and [[Muhammad I of Córdoba|Muhammad I]], the record shows the executions were for capital violations of Islamic law, including [[Apostasy in Islam|apostasy]] and [[Islam and blasphemy|blasphemy]].{{sfn|Sahner|2020|pp=1–28}}{{sfn|Fierro|2008|pp=137–164}}{{sfn|Trombley|1996|pp=581–582}}

Many cultural, geographical, geopolitical, and linguistic differences between East and West existed. There were disagreements over whether Pope or Patriarch should lead the Church, whether mass should be conducted in Latin or Greek, whether priests must remain celibate, and other points of doctrine such as the ''[[Filioque|Filioque Clause]]'' and Nestorianism.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=185}}{{sfn|Meyendorff|1979|p=intro.}}{{sfn|Lorenzetti|2023}} 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.{{sfn|Meyendorff|1979|p=intro.}}

====Crusade====
[[File:Map Crusader states 1135-en.svg|thumb|The [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]] and the [[Crusader states]] with their strongholds in the [[Holy Land]] at their height, between the [[First Crusade|First]] and the [[Second Crusade|Second]] Crusade (1135)|alt=image of Map Crusader states 1135]] 
After 1071, when the [[Seljuk Turks]] closed access for Christian pilgrimages and defeated the Byzantines at [[Battle of Manzikert|Manzikert]], the Emperor [[Alexius I]] asked for aid from [[Pope Urban II]]. Historian [[Jaroslav Folda]] writes that Urban II responded by calling upon the knights of Christendom at the [[Council of Clermont]] on 27 November 1095, to "go to the aid of their brethren in the Holy Land", an appeal aimed largely at those with sufficient wealth and position to subsidize their own journey.{{sfn|Folda|1995|p=141}}{{sfn|Tyerman|1992|pp=15–16}} The [[First Crusade]] captured Antioch in 1099, then Jerusalem, establishing the [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]].{{sfn|Folda|1995|p=36}}

The [[Second Crusade]] began after [[County of Edessa|Edessa]] was taken by Islamic forces in 1144.{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2007|p=65}} Christians lost Jerusalem in 1187 through the catastrophic defeat of the Franks at the [[Battle of Hattin|Horns of Hattin]].{{sfn|Folda|1995|p=150}} The [[Third Crusade]] did not regain the major Holy sites.{{sfn|Folda|1995|p=150}}

The [[Fourth Crusade]], begun by [[Pope Innocent III|Innocent III]] in 1202 was subverted by the Venetians. They funded it, then ran out of money and instructed the crusaders to go to Constantinople and get money there. Crusaders sacked the city and other parts of Asia Minor, established the [[Latin Empire]] of Constantinople in Greece and Asia Minor, and contributed to the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. Five numbered crusades to the Holy Land culminated in the [[Siege of Acre (1291)|siege of Acre]] in 1291, essentially ending Western presence in the Holy Land.{{sfn|Marshall|1994|p=1}} Crusades led to the development of national identities in European nations, increased division with the East, and produced cultural change for all involved.{{sfn|Kostick|2010|pp=2–6}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=192–195}}

====Investiture and papal primacy====
[[File:Canossa-gate.jpg|thumb|[[Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor|Henry IV]], the [[Holy Roman Emperor]] at the gate of [[Canossa Castle]] in 1077, during the [[Investiture controversy]].|alt=image of painting of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, at the gate of Canossa Castle in 1077]]
The [[Investiture controversy]] began in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] in 1078. Specifically a dispute between the Holy Roman Emperor [[Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor|Henry IV]] and [[Pope Gregory VII]] (1073-1085) concerning who would appoint, [[investiture|''invest'']], bishops, it was more generally, a conflict between king and pope over control of the church.{{sfn|Garrett|1987|pp=5–7}}{{sfn|Grzymała-Busse|2023|p=51}}{{sfn|Thompson|2016|pp=176–182}}{{sfn|Dowley|2018|p=159}} The Church had become committed to the doctrine of papal supremacy by the end of the ninth century, but it wasn't until the eleventh century that Gregory recorded a series of formal statements strongly asserting papal supremacy saying the church could no longer be treated as servant to the state. {{sfn|Thompson|2016|pp=177-178}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|pp=324, 374}}{{sfn|Althoff|2019a|p=199}} 

Ending lay investiture would undercut the power of the Holy Roman Emperor and the ambitions of the [[European nobility]], but allowing lay investiture to continue meant the Pope's authority over his own people was almost non-existent.{{sfn|Grzymała-Busse|2023|pp=51–52}}{{refn|group=note|Bishoprics being merely lifetime appointments, a king could better control their powers and revenues than those of hereditary noblemen. Even better, he could leave the post vacant and collect the revenues, theoretically in trust for the new bishop, or give a bishopric to pay a helpful noble.{{sfn|Grzymała-Busse|2023|pp=51–52}} The Roman Catholic Church wanted to end lay investiture to end this and other abuses, to reform the episcopate and provide better [[pastoral care]] and separation of church and state.{{sfn|Grzymała-Busse|2023|p=25}} Pope Gregory VII issued the ''[[Dictatus Papae]]'', which declared that the pope alone could appoint bishops.{{sfn|Grzymała-Busse|2023|p=25}} Henry IV's rejection of the decree led to his [[Excommunication (Catholic Church)|excommunication]] and a ducal revolt. Eventually, Henry IV received absolution after a [[Road to Canossa|dramatic public penance]], though the [[Saxon revolt of 1077–1088|Great Saxon Revolt]] and conflict of investiture continued.{{sfn|Garrett|1987|p=8}}}} Disobedience to the Pope became equated with heresy.{{sfn|Althoff|2019b|p=175}} Before this, kings had been largely exempt from the requirement of obedience to the Pope because they occupied a special position of their own based on [[Divine right of kings|divine right]].{{sfn|Althoff|2019a|p=191}}  

It took "five decades of excommunications, denunciations and mutual depositions...spanning the reign of two emperors and six popes" only to end inconclusively in 1122.{{sfn|Grzymała-Busse|2023|p=52}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|p=375}} A similar controversy occurred in England.{{sfn|Vaughn|1980|pp=61–86}}

==Western High Middle Ages (1100–1300)==
{{Further|Middle Ages|Cluniac Reforms|English Benedictine Reform|Gregorian Reform}} 
Between 1150 and 1200, intrepid Christian scholars traveled to formerly Muslim locations in Sicily and Spain.{{sfn|Bauer|2013|pp=46–47}} Fleeing Muslims had abandoned their libraries, and among the treasure trove of books, the searchers found the works of [[Aristotle]], [[Euclid]] and more. Reconciling Christian theology and Aristotle created [[Scholasticism#High Scholasticism|High Scholasticism]], the works of [[Thomas Aquinas]] on law, politics, reason and faith, and the [[Renaissance of the 12th century]].{{sfn|Haskins|1971|pp=6–7, 342, 345}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=209, 221}}{{sfn|Bauer|2013|p=47}}
[[File:Studying astronomy and geometry.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Clerks studying astronomy and geometry. Early 15th century painting, [[France]].|alt=image of clerks using geometry to study astronomy]]
This included revival of the scientific study of natural phenomena. [[Robert Grosseteste]] (1175–1253) devised a step-by-step scientific method; [[William of Ockham]] (1300–1349) developed a principle of economy; [[Roger Bacon]] (1220–1292) advocated for an experimental method in his study of optics.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=251}} Historians of science credit these and other medieval Christians with the beginnings of what became modern science that led to the [[scientific revolution]] in the West.{{sfn|Numbers|2010|pp=80–81}}{{sfn|Noll|2009|p=4}}{{sfn|Lindberg|Numbers|1986|pp=5, 12}}{{sfn|Gilley|2006|p=164}}

Hospitals, almshouses, and schools continued to be founded by the church of this era.{{sfn|Wood|2016|p=15}} Between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, the church also built cathedrals using architectural innovations.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|pp=376-378}}

Christianization of Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) occurred in two stages.{{sfn|Sanmark|2004|pp=14, 15}} In the first stage, missionaries arrived on their own without secular support in the ninth century.{{sfn|Sanmark|2004|p=15}} Next, a secular ruler would take charge of Christianization in their territory. This stage ended once a defined and organized ecclesiastical network was established.{{sfn|Sanmark|2004|p=14}} By 1350, Scandinavia was an integral part of Western Christendom.{{sfn|Brink|2004|p=xvi}}

Under Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), the Roman Church became what [[John Witte Jr.]] calls "an autonomous legal and political corporation" that functioned as a "state" with a strong sense of its own socioeconomic and political interests.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=534}} 

Following the era of Innocent III (1198–1216), the Papacy stood as the highest authority in the West for nearly two centuries.{{sfn|Aguilera-Barchet|2015|p=139}} 

===Beliefs, practices and heresy===
{{See also|Christian mysticism|Christianity in the Middle Ages|Italian Renaissance|Mary, mother of Jesus|Gregorian Reform}}
By the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, the [[parish]] church emerged as one of the fundamental institutions of medieval and Old Europe.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=542}} Formed from the needs and interests of their local communities, the parish church became the center of medieval village life.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=542}} By the thirteenth century, "parish" could refer indiscriminately to both village and church.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=543}}

Medieval folk invoked Christian norms and practices as the ideal toward which they strove, but medieval religious life included a constant struggle to maintain those norms.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=538}} Most believed that access to Heaven was available only through participating in the Church's sacraments, and living morally as defined by a list of [[Tree of virtues and tree of vices|seven virtues and seven vices]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=217–218}}{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=543}}{{sfn|Heather|2023|pp=VII, LXXXV}} Private [[Confession (religion)|confession]] became a routine event required annually of every Christian after 1215.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=543}} Confession and [[penance]] were the chief means of personal religious formation.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|pp=543–544}} [[Purgatory]] was officially adopted in 1215.{{sfn|Wood|2016|p=11}} 

Between 1150 and 1350, the scope of how one could transgress began to widen.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|pp=361, 368-369}}{{sfn|Matter|2008|p=519}} Heresy, which previously had applied only to bishops and church leaders who knew theology, began being applied to ordinary people as concern over heresy grew and response to it became more severe.{{sfn|Deane|2011|pp=3–4}}{{sfn|Moore|2007|p=23}}{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=369}}{{sfn|Matter|2008|p=519}} Based on the assumption that, in order to maintain a peaceful society, it was necessary to allow only one religion, heresy became a religious, political, and social issue.{{sfn|Zagorin|2003|p=3}} Prosecuting it, therefore, included both church and state.{{sfn|Peters|1980|p=189}}{{sfn|Mout|2007|p=229}} The courts that did so are jointly referred to as the [[Medieval Inquisition]]. This includes the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230) and the Papal Inquisition (1230s–1240s), though these courts had no joint leadership or organization. Created as needed, they were not permanent but were limited to specific times and places.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=363}}{{sfn|Ames|2009|p=16}}{{sfn|Deane|2022|page=xv}} 

Inquisition represented a change in church juridical procedure. Echoing Roman rather than Germanic tradition, it was initially directed toward policing morality, especially sexual sin among the clergy. Sin then became aligned with crime. Crime applied to everyone. Crime justified the use of coercion.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|pp=368–369}} Torture was an aspect of civic law.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=361}} 

The [[Fourth Lateran Council]] allowed clerics to search out moral and religious "crimes" even when there was no accuser.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=368}} In theory, this granted inquisitors extraordinary powers, but in practice, without local secular support, their task became so overwhelmingly difficult that inquisitors themselves became endangered. In the worst cases, some inquisitors were murdered. Inquisitors did not possess absolute power, nor were they universally supported.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=365}} The belief held by Dominicans that only they could correctly discern good and evil has been cited as a contributing factor to the riots and public opposition that formed against their order.{{sfn|Ames|2005|p=28; 34}}{{sfn|Given|2001|p=14}} The Medieval Inquisition became stridently contested both in and outside the Church.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=363}}{{sfn|Ames|2009|pp=1–2, 4, 7, 16}}

The Medieval Inquisition brought somewhere between 8,000 and 40,000 people to interrogation and sentence.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=363}} Death sentences were a relatively rare occurrence.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|p=367}} The penalty imposed most often by Medieval Inquisitorial courts was some act of penance which could include public confession.{{sfn|Wood|2016|p=9}}

Between 1478 and 1542, inquisition was transformed into permanently established State controlled bureaucracies. These modern inquisitions were political institutions with a much broader reach.{{sfn|Rawlings|2006|p=1,2}}{{sfn|Marcocci|2013|pp=1–7}}{{sfn|Mayer|2014|pp=2–3}} 

==== Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) ====
{{Main|Albigensian Crusade}}
[[Pope Innocent III]] and the king of France, [[Philip II of France|Philip Augustus]], joined in 1209 in a military campaign that was promulgated as necessary for eliminating the Albigensian heresy also known as [[Catharism]].{{sfn|Marvin|2008|pp=3, 4}}{{sfn|Kienzle|2001|pp=46, 47}} Once begun, the campaign quickly took a political turn.{{sfn|Rummel|2006|p=50}} The king's army seized and occupied strategic lands of nobles who had not supported the heretics, but had been in the good graces of the Church. Throughout the campaign, Innocent vacillated, sometimes taking the side favoring crusade, then siding against it and calling for its end.{{sfn|Marvin|2008|pp=229,235–236}} It did not end until 1229. The campaign no longer had crusade status. The entire region was brought under the rule of the French king, thereby creating southern France. Catharism continued for another hundred years (until 1350).{{sfn|Marvin|2008|p=216}}{{sfn|Dunbabin|2003|pp=178–179}}

==== Baltic wars (1147–1316) ====
When the [[Second Crusade]] was called after [[County of Edessa|Edessa]] fell, the nobles in Eastern Europe refused to go to the Near East.{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2007|p=65}} The [[Balts]], the last major polytheistic population in Europe, had raided surrounding countries for several centuries, and subduing them was more important to the Eastern-European nobles.{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2007|pp=23, 65}} These rulers saw crusade as a tool for territorial expansion, alliance building, and the empowerment of their own church and state.{{sfn|Firlej|2021–2022|p=121}} In 1147, Eugenius' ''[[Divina dispensatione]]'' gave eastern nobility indulgences for the first crusade in the Baltic area.{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2007|p=65}}{{sfn|Christiansen|1997|p=71}}{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2009|p=119}} The [[Northern Crusades]] followed intermittently, with and without papal support, from 1147 to 1316.{{sfn|Christiansen|1997|p=287}}{{sfn|Hunyadi|Laszlovszky|2001|p=606}}{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2007|pp=65,75–77}} Priests and clerics developed a pragmatic acceptance of the forced conversions perpetrated by the nobles, despite the continued theological emphasis on voluntary conversion.{{sfn|Fonnesberg-Schmidt|2007|p=24}}

==Eastern Christianity (1000–1586)==
{{See also|Christianization of Poland}} 
{{Further|Christianity in the Ottoman Empire|Persecution of Christians#Ottoman Empire|History of the Eastern Orthodox Church under the Ottoman Empire}}
Bulgarians, [[Alania|Alanians]] (modern Iran), Russians and [[Armenia|Armenians]] had come under the auspices of the Byzantine Patriarch by the early eleventh century.{{sfn|Shepard|2006|p=4}}{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=7}} These rulers preferred the Byzantine over the Roman view of culture and politics because it was modeled on Byzantine emperors. This strongly supported their right to the throne, saw the ruler’s law making and enforcement as divinely inspired, and gained them the respect, authority and obedience needed to establish their states.{{sfn|Shepard|2006|pp=5; 7-8}} 
[[File:Cyril Metodej.jpg|thumb|left|[[Saints Cyril and Methodius|St. Cyril and St. Methodius]] monument on [[Radhošť|Mt. Radhošť]]|alt=image of a monument depicting Saints Cyril and Methodius]] 
Conversion of the Slavs dates to the time of [[Eastern Orthodox]] missionaries [[Saints Cyril and Methodius]] during the reign of the Byzantine emperor [[Basil I]] (r. 867–886).{{sfn|Radić|2010|p=232}}{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|pp=126; 129}} [[Serbia]] can be seen as a "Christian nation" by 870.{{sfn|Vlasto|1970|p=208}} Cyril and Methodius translated the [[canonical Gospels|Gospels]] into the [[Old Church Slavonic]] language, developing the [[Glagolitic alphabet|first Slavic alphabet]], and with their disciples, the [[Cyrillic script]].{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|p=127}}{{sfn|Schaff|1953|pp=161–162}} It became the first literary language of the Slavs and, eventually, the educational foundation for all Slavic nations.{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|p=127}} The adoption of Eastern Christianity and the use of vernacular Slavic language influenced the direction of the spiritual, religious, and cultural development of the entire region through the rest of the millennium.{{sfn|Poppe|1991|p=25}} 
[[File:Southeastern Europe Late Ninth Century.png|thumb|Southeastern Europe Late Ninth Century|alt=map of southeastern Europe in the ninth century]]
In the last two decades of the 9th century, missionaries [[Clement of Ohrid|Clement]] and [[Saint Naum|Naum]], disciples of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, arrived in [[Romania]] spreading Christianity and the Cyrillic alphabet.{{sfn|Pop|2009|p=252}} By the 10th century, the [[Bulgarian royal family|Bulgarian Tsars]] imposed the [[Religion in Bulgaria|Bulgarian church model]] and its Slavic language without opposition.{{sfn|Pop|2009|p=251}} This ecclesiastical and political tradition continued until the 19th century.{{sfn|Pop|2009|p=253}}
[[File:Matejko Christianization of Poland.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Introduction of Christianity in Poland]]'', by [[Jan Matejko]], 1888–89, [[National Museum, Warsaw]]|alt=image of first baptisms in Poland]]
The dynastic interests of the [[Piast dynasty|Piasts]] produced the establishment of both church and state in [[Poland]].{{sfn|Bukowska|2012|p=467}} The [[Christianization of Poland|"Baptism of Poland"]] in 966, refers to the baptism of [[Mieszko I of Poland|Mieszko I]], the first ruler, which was followed by the building of churches and the establishment of an ecclesiastical hierarchy.{{sfn|Bukowska|2012|p=467}}
[[File:SztIstvan 5.jpg|thumb|right|Image of the King Saint [[Stephen I of Hungary]], from the medieval codex Chronicon Pictum from the 14th century|alt=stylized image of St.Stephen of Hungary]]
[[Stephen I of Hungary|St. Stephen]], the first [[Hungary|Hungarian]] king, suppressed rebellion, organized the Hungarian State around strong royal authority, established the church by inviting missionaries and suppressing paganism, and by making laws such as one which required people to attend church every Sunday.{{sfn|Sedlar|1995|pp=1119–1120}}{{sfn|Moravcsik|1947|p=141}}{{sfn|Jestice|1997|p=57}}
[[File:Delegation of Croats and Serbs to Emperor Basil I, Skylitzes.jpg|thumb|right|[[Basil I]] with delegation of Serbs|alt=image of Emperor Basil I receiving a delegation of Croats and Serbs]]
Conversion of the [[Croats]] was completed by the time of [[Trpimir I of Croatia|Duke Trpimir]]'s death in 864. In 879, under duke [[Branimir of Croatia|Branimir]], Croatia received papal recognition as a state from [[Pope John VIII]].{{sfn|Antoljak|1994|p=43}}

===Near East and Africa===
Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the Christian churches in Egypt, Syria and Iraq became subject to fervently Muslim militaristic regimes.{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=403}} Christians were [[Dhimmi|dhimma]]. This cultural status guaranteed Christians rights of protection, but discriminated against them through legal inferiority.{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=373}} Various Christian communities adopted different strategies for preserving their identity while accommodating their rulers.{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=403}} Some withdrew from interaction, others converted, while some sought outside help.{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=403}} As a whole, Christianity in these areas declined demographically, culturally and socially.{{sfn|Micheau|2006|pp=373; 381}} By the end of the eleventh century, Christianity was in full retreat in Mesopotamia and inner Iran. Some Christian communities further to the east continued to exist.{{sfn|Micheau|2006|p=378}}

===Byzantium and the Fall of Constantinople===
In the mid-eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire was the largest and most prosperous polity in the Christian world.{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=7}} Constantinople remained its capitol and center, and its wealth and safety was seen, even by distant outsiders, as resulting directly from the religious devotion of its inhabitants.{{sfn|Shepard|2006|p=3}} 

The eleventh century was a period of relative peace and prosperity, and Christianity was the ‘glue' holding the empire together until April of 1204, when western crusaders in the Fourth Crusade stormed, captured, and looted Constantinople.{{sfn|Harris|2014|pp=1-2; 8-9}}{{sfn|Bundy|2007|p=133}} It was a severe blow.{{sfn|Jacoby|1999|pp=525; 536}} Byzantine territories were divided among the Crusaders establishing the [[Latin Empire]] and the Latin takeover of the Eastern church.{{sfn|Gregory|2011|p=178}}{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=1}} 

By 1261, the Byzantines had recaptured a much weakened and poorer Constantinople.{{sfn|Harris|2014|p=4}}{{sfn|Gregory|2011|p=186}} Mongol invasions to the East caused many Turkic refugees to pour in, strongly affecting Asia Minor, the core of Byzantium.{{sfn|Gregory|2011|pp=353-354}} 

In 1339, the Ottoman threat prompted leaders of the Eastern and Western churches to make overtures toward reunion, but as the threat waned, nothing of substance was accomplished.{{sfn|Dowley|2018|p=342}} In 1439, an agreement was made, but there was popular resistance in the East. As a result, it wasn't until 1452 that the decree of union was officially published in Constantinople. Resolution of the Roman-Greek conflict in Christianity was overthrown the very next year by the [[Fall of Constantinople]] to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.{{sfn|Dowley|2018|pp=342-343}}{{sfn|Kitromilides|2006|p=187}} 

The conquest of 1453 destroyed the Orthodox Church as an institution of the Christian empire inaugurated by Constantine, sealing off Greek-speaking Orthodoxy from the West for almost a century and a half.{{sfn|Kitromilides|2006|pp=187, 191}} However, even as political fortunes declined, the spiritual and cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, and Mount Athos the monastic peninsula, increased, forming a spiritual epicenter that continued tp provide the norm of correct doctrine and piety for all the Orthodox nations.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=173}}

Islamic law did not recognize the Patriarch as a ‘juristic person,’ nor did it acknowledge the Orthodox Church as an institution, but it identified the Orthodox Church with the Greek community, and concern for stability allowed it to exist.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|pp=171, 173}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} The monastery at [[Mt. Athos]] prospered from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=174}} Ottomans were tolerant and wealthy Byzantines who entered monastic life there were allowed to keep some control over their property until 1568.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=174}} Compulsory resettlement meant Constantinople reacquired a considerable population of Greek Orthodox inhabitants.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=175}} Leaders of the church were recognized by the Islamic state as administrative agents charged with supervising the loyal submission of its Christian subjects and the collection and delivery of their taxes.{{sfn|Kitromilides|2006|p=191}} 

The regularly levied and compulsory taxes, higher and higher "bids" to the sultan in hopes of receiving his appointment to the Patriarchate, and other financial gifts, corrupted the process and bankrupted the Christians involved.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|pp=176-177; 179}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} Conversion became a solution.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=181}} The oldest Ottoman document lists 57 bishoprics existing in 1483. By 1525, their number decreased to fifty, and only forty are recorded from 1641–1651.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=181}} Even so, by the reign of [[Suleiman the Magnificent|Süleyman the Magnificent]] (1520 – 1566), the patriarchate had become a part of the Ottoman system to the degree that it continued to have great influence in the Orthodox world.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=184}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}}

===Russia===
{{Main|Christianization of Kievan Rus'}}
[[File:Lebedev baptism.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism of Kievans'', a painting by [[Klavdiy Lebedev]]|alt=Russian painting by Lebedev depicting first mass baptisms of Kievan Rus]]
[[File:Kievan-rus-1015-1113-(en).png|thumb|[[Christianization of Kievan Rus']], the first unified federation of Slavic tribes|alt=map of spread of Christianity among the Kievan Rus]]
[[File:80-391-0151 Kyiv St.Sophia's Cathedral RB 18 2 (cropped).jpg|thumb|80-391-0151 Kyiv St.Sophia's Cathedral RB 18 2 (cropped)|alt=St.Sophia's cathedral]]
The event associated with the conversion of the Rus' has traditionally been the baptism of [[Vladimir the Great|Vladimir of Kiev]] in 989. However, aristocrats had been making attempts to unify since the mid-ninth century, and contacts with Christian countries had led the ruling class to conclude that Christianity would aid in this process.{{sfn|Poppe|1991|pp=5-7}} From the 950s up to the 980s, polytheism declined and many social and economic changes fostered the spread of the new religious ideology.{{sfn|Poppe|1991|p=25}} 

The Rus' dukes maintained control of the church which was financially dependent upon them.{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=111}} The prince appointed the clergy to positions in government service, satisfied their material needs, determined who would fill the higher ecclesiastical positions, and directed the synods of bishops in the Kievan metropolitanate.{{sfn|Poppe|1991|p=15}} This new Christian religious structure was imposed upon the socio-political and economic fabric of the land by the authority of the state's rulers.{{sfn|Poppe|1991|p=12}} While monasticism was the dominant form of piety, Christianity permeated daily life for both peasants and elites  who identified themselves accordingly, while keeping pre-Christian practices as part of their religion.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|pp=173-174}}

In a defining moment in 1380, a coalition of Russian polities headed by the [[Dmitry Donskoy|Grand Prince Dmitrii of Moscow]] faced the army of the [[Golden Horde]] on Kulikovo Field near the Don River, there defeating the Mongols. This began a period of transformation fusing state power and religious mission, transforming the Kievan Rus into the [[Tsardom of Russia|Russian state]].{{sfn|Angold|2006|p=253}} 

[[Ivan III of Russia|Ivan III of Muscovy]] adopted the style of the ancient Byzantine imperial court a generation after Constantinople fell to the Turks.{{sfn|Shepard|2006|pp=8-9}} This gained Ivan support among the late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century Rus elite who saw themselves as the New Israel and Moscow as the new Jerusalem.{{sfn|Shepard|2006|p=9}} [[Jeremias II of Constantinople|Jeremias II]] (1536 - 1595) was the first Eastern patriarch to visit north-eastern Europe. His visit culminated in Moscow with the founding of the new Orthodox patriarchate of Russia.{{sfn|Zachariadou|2006|p=185}}{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}}

==Late Middle Ages (1300–1500)==
In Europe, the Late Middle Ages was an age of transition that Cynthia Wood describes as a "time of change and development, murder, mayhem and crisis".{{sfn|Lazzarini|Blanning|2021|pp=6, 10, 13}}{{sfn|Wood|2016|p=6}} People experienced [[Bubonic plague|plague]], [[Great Famine of 1315–1317|famine]] and [[14th century|wars]] that ravaged most of the continent and the British Isles.{{sfn|Lazzarini|Blanning|2021|pp=7,8}} There was [[Popular revolts in late medieval Europe|social unrest, urban riots, peasant revolts and renegade feudal armies]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=243}} The feudal system declined, parliaments and general literacy grew, and written records multiplied.{{sfn|Wood|2016|pp=1–2, 5}}

Kings had begun centralizing power into the State in the twelfth century, but it wasn't until the fourteenth century that Papal power stopped increasing, and French kings substantively gained and consolidated power.{{sfn|Wood|2016|pp=1–2, 5}}{{sfn|Moore|2007|p=154}} Societal persecution and discrimination grew, becoming core elements of society and accepted tools of the powerful.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|pp=166–167; 172, 365, 370}}{{sfn|Moore|2007|pp=4, 5, 132}}{{refn|group=note|Before 1478, neither the medieval church nor the secular kings possessed the kind of social-political apparatus, sufficient material resources, or the political support needed for persecution to become truly institutional or regularized.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|pp=370, 371}}}} Christianity remained varied, at times approving in one place what it opposed in another.{{sfn|Arnold|2018|pp=361, 366,}}
[[File:Michelangelo's Pieta 5450 cropncleaned edit.jpg|thumb|[[Pietà (Michelangelo)|Michelangelo's ''Pietà'']] (1498–99) in [[St. Peter's Basilica]], Vatican City|alt=image of Michelangelo's famous sculpture the Pieta. Mary is seated looking at the body of her son draped across her lap.]] 
The later Middle Ages produced a series of formal and informal groups composed of laymen and secular clerics seeking a more apostolic life.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=547}} Inside and outside the church, women were central to these movements. A vernacular religious culture for the laity rose.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=523}}

By 1330, the Ottomans had largely conquered [[Anatolia]], much of the Balkans by the end of the century, and Constantinople, the last vestige of the Roman Empire, in 1453.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=185; 192}} The flight of [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance|Eastern Christians from Constantinople]], and the manuscripts they carried with them, is one of the factors that prompted the [[Renaissance|literary renaissance]] in the West.{{sfn|Hudson|2023}}

The Church became a leading patron of art and [[Medieval architecture|architecture]] and commissioned and supported many such as [[Michelangelo]], [[Filippo Brunelleschi|Brunelleschi]], [[Donato Bramante|Bramante]], [[Raphael]], [[Fra Angelico]], [[Donatello]], and [[Leonardo da Vinci]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=299}} Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation leading to the development of classical music and all its derivatives.{{sfn|Hall|Battani|Neitz|2004|p=100}} Scholars of the Renaissance created [[textual criticism]] revealing the ''[[Donation of Constantine]]'' as a forgery.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=279}}

===Avignon===
[[File:Portrait of Pope John XXII Dueze (by Giuseppe Franchi) – Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Pope [[John XXII]] (1316–1334) (by Giuseppe Franchi) who was referred to as "the banker of Avignon"|alt=image of Portrait by Giuseppe Franchi of Pope [[John XXII]] (1316–1334) who was referred to as "the banker of Avignon".{{sfn|Chamberlin|1986|p=131}}]]
In 1309, [[Pope Clement V]] moved to Avignon in southern France in search of relief from Rome's factional politics.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=248}} Seven popes resided there in the [[Avignon Papacy]], but the move to Avignon caused great indignation costing popes prestige and power.{{sfn|Taylor|2021|pp=109–110; 118–119}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|p=375}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|pp=559, 561}} 

[[Pope Gregory XI]] returned to Rome in 1377.{{sfn|Kelly|2009|p=104}}{{sfn|Whalen|2015|p=14}}{{sfn|Taylor|2021|pp=109–110}} After Gregory's death, the [[papal conclave]] met in 1378, in Rome, and elected an Italian [[Pope Urban VI|Urban VI]] to succeed Gregory.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=248}} The French cardinals did not approve, so they held a second conclave electing [[Antipope Clement VII|Robert of Geneva]] instead. This began the [[Western Schism]].{{sfn|Olson|1999|p=348}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=248}}

For thirty years the Church had two popes, then in 1409, the [[Council of Pisa|Pisan council]] called for the resignation of both popes, electing a third to replace them. Both Popes refused to resign, giving the Church three popes. The pious became disgusted.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=248}}{{sfn|Ullmann|2005|p=xv}} Five years later, [[Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor|Sigismund the Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)]] pressed Pope [[Antipope John XXIII|John XXIII]] to call the [[Council of Constance]] (1414–1418) to depose all three popes. In 1417, the council elected [[Pope Martin V]] in their place.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=248}} 
[[File:Brožík, Václav - Hus před koncilem 6. července 1415.jpg|thumb|left|[[Jan Hus]] defending his theses at the [[Council of Constance]] (1415), painting by the Czech artist [[Václav Brožík]]|alt=image of painting by the Czech artist Václav Brožík of the Council of Constance with Jan Hus standing before them to defend himself]]
[[John Wycliffe]] (1320–1384), an English scholastic philosopher and theologian, attended the Council of Constance and urged the Church to give up its property (which produced much of the Church's wealth), and to once again embrace poverty and simplicity, to stop being subservient to the state and its politics, and to deny papal authority.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=249}}{{sfn|Estep|1986|pp=58–77}} He was accused of heresy, convicted and sentenced to death, but died before implementation. The [[Lollards]] followed his teachings, played a role in the [[English Reformation]], and were persecuted for heresy after Wycliffe's death.{{sfn|Estep|1986|pp=58–77}}{{sfn|Frassetto|2007|pp=151–174}}

[[Jan Hus]] (1369–1415), a Czech based in [[Prague]], was influenced by Wycliffe and spoke out against the abuses and corruption he saw in the Catholic Church there.{{sfn|Frassetto|2007|pp=175–198}} He was also accused of heresy and condemned to [[death penalty|death]].{{sfn|Frassetto|2007|pp=151–174}}{{sfn|Frassetto|2007|pp=175–198}}{{sfn|Estep|1986|pp=58–77}} After his death, Hus became a powerful symbol of Czech nationalism and the impetus for the [[Bohemian Reformation|Bohemian/Czech]] and German Reformations.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=150}}{{sfn|Haberkern|2016|pp=1–3}}{{sfn|Frassetto|2007|pp=175–198}}{{sfn|Estep|1986|pp=58–77}}

===Relations with the Jewish people===
{{Main|Reconquista|Spanish Inquisition}}
[[File:Expulsion judios-en.svg|thumb|350px|right|Expulsions of Jews in Europe from 1100 to 1600|alt=map of Europe from 1100 to 1600 showing where and when Jews were expelled and exciled]]
A turning point in Jewish-Christian relations took place in the early 1200s when contents of the Talmud mocking the central figures of Christianity became public.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1956|pp=68–72}}{{sfn|Schacter|2011|p=2}} The medieval Catholic church never advocated the expulsion of all the Jews from Christendom, nor did the Church ever repudiate Augustine's doctrine of Jewish witness, but new canon law supported discrimination as secular rulers repeatedly confiscated Jewish property and evicted Jews from their lands.{{sfn|Cohen|1998|p=396}}

The Spanish inquisition was authorized by the Pope in answer to royal fears that ''[[Conversos]]'' or ''[[Marranos]]'' (Jewish converts) were spying and conspiring with the Muslims to sabotage the new state.{{sfn|Tarver|Slape|2016|pp=210–212}}{{sfn|Bernardini|Fiering|2001|p=371}} Early inquisitors proved so severe that the Pope soon opposed it and wanted to shut it down.{{sfn|Mathew|2018|pp=52–53}} Ferdinand is said to have threatened the Pope to prevent that. In October 1483, a papal bull conceded control to the Spanish crown.{{sfn|Kamen|2014|p=182}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|p=587}} The inquisition became the first  national, unified and centralized institution of the nascent Spanish state.{{sfn|Casanova|1994|p=75}}

Anti-Judaism had become part of the [[Portuguese Inquisition|Inquisition in Portugal]] before the end of the fifteenth century, and forced conversion led many Jewish converts to India where they suffered as targets of the [[Goa Inquisition]].{{sfn|Flannery|2013|p=11}}

Frankfurt's Jews flourished between 1453 and 1613 despite harsh discrimination. They were restricted to one street, subject to strict rules if they wished to leave this territory and forced to  wear a [[yellow badge|yellow patch]] as a sign of their identity. Within the community they maintained some self-governance. They had their own laws, leaders and a Rabbinical school that functioned as a religious and cultural center.{{sfn|Cohen|1998|p=396}}

===Criticism and blame===
The many great calamities of the "long fourteenth century" led folk to believe [[Armageddon]] was immanent.{{sfn|Taylor|2021|pp=109–110}} This sentiment ran throughout society and became intertwined with anticlerical and anti-papal sentiments.{{sfn| Taylor|2021|pp=118–119}} Some claimed the clergy did little to help the suffering, although the high mortality rate amongst clerics indicates many continued to care for the sick.{{sfn|Taylor|2021|pp=114–115}} Other medieval folk claimed it was the "corrupted" and "vice-ridden" clergy that had caused the many calamities that people believed were punishments from God.{{sfn|Taylor|2021|pp=114–115}} 

The period from around 1100 to 1349 can be identified as an era of “anticlerical revolution". It describes developing attitudes and behaviors against the clergy.{{sfn|Swanson|2021|pp=9, 11, 12}}{{refn|group=note| Scholars have generally referred to this hostility as "anticlericalism" even though the term is considered biased, and there is a lack of consensus on its elements and form in pre-Reformation Europe.{{sfn|Swanson|2021|pp=9, 11}}}} Hostility was usually targeted at bad [[priest]]s, ineffective [[incumbent]]s or inadequate [[curate]]s.{{sfn|Swanson|2021|pp=12, 15}}

Multiple strands of criticism of the clergy between 1100 and 1520 were voiced by clerics themselves.{{sfn|Swanson|2021|p=15}} Such criticism condemned abuses and sought a more spiritual, less worldly, clergy.{{sfn|Swanson|2021|pp=16–17}} However, there is a constancy of complaints in the historical record that indicates most attempts at reform failed. The church's entanglement with the secular and lay exploitation were too deeply rooted. {{sfn|Swanson|2021|pp=16–17}}{{refn|group=note| By the Late Middle Ages, Benedictine and Cluniac had become so focused on centralization and institutionalization that they had become more like competing enterprises than spiritual houses.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=533}} Constitutional reform, such as the [[Conciliarism|Conciliar movement]], was intended to unite the Church; instead, it produced a 40-year debate on what constituted legitimate authority.{{sfn|Canning|2011|p=7}}}} Power within the church tipped away from the monastics toward bishops, but this didn't help with the problems since many kings and noblemen drafted competent bishops to improve their own governments leaving many diocese without spiritual leadership.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|p=378}}

Civilization itself was changing its character. The Old order was being challenged. The influence of educated and wealthy lay people increased as the influence of clergy waned.{{sfn|Morris|1990|pp=225, 229}} By the 1300s, nations were becoming more formidable opponents than they had been in the 1100s when the struggle over papal superiority first took political form.{{sfn|Morris|1990|p=228}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|p=364, 388}} Evidence of decline in papal power can be found by 1302.{{sfn|Gonzales|2010a|p=368}}{{refn|group=note| After a disagreement, [[Pope Boniface VIII]] issued the bull ''Unam Sanctam'' asserting again that, since "one sword must be under the other," the church must be supreme.{{sfn|Gonzales|2010a|p=368}} This was followed in 1303 by the excommunication of [[Philip IV of France|Philip the Fair of France]]. Philip responded by sending his men to arrest the Pope.{{sfn|Morris|1990|p=231-232}}}}  Practices meant to Christianize people had become "burdensome" and contributed to discontent.{{sfn|Van Engen|1986|p=544}} Franciscans provided evidence against [[Pope John XXII]] (1316-1334) as the failings of a succession of popes contributed to criticism.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|pp=563 - 564; 574}}{{sfn|Morris|1990|p=229}} The combination of catastrophic events, both within the church and those events beyond its control, undermined the moral authority and constitutional legitimacy of the church opening it to local fights of authority and control.{{sfn|Lazzarini|Blanning|2021|p=8}}{{sfn|Taylor|2021|pp=109–110; 118–119}}{{sfn|MacCulloch|2009|p=375}}

== Early modern (1500–1750) ==
{{See also|Early modern period|Christianity in the modern era|Christianity in the 16th century|Christianity in the 17th century|Christianity in the 18th century|European colonization of the Americas|Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery}}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 and their indigenous peoples.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=304}} Different state actors created colonies that varied widely.{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|p=Conditions at Times of Colonial Intervention}} 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.{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|p=Colonial Legacies and Economic Development}}

Colonialism opened the door for Christian missionaries who accompanied the early explorers, or soon followed them.{{sfn|Nowell|Magdoff|Webster|2022}}{{sfn|Robinson|1952|p=152}} Although most missionaries avoided politics, they also generally identified themselves with the indigenous people amongst whom they worked and lived.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=105}} On the one hand, vocal missionaries challenged colonial oppression and defended human rights, even opposing their own governments in matters of social justice for 500 years.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=105}} On the other hand, there are as many examples of missionaries cooperating with colonial governments as there are of missionaries opposing colonialism.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=134}}

Historians and political scientists see the establishment of unified, sovereign, nation-states, which led directly to the development of modern Europe, as a singularly important political development of the sixteenth century. However, while sovereign states were unifying, Christendom was coming apart.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=299; 331}}{{sfn|Schaff|1960|p=2}}{{sfn|Dawson|2009|p=13}}{{sfn|Whalen|2015|p=337}} 

=== Reformation and response (1517–1700) ===
{{Main|Reformation|Counter-Reformation}}{{Further|Lutheranism|Anglican|Dutch Reformed Church|Reformed churches|History of Calvinism|Protestantism|History of Protestantism|Radical Reformation|European wars of religion}}
{{See also|Council of Trent|Age of Enlightenment}}
{{multiple image
| footer            = [[Martin Luther]] initiated the [[Reformation]] with his ''[[Ninety-five Theses]]'' in 1517.
| align             = right
| image1            = Martin Luther by Cranach-restoration.jpg
| width1            = 186
| caption1          = 
| alt1              = image of Martin Luther
| image2            = Luther 95 Thesen.png
| width2            = 140
| caption2          = 
| alt2              = image of a page listing Luther's 95 theses.
}}
Protestant Reformation (1517–1648) begins with [[Martin Luther]] nailing his ''[[Ninety-five Theses]]'' to the church door in Wittenburg in 1517, even though there was no actual schism until 1521 when edicts handed down by the [[Diet of Worms]] condemned Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.{{sfn|Fahlbusch|Bromiley|2003|p=362}}{{sfn|Barnett|1999|p=28}} 

Luther, [[Huldrych Zwingli]], and [[List of Protestant Reformers|many others]] protested 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, and the sale of [[indulgence]]s. The Protestant position later included the [[Five solae|Five ''solae'']] (''[[sola scriptura]]'', ''[[sola fide]]'', ''[[sola gratia]]'', ''[[solus Christus]]'', ''[[soli Deo gloria]]''), the [[Theology of Martin Luther#Universal priesthood of the baptized|priesthood of all believers]], [[Law and Gospel]], and the [[two kingdoms doctrine]].

Three important traditions to emerge directly from the Reformation were the [[Lutheran]], [[Reformed tradition|Reformed]], and the [[Anglican]] traditions.{{sfn|Williams|1995|pp=xxx; xxi; xxviii}} Beginning in 1519, Huldrych Zwingli spread [[Calvinism|John Calvin's teachings]] in Switzerland leading to the [[Swiss Reformation]].{{sfn|Marabello|2021|p=abstract}}

At the same time, a collection of loosely related groups that included [[Anabaptism|Anabaptists]], Spiritualists, and [[Theistic rationalism|Evangelical Rationalists]], began the [[Radical Reformation]] in Germany and Switzerland.{{sfn|Williams|1995|p=xxix}} They opposed Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican church-state theories, supporting instead a full separation from the state.{{sfn|Williams|1995|p=xxx}}

====Counter-reformation====
The Roman Catholic Church soon struck back, launching its own Counter-Reformation beginning with [[Pope Paul III]] (1534–1549), the first in a series of 10 reforming popes from 1534 to 1605.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=329; 335}} A list of books detrimental to faith or morals was established, the [[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]], which included the works of Luther, Calvin and other Protestants along with writings condemned as obscene.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=335}} 
[[File:Index Librorum Prohibitorum 1.jpg|thumb|The Index Librorum Prohibitorum listed books forbidden by the Catholic Church.|alt=picture of first page of the list of forbidden books in Latin from its first publication]]
New monastic orders arose including the [[Jesuits]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=336}} Resembling a military company in its hierarchy, discipline, and obedience, their vow of loyalty to the Pope set them apart from other monastic orders, leading them to be called "the shock troops of the papacy". Jesuits soon became the Church's chief weapon against Protestantism.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=336}}

Monastic reform also led to the development of new, yet orthodox forms of spirituality, such as that of the [[Spanish mystics]] and the [[French school of spirituality]].{{sfn|MacCulloch|2004|p=404}}

The [[Council of Trent]] (1545–1563) denied each Protestant claim, and laid the foundation of Roman Catholic policies up to the twenty-first century.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=336–337}} The Counter-Reformation also created the [[Eastern Catholic Churches|Uniate church]] which used Eastern liturgy but recognized Rome.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|pp=175-176}}

====War====
Reforming zeal and Catholic denial spread through much of Europe and became entangled with local politics. Already involved in dynastic wars, the quarreling royal houses became polarized into the two religious camps.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|pp=329–331}} "Religious" wars, ranging from international wars to internal conflicts,  began in the Holy Roman Empire with the minor [[Knights' Revolt]] in 1522, then intensified in the First [[Schmalkaldic War]] (1546–1547) and the [[Second Schmalkaldic War]] (1552–1555).{{sfn|Onnekink|2016|pp=2–3}}{{sfn|Engels|1978|p=442}} In 1562, France became the centre of [[French Wars of Religion|religious wars]].{{sfn|Parker|2023}} The involvement of foreign powers made the [[Thirty Years War]] (1618–1648) the largest and most disastrous.{{sfn|Onnekink|2016|p=3}}

The causes of these wars were mixed. Many scholars see them as fought to obtain security and freedom for differing religious confessions, however, most have interpreted these wars as struggles for political independence that coincided with the break up of medieval empires into the modern nation states.{{sfn|Onnekink|2016|pp=3,6}}{{sfn|Parker|2023}}{{refn|group=note| Theorists such as John Kelsay and James Turner Johnson argue that these religious wars were varieties of the ''[[Just war]]'' tradition for liberty and freedom.{{sfn|Onnekink|2016|p=10}} [[William T. Cavanaugh]] points out that many historians argue these ‘‘wars of religion’’ were not primarily religious, but were more about state-building, nationalism, and economics.{{sfn|Murphy|2014b|p=481}} If they had been motivated most deeply by religion, Catholics would fight Protestants, whereas Catholics often formed alliances with Protestants to fight other Catholics and vice versa. Historian Barbara Diefendorf argues that religious motives were always mixed with other motives, but the simple fact of Catholics fighting Catholics and Protestants fighting Protestants is not sufficient to prove the absence of religious motives, since religious conflict is often "familial".{{sfn|Murphy|2014b|pp=484–485}} According to Marxist theorist Henry Heller, there was "a rising tide of commoner hostility to noble oppression and growing perception of collusion between Protestant and Catholic nobles".{{sfn|Heller|1996|p=853–861}}}}

====Tolerance====
Debate on whether peace required allowing only one faith and punishing heretics, or if ancient opinions defending leniency, (based on the [[parable of the tares]]), should be revived, began to occupy every version of the Christian faith.{{sfn|Mout|2007|p=229}} Radical Protestants steadfastly sought toleration for heresy, blasphemy, [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism]], non-Christian religions, and even [[atheism]].{{sfn|Coffey|1998|p=961}} Anglicans and other Christian moderates also wrote and argued for toleration.{{sfn|Coffey|2014|p=12}} [[Deism]] emerged, and in the 1690s, following debates that started in the 1640s, a non-Christian third group also advocated for religious toleration.{{sfn|Patterson|1997|p=64}}{{sfn|Mout|2007|pp=227–233; 242}} It became necessary to rethink on a political level, all of the State's reasons for persecution.{{sfn|Mout|2007|p=229}} Over the next two and a half centuries, many treaties and political declarations of tolerance followed, until concepts of freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of thought became established in most western countries.{{sfn|Mout|2007|pp=225–243}}{{sfn|Kaplan|2009|p=119}}{{sfn|Franck|1997|pp=594–595}}

=== Witch trials ({{circa|1450–1750}}) ===
{{See also|Christian views on magic|Witch-hunt|Witch trials in the early modern period|Salem witch trials|Little ice age}}
Until the 1300s, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church was that [[Witchcraft|witches]] did not exist.{{sfn|Kwiatkowska|2010|p=30}} 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.{{sfn|Levack|2013|p=6}} Records show the belief in magic had remained so widespread among the rural people, it has convinced some historians that Christianization had not been as successful as previously supposed.{{sfn|Herlihy|2023}} The main pressure to prosecute witches came from the common people, and trials were mostly civil trials.{{sfn|Levack|2013|p=7}}{{sfn|Ankarloo|Clark|Monter|2002|p=xiii}} There is broad agreement that approximately 100,000 people were prosecuted, of which 80% were women, and 40,000 to 50,000 people were executed between 1561 and 1670.{{sfn|Monter|2023}}{{sfn|Levack|2013|p=6}}

===The Enlightenment===
The era of absolutist states followed the breakdown of Christian universalism.{{sfn|Aguilera-Barchet|2015|p=141}} Abuses inherent in political [[Absolutism (European history)|absolutism]], practiced by kings, and supported by Catholicism, gave rise to a virulent anti-clerical, anti-Catholic, and anti-Christian sentiment that emerged in the 1680s.{{sfn|Jacob|2006|pp=265–267}}

Critique of Christianity began among the more extreme Protestant reformers who were enraged by fear, tyranny and persecution.{{sfn|Jacob|2006|pp=265; 268; 270}}{{sfn|Aston|2006|pp=13–15}} Twenty-first century scholars tend to see the relationship between Christianity and the Enlightenment as complex with many regional and national variations.{{sfn|Rosenblatt|2006|pp=283–284}}{{sfn|Jacob|2006|p=265}}

[[Cyril Lucaris]], Patriarch of Constantinople from 1620– 1638, was devoted to the Christian church and its renewal.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} However, the French Revolution resulted in Eastern Orthodox church leaders rejecting Enlightenment ideas as too dangerous to embrace.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}}

==Revolution and modernity (1750–1945) ==
{{Further|Abolitionism|Late modern period|Christianity in the 18th century|Christianity in the 19th century|Christianity in the 20th century|Restorationism|Restoration Movement}}
After 1750, secularization at every level of European society can be observed.{{sfn|Jacob|2006|pp=272–273; 279}} Enlightenment had shifted the paradigm, and various ground-breaking discoveries such as [[Galileo Galilei|Galileo's]], led to the [[Scientific revolution]] (1600–1750) and an upsurge in skepticism. Virtually everything in western culture was subjected to systematic doubt including religious beliefs.{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=398}} [[Biblical criticism]] emerged using scientific historical and literary criteria, and human reason, to understand the Bible.{{sfn|Law|2012|p=8,224}} This new approach made study of the Bible secularized and scholarly, and more democratic, as scholars began writing in their native languages making their works available to a larger public.{{sfn|Baird|1992|pp=201,118}} During the [[Age of Revolution]], the cultural center of Christianity shifted to the [[New World]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=431}}{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=432-433; 437}}{{sfn|Noll|2001|p=ix}} The [[American Revolution]] and its aftermath included legal assurances of religious freedom and a general turn to religious plurality in the new country.{{sfn|Marty|2006|p=524}} 

In the decades following the American revolution, [[French Revolution|France also experienced revolution]], and by 1794, radical revolutionaries had attempted to violently ‘de-Christianize’ France. For the next twenty years, French leaders pursued anticlerical or de-Christianizing policies. When Napoleon came to power, he re-established Catholicism as the majority view, and tried to make it dependent upon the state. ''The Cambridge History of Christianity'' has that Napoleon also practiced and exported the policies of "appropriating church lands, streamlining worship, increasing state surveillance of religion, and instituting religious toleration."{{sfn|Desan|2006|p=556}}

=== Awakenings (1730s–1850s) ===
Revival, known as the [[First Great Awakening]], swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. Both religious and political in nature, it had roots in German [[Pietism]] and British Evangelicalism, and was a response to the extreme rationalism of [[biblical criticism]], the anti-Christian tenets of the Enlightenment, and its threat of assimilation by the modern state.{{sfn|Ward|2006|pp=329; 347}}{{sfn|Heyrman|n.d.}}{{sfn|Smith|2014|p=19}}{{sfn|Valkenburgh|1994|p=172}}

Beginning among the [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], revival quickly spread to [[Congregational church|Congregationalists]] (Puritans) and [[Baptist]]s, creating [[Evangelicalism in the United States|American Evangelicalism]] and [[Wesleyan theology|Wesleyan Methodism]].{{sfn|Jones|White|2012|p=xi; xv}} Battles over the movement and its dramatic style raged at both the congregational and denominational levels. This caused the division of American Protestantism into political 'Parties', for the first time, which eventually led to critical support for the American Revolution.{{sfn|Heimert|2006|p=2}}

In places like Connecticut and Massachusetts, where one denomination received state funding, churches now began to lobby local legislatures to end that inequity by applying the Reformation principle [[Separation of church and state in the United States|separating church and state]].{{sfn|Heyrman|n.d.}} Theological pluralism became the new norm.{{sfn|Ward|2006|p=347}}

The [[Second Great Awakening]] (1800–1830s) extolled moral reform as the Christian alternative to armed revolution. They established societies, separate from any church, to begin social reform movements concerning [[Abolitionism|abolition]], [[women's rights]], [[Temperance movement|temperance]] and to "teach the poor to read".{{sfn|Masters|Young|2022|loc=abstract}} These were pioneers in developing nationally integrated forms of organization, a practice which businesses adopted that led to the consolidations and mergers that reshaped the American economy.{{sfn|Mintz|1995|pp=51–53}} Here lie the beginnings of the [[Latter Day Saint movement]], the [[Restoration Movement]] and the [[Holiness movement]]. The [[Third Great Awakening]] began from 1857 and was most notable for taking the movement throughout the world, especially in English speaking countries.{{sfn|Cairns|2015|p=26}}

[[Restorationism|Restorationists]] were prevalent in America, but they have not described themselves as a reform movement but have, instead, described themselves as ''restoring'' the Church to its original form as found in the book of Acts. It gave rise to the [[Restoration Movement|Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement]], [[Adventism]], and the [[Jehovah's Witnesses]].{{sfn|Hughes|2004|p=635}}{{sfn|Mannion|Mudge|2008|p=217}} 
[[File:Slavery19.jpg|thumb|left|An example of an anti-slavery tract|alt=example of an anti-slavery tract concerning the separation of black families]]
[[File:Sojourner Truth, 1870 (cropped, restored).jpg|thumb|Born into slavery, [[Sojourner Truth]] escaped with her infant daughter in 1826, became an abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights, women's rights, and alcohol temperance. This photograph was taken in Swartekill, New York, 1870 (cropped, restored)|alt=this is a restored photo of Sojourner Truth who escaped slavery and became an abolitionist]]
For over 300 years, Christians in Europe and North America participated in the [[Atlantic slave trade|Trans-Atlantic slave trade]].{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=517–518}} Moral objections had surfaced very soon after the establishment of the trade.{{refn|group=note|Thereafter, missions to the slaves attempted, Brown says, to "make slaveholding conform with the ideal of Christian servitude, and to render the institution more humane and more just."{{sfn|Brown|2006|p=521}} However, for many owners, missionary work among the slaves was a threat that would blur social boundaries and encourage slaves to see themselves as a Christian community equal to those who held them in bondage. Masters often held religion in contempt, and typically harassed converts and forbade access to other Christians.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=521–523; 524}}}} The Religious Society of Friends ([[Quakers]]), followed by [[Methodism|Methodists]], [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]] and [[Baptists]], campaigned, wrote, and spread pamphlets against the Atlantic slave trade and organized the first [[American Anti-Slavery Society|anti-slavery societies]].{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=519,520,528}} Those impacted by the Second Great Awakening continued this.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=525–528}}{{sfn|Morgan|2022}} In the years after the American Revolution, black congregations led by black preachers brought revival, promoted communal and cultural autonomy, and provided the institutional base for keeping abolitionism alive.{{sfn|Brown|2006|p=530}}

Abolitionism did not flourish in absolutist states, and slavery and human-trafficking remain common in twenty-first century Islamic states.{{sfn|Brown|2006|p=533}}{{sfn|Ibrahim|2023|p=449}} It was the Protestant revivalists in both England and America, the Quaker example, African Americans themselves, and the new American republic that produced the "gradual but comprehensive abolition of slavery" in the West.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=525–526}}

===Church, state and society===
Revolution broke the power of the Old World aristocracy, offered hope to the disenfranchised, and enabled the middle class to reap the economic benefits of the [[Industrial Revolution]].{{sfn|Matthews|Platt|1992|p=461}} 
Scholars have since identified a positive correlation between the rise of Protestantism and [[human capital]] formation,{{sfn|Boppart|Falkinger|Grossmann|2014|pp=874–895}} [[Protestant work ethic|work ethic]],{{sfn|Schaltegger|Torgler|2010|pp=99–101}} [[economic development]],{{sfn|Spater|Tranvik|2019|pp=1963–1994}} and the development of the state system.{{sfn|Becker|Pfaff|Rubin|2016}} Weber says this contributed to economic growth and the development of banking across Northern Europe.{{sfn|Lloyd|2013|p=106}}{{sfn|McKinnon |2010|pp=108–126}}{{refn|group=note|[[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]].{{sfn|Weber|Kalberg|2012|pp=xi, xxviii, xxxiv–xxxvi, xl, 3–5, 103–126}}{{sfn|tutor2u|2018}} It is one of the most influential and cited books in sociology, yet 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 [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]] as "they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics".{{sfn|Schumpeter|1954|p=93}}}}

=== Protestant Missions (1800s–1945) ===
While the sixteenth century is generally seen as the "great age of Catholic expansion", the nineteenth century was that for Protestantism.{{sfn|Gonzalez|2010b|p=302}} Missionaries had a significant role in shaping multiple nations, cultures and societies.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=1}} A missionary's first job was to get to know the indigenous people and work with them to translate the Bible into their local language. Approximately 90% were completed, and the process also generated a written [[grammar]], a [[lexicon]] of native traditions, and a [[dictionary]] of the local language. This was used to teach in missionary schools resulting in the spread of literacy.{{sfn|Táíwò|2010|pp=68–70}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=xx}}{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=9}}

[[Lamin Sanneh]] writes that native cultures responded with "movements of [[indigenization]] and cultural liberation" that developed national literatures, mass printing, and voluntary organizations which have been instrumental in generating a democratic legacy.{{sfn|Táíwò|2010|pp=68–70}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|pp=xx; 265}} On the one hand, the political legacies of colonialism include political instability, violence and ethnic exclusion, which is also linked to civil strife and civil war.{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|pp=161–162}} On the other hand, the legacy of Protestant missions is one of beneficial long-term effects on [[human capital]], political participation, and [[democratization]].{{sfn|de Juan|Pierskalla|2017|p=161}}
 
In America, missionaries played a crucial role in the acculturation of the American Indians.{{sfn|McLoughlin|1984|p=abstract}}{{sfn|Eder|Reyhner|2017|p=3}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|pp=134–137}} The history of [[American Indian boarding schools|boarding schools]] for the indigenous populations in Canada and the US shows a continuum of experiences ranging from happiness and refuge to suffering, forced assimilation, and abuse. The majority of native children did not attend boarding school at all. Of those that did, many did so in response to requests sent by native families to the Federal government, while many others were forcibly taken from their homes.{{sfn|Eder|Reyhner|2017|pp=6; 190}} Over time, missionaries came to respect the virtues of native culture, and spoke against national policies.{{sfn|McLoughlin|1984|p=abstract}}

===Twentieth century===
[[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 Hobson]], liberal Christianity has two traditions. Before the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, liberalism was synonymous with [[Idealism (Christian eschatology)|Christian Idealism]] in that it imagined a liberal State with political and cultural liberty.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|pp=1, 3, 4}}

The second tradition was from seventeenth century rationalism's efforts to wean Christianity from its "irrational cultic" roots.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|p=3}} 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.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|p=4}} This led to the birth of fundamentalism and liberalism's decline.{{sfn|Hobson|2013|pp=1, 4}}

[[Christian fundamentalism|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 [[Modernist Christianity|modernism]].{{sfn|Gasper|2020|p=13}} 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.{{sfn|Harris|1998|p=22}}

In 1925, fundamentalists participated in the [[Scopes trial]], and by 1930, the movement appeared to be dying.{{sfn|Gasper|2020|pp=14, 18}} Then in the 1930s, [[Neo-orthodoxy]], a theology against liberalism combined with a reevaluation of Reformation teachings, began uniting moderates of both sides.{{sfn|Gasper|2020|p=19}} In the 1940s, "new-evangelicalism" established itself as separate from fundamentalism.{{sfn|Harris|1998|pp=42, 57}} Today, fundamentalism is less about doctrine than political activism.{{sfn|Harris|1998|p=325}}

====Christianity and Nazism====
[[File:Papst Pius XI. 1JS.jpg|thumb|right|180px|[[Pope Pius XI]]|alt=image of Pope Pius XI seated on a throne]]
{{See also|Persecution of Christians in Nazi Germany|Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust}}
{{Further|Catholic Church and Nazi Germany|Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany|Confessing Church|Kirchenkampf|German Christians (movement)|Positive Christianity}}

[[Pope Pius XI]] declared in ''[[Mit brennender Sorge]]'' (English: "With rising anxiety") that [[Fascism|fascist]] governments had hidden "pagan intentions" and expressed the irreconcilability of the Catholic position with [[totalitarian]] fascist state worship which placed the nation above God, fundamental [[human rights]], and dignity.{{sfn|Holmes|1981|p=116}}

In Poland, Catholic priests were arrested and Polish priests and nuns were executed en masse.{{sfn|Rossino|2003|p=72, 169, 185, 285}}

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.{{sfn|United States Holocaust Memorial Museu|n.d.}} A smaller contingent, about a third of German Protestants, formed the [[Confessing Church]] which 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".{{sfn|Skiles|2017|p=4}}

Nazis interfered in The Confessing Church's affairs, harassed its members, executed mass arrests and targeted well known pastors like Martin Niemöller and [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]].{{sfn|Skiles|2017|pp=4, 22–23}}{{sfn|Barnett|1992|pp=40, 59, 79–81}}{{refn|group=note|By October 1944, 45% of all pastors and 98% of non-ordained vicars and candidates had been drafted into military service; 117 German pastors of Jewish descent served at this time, and yet at least 43% fled Nazi Germany because it became impossible for them to continue in their ministries.{{sfn|Skiles|2017|pp=22–23}}}} Bonhoeffer, a pacifist, was arrested, found guilty in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and executed.{{sfn|Green|2015|p=203}}

====Russian Orthodoxy====
{{Further|Religion in the Soviet Union}}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]] and contributed to antisemitism.{{sfn|Shlikhta|2004|pp=361–273}}{{sfn|Klier|Lambroza|2004|p=306}}

[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|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|alt=image of "Cathedral of Christ the Savior" in Moscow turning to dust as it collapses on the orders of Joseph Stalin in 1931.{{sfn|Rappaport|1999|p=201, 223}}]]
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.{{sfn|Calciu-Dumitreasa|1983|pp=5–8}}{{sfn|Eidintas|2001|p= 23}} Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers included torture, being sent to [[gulags|prison camps]], [[sharashka|labour camps]] or [[Psikhushka|mental hospitals]], as well as execution.{{sfn|Bouteneff|1998|pp=vi–1}}{{sfn|Sullivan|2006}} Historian Scott Kenworthy describes the persecution of the church under communism as "unparalleled by any in Christian history".{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} 

In the first five years after the [[October Revolution]], one journalist reported 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.{{sfn|Ostling|2001}} This included former nobility like the [[Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna]], at this point a nun, the [[Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich]], the Princes [[Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia|Ioann Konstantinvich]], [[Prince Constantine Constantinovich of Russia|Konstantin Konstantinovich]], [[Igor Konstantinovich of Russia|Igor Konstantinovich]] and [[Vladimir Paley|Vladimir Pavlovich Paley]], Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez; and [[Varvara Yakovleva]], a sister from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent. Other scholarship reports that 8,000 were killed in 1922 during the conflict over church valuables.{{sfn|Pipes|1995|p=356}} Under the [[state atheism]] of the [[Soviet Union]] and the [[Eastern Bloc]], the [[League of Militant Atheists]] aided in the persecution of many Christian denominations, with many churches and monasteries being destroyed, as well as clergy being executed.{{refn|group=note|"One of the first assignments of state atheism was the eradication of religion. In their attempt to destroy faith in God, Soviet authorities used all means of persecution, arrests and trials, imprisonment in psychiatric hospitals, house raids and searches, confiscations of Bibles and New Testaments and other Christian literature, disruption of worship services by the militia and KGB, slander campaigns against Christians in magazines and newspapers, on TV and radio. Persecution of Evangelical Baptists was intensified in the early 1960s and continues to the present".{{sfn|United States Congress|1985|p=129}}{{paragraph break}}"In the Soviet Union the Russian Orthodox Church was suffering unprecedented persecution. The closing and destruction of churches and monasteries, the sate atheism imposed on all aspects of life, the arrest, imprisonment, exile and execution of bishops, clergy, monastics, theologians and tens of thousands of active members had brought the Church to prostration. The voice of the Church in society as silenced, its teaching mocked, its extinction predicted".{{sfn|Cunningham|Theokritoff|2008|p=261}}{{paragraph break}}"One of the main activities of the League of Militant Atheists was the publication of massive quantities of anti-religious literature, comprising regular journals and newspapers as well as books and pamphlets. The number of printed pages rose from 12 million in 1927 to 800 million in 1930. All these legislative and publicistic efforts were, however, only incidental to the events of the 1930s. During this period religion, was quite simply, to be eliminated by means of violence. With the end of NEP came the start of forced collectivisation in 1929, and with it the terror, which encompassed ''kulaks'' and class enemies of all kinds, including bishops, priests, and lay believers, who were arrested, shot and sent to labour camps. Churches were closed down, destroyed, converted to other uses. The League of Militant Atheists apparently adopted a five-year plan in 1932 aimed at the total eradication of religion by 1937".{{sfn|Walters|2005|pp=14–15}}}}

Despite centuries of oppression and martyrdom under hostile rule, the Orthodox churches of the twentieth century have continued to contribute to theology, spirituality, liturgy, music, and art.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}}  <blockquote>Important movements within the church have been the revival of a Eucharistic ecclesiology, of traditional iconography, of monastic life and spiritual traditions such as [[Hesychasm]], and the rediscovery of the Greek Church Fathers.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=177}}</blockquote>

==Christianity since 1945==
{{Main|History of Christianity of the Late Modern era|World Christianity}}
{{See also|Christianity in the 20th century|Christianity in the 21st century}}
In its second millennia, Western Christianity had expanded, colonized, reformed, and embraced aspects of secularism. At the same time, Eastern Christianity faced the huge challenges (from both Islam and Western Christianity) of being conquered and oppressed, enduring, then reviving.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} By the twentieth century, the nineteenth-century revolutions that had established the Serbian, Greek, Romanian, and Bulgarian nations had changed Orthodoxy from a universal church into a series of national churches that became subordinate to nationalism and the state.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=175}} Coptic Christianity went from survival as a small minority church to revival in the twentieth century.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}}

Beginning in the late twentieth century, the traditional [[Church (congregation)|church]] has been declining in the West.{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=305}} Characterized by Roman Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism, a church functions within society, engaging it directly through preaching, teaching ministries and service programs like local food banks. Theologically, churches seek to embrace secular method and rationality while refusing the secular worldview.{{sfn|Meyer|2010|p=2}}

Christian [[sect]]s, such as the [[Amish]] and [[Mennonites]], traditionally withdraw from, and minimize interaction with, society at large; however, the Old Order Amish have become the fastest growing subpopulation in the U.S.{{sfn|Conlin|2021|p=419}}

The 1960s saw the rise of [[Pentecostalism]] and [[charismatic Christianity]], emphasizing the inward experience of personal piety and spirituality.{{sfn|Meyer|2010|p=465}}{{sfn|Anderson|2006|p=101}} In 2000, approximately one quarter of all Christians worldwide were part of Pentecostalism and its associated movements.{{sfn|Burgess|2006|p=xiii}} By 2025, Pentecostals are expected to constitute one-third of the nearly three billion Christians worldwide.{{sfn|Deininger|2014|p=5}} Deininger writes that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing religious movement in global Christianity.{{sfn|Deininger|2014|pp=1–2, 5}}

Christianity has been challenged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by modern secularism.{{sfn|Palmer-Fernandes|1991|p=463}}{{sfn|Meyer|2010|p=5}} New forms of religion which embrace the sacred as a deeper understanding of the self have begun.{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=305}}{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=315}} This spirituality is private and individualistic, and differs radically from Christian tradition, dogma and ritual, taking various separate directions in its implementation.{{sfn|Houtman|Aupers|2007|p=317}}{{sfn|Palmer-Fernandes|1991|pp=511–512}}

=== New forms ===

[[File:Laying on of hands, Dr. Ebenezer Markwei.jpg|thumb|Laying on of hands during a service in a [[Neo-charismatic movement|neo-charismatic church]] in [[Ghana]]|alt=image of modern-day African service in Ghana with laying on of hands]]
In the early twentieth century, the study of two highly influential religious movements, the [[Social gospel|social gospel movement]] (1870s–1920s) and [[Ecumenism|the global ecumenical movement]] (beginning in 1910), provided the context for the rise of American [[sociology]] as an academic discipline.{{sfn|Zurlo|2015|p=177}} Later, the [[Social Gospel]] and [[liberation theology]], which tend to be highly critical of traditional Christian ethics, made the [[Kingdom of God (Christianity)|"kingdom ideals"]] of Jesus their goal. First focusing on the community's sins, rather than the individual's failings, they sought to foster [[social justice]], expose institutionalized sin, and redeem the institutions of society.{{sfn|Wilkins|2017|pp=24–28}}{{sfn|Rauschenbusch|1917|p=5}} Ethicist [[J. Philip Wogaman|Philip Wogaman]] says the social gospel and liberation theology redefined justice in the process.{{sfn|Wogaman|2011|p=325}}

Originating in America in 1966, [[Black theology]] developed a combined social gospel and liberation theology that mixes Christianity with questions of civil rights, aspects of the Black Power movement, and responses to black Muslims claiming Christianity was a "White man's" religion.{{sfn|Akanji|2010|pp=177–178}} Spreading to the United Kingdom, then parts of Africa, confronting apartheid in South Africa, Black theology explains Christianity as liberation for this life not just the next.{{sfn|Akanji|2010|pp=177–178}}

Racial violence around the world over the last several decades demonstrates how troubled issues of race remain in the twenty-first century.{{sfn|Harvey|2016|p=186}} The historian of race and religion, Paul Harvey, says that, in 1960s America, "The religious power of the [[civil rights movement]] transformed the American conception of race."{{sfn|Harvey|2016|p=189}} Then the social power of the [[Christian right|religious right]] responded in the 1970s by recasting evangelical concepts in political terms that included racial separation.{{sfn|Harvey|2016|p=189}} The [[prosperity theology|Prosperity Gospel]] promotes racial reconciliation and has become a powerful force in American religious life.{{sfn|Harvey|2016|pp=196–197}}

The Prosperity gospel is a flexible adaptation of the [[Neo-charismatic movement|‘Neo-Pentecostalism’]] that began in the twentieth century's last decades.{{sfn|Coleman|2016|pp=280; 287}} While globally, Prosperity discourse may represent a cultural invasion of American-ism, and may even muddy the waters between the religious, and the economic and political, it has still become a trans-national movement.{{sfn|Coleman|2016|p=290}} Prosperity ideas have diffused in countries such as [[Brazil]] and other parts of [[South America]], [[Nigeria]], [[South Africa]], [[Ghana]] and other parts of [[West Africa]], [[China]], [[India]], [[South Korea]], and the [[Philippines]].{{sfn|Coleman|2016|pp=281; 283; 286–287; 290}} It represents a shift from the Reformation view of biblical authority to the authority of [[Spiritual gift|charisma]]. It has suffered from accusations of financial fraud and sex scandals around the world, but it is critiqued most heavily by Christian evangelicals who question how genuinely Christian the Prosperity Gospel is.{{sfn|Coleman|2016|pp=277, 289–290}}

[[Feminist theology]] began in 1960.{{sfn|Hilkert|1995|p=abstract}} In the last years of the twentieth century, the re-examination of old religious texts through diversity, otherness, and difference developed [[womanist theology]] of African-American women, the [[Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz|"mujerista" theology]] of Hispanic women, and insights from [[Asian feminist theology]].{{sfn|Hilkert|1995|p=327}}

====Post-colonial decolonization after 1945====
After World War II, Christian missionaries played a transformative role for many colonial societies moving them toward independence through the development of [[decolonization]].{{sfn|Fontaine|2016|pp=6–8}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=285}} In the mid to late 1990s, [[postcolonial theology]] emerged globally from multiple sources.{{sfn|Segovia|Moore|2007|pp=4–5}} Biblical scholars [[Fernando F. Segovia]] and Stephen D. Moore write that it analyzes structures of power and ideology in order to recover what colonialism erased or suppressed in indigenous cultures.{{sfn|Segovia|Moore|2007|pp=6, 11}}

====Missions====
The missionary movement of the twenty-first century has transformed into a multi-cultural, multi-faceted global network of [[Non-governmental organization|NGO's]], short term amateur volunteers, and traditional long-term bi-lingual, bi-cultural professionals who focus on evangelism and local development and not on 'civilizing' native people.{{sfn|Robert|2009|p=73}}{{sfn|Cooper|2005|pp=3–4}}

=== Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) ===
{{Main|Second Vatican Council}}

[[File:Franciscus in 2015.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Pope Francis]]|alt=image of Pope Francis in 2015]]
On 11 October 1962, [[Pope John XXIII]] opened the [[Second Vatican Council]], the 21st [[ecumenical council]] of the Catholic Church. The council is perhaps best known for its instructions that the Mass may be celebrated in the vernacular as well as in Latin.{{sfn|O'Collins|2014|pp=16–23}}

====Ecumenism (1964)====
{{Main|Ecumenism}}
On 21 November 1964, the Second Vatican Council published ''[[Unitatis redintegratio|Unitatis Redintegratio]],'' stating that Roman Catholic ecumenical goals are to establish full communion amongst all the various Christian churches.{{sfn|Chinnici|2012|p=22}}{{sfn|Cassidy|2005|p=106}} Amongst Evangelicals, there is no agreed upon definition, strategy or goal.{{sfn|Pintarić|2014|p=abstract}} Different [[ecclesiology|theologies on the nature of the Church]] have produced some hostility toward the formalism of the [[World Council of Churches]].{{sfn|Clifton|2012|p=544}}{{sfn|O'Connell|2006}} In the twenty-first century, sentiment is widespread that ecumenism has stalled.{{sfn|Asprey|2008|p=3}}

===Christianity in the Global South and East===

==== Africa (19th–21st centuries) ====
[[File:Countries by percentage of Protestants 1938.svg|thumb|Countries by percentage of Protestants, 1938|alt=Map of Protestant Christianity in 1938]]
[[File:Percent of Christians by Country–Pew Research 2011.svg|thumb|Christian distribution globally based on PEW research in 2011{{sfn|PEW Research Center|2022}}|alt=map of worldwide Christianity in 2011]]

Western missionaries began the "largest, most diverse and most vigorous movement of cultural renewal in [the] history" of Africa writes historian Lammin Sanneh.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|pp=xx–xxii}}{{sfn|Sanneh|2016|p=279; 285}} In 1900 under colonial rule there were just under 9 million Christians in Africa. By 1960, and the end of colonialism there were about 60 million. By 2005, African Christians had increased to 393 million, about half of the continent's total population at that time.{{sfn|Sanneh|2007|p=xx}} Population in Africa has continued to grow with the percentage of Christians remaining at about half in 2022.{{sfn|PEW Research Center|2022}} This expansion has been labeled a "fourth great age of Christian expansion".{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=[https://archive.org/details/historyofchristi0000isic/page/n13/mode/2up 1]}}

Examples include Simon Kimbangu's movement, the [[Kimbanguism|Kimbanguist church]], which had a radical reputation in its early days in the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|Congo]], was suppressed for forty years, and has now become the largest independent church in Africa with upwards of 3 million members.{{sfn|Fernandez|1979|pp=284, 285}} In 2019, 65% of [[Melillans]] in Northern Africa across from Spain identify themselves as Roman Catholic.{{sfn|Ponce Herrero|Martí Ciriquián|2019|pp=101–124}} In the early twenty-first century, [[Kenya]] has the largest yearly meeting of [[Quakers]] outside the United States. In [[Uganda]], more [[Anglicans]] attend church than do so in [[England]]. Ahafo, [[Ghana]] is recognized as more vigorously Christian than any place in the United Kingdom.{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=1}} There is revival in East Africa, and vigorous women's movements called ''Rukwadzano'' in [[Zimbabwe]] and ''Manyano'' in [[South Africa]]. [[Apostles of Johane Maranke|The Apostles of John Maranke]], which began in Rhodesia, now have branches in seven countries.{{sfn|Isichei|1995|p=2}}

====Asia====
Christianity is growing rapidly in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia.{{sfn|Jenkins|2011|pp=89–90}}{{sfn|Zurlo|2020|pp=3–9}} A rapid expansion of charismatic Christianity began in the 1980s, leading Asia to rival Latin America in the population of Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians.{{sfn|Singapore Management University|2017}}{{sfn|Anderson|Tang|2005|p=2}}

Increasing numbers of young people in China are becoming Christians. [[Council on Foreign Relations]] data shows a 10% yearly growth in Chinese Christian populations since 1979.{{sfn|Albert|2018|p=n/a}}{{sfn|America magazine|2018|ps=: "A study of the religious lives of university students in Beijing published in a mainland Chinese academic journal ''Science and Atheism'' in 2013 showed Christianity to be the religion that interested students most and was the most active on campuses."}}

According to a 2021 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity has grown in India in recent years.{{sfn|Sahgal|Evans|Salazar|Starr|2021|p=n/a}}{{sfn|Frykenberg|Low|2003|p=228}}

===Persecution===
{{Main|Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era}}Anti-Christian persecution has become a consistent human rights concern.{{sfn|Allen Jr.|2016|pp=x–xi}} In 2013, 17 Middle Eastern Muslim majority states reported 28 of the 29 types of religious discrimination against 45 of the 47 religious minorities, including Christianity.{{sfn|Fox|2013|p=abstract}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Bible|Christianity|History|Religion|Saints}}
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}<!---♦♦♦ Please keep the list in alphabetical order ♦♦♦--->
* [[Christianization]]
* [[Criticism of Christianity]]
* [[History of Christian theology]]
* [[History of Christian universalism]]
* [[History of the Eastern Orthodox Church]]
* [[History of Oriental Orthodoxy]]
* [[History of Protestantism]]
* [[History of the Catholic Church]]
* [[Rise of Christianity during the Fall of Rome]]
* [[Role of the Christian Church in civilization]]
* [[Split of Christianity and Judaism]]
* [[Timeline of Christian missions]]
* [[Timeline of Christianity]]
* [[Timeline of the Roman Catholic Church]]
{{div col end}}
{{Christianity by century}}
{{Clear}}

== Notes ==
{{NoteFoot}}

==References==
{{Reflist|20em}}

==Sources==
===Books & periodicals===
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* {{cite web |last=Morgan |first=Phillip |title=A Difference in Kind: The First and Second Great Awakenings |url=https://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/a-difference-in-kind-the-first-and-second-great-awakenings/#:~:text=The%20Second%20Great%20Awakening%20drew,American%20society%20through%20religious%20revival. |website=Helwys Society Forum |publisher=the HSF.com |date=15 November 2022 |access-date=4 December 2023 |archive-date=5 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231205050311/https://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/a-difference-in-kind-the-first-and-second-great-awakenings/#:~:text=The%20Second%20Great%20Awakening%20drew,American%20society%20through%20religious%20revival. |url-status=live }}
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* {{cite web |last1=O'Connell |first1=Erin |title=The New Face of Global Christianity: The Emergence of 'Progressive Pentecostalism' |date=12 April 2006 |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2006/04/12/the-new-face-of-global-christianity-the-emergence-of-progressive-pentecostalism/ |website=Pew Research Center religion |publisher=[[Pew Research Center]] |access-date=30 July 2023 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404205316/https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2006/04/12/the-new-face-of-global-christianity-the-emergence-of-progressive-pentecostalism/ |url-status=live }}
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{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-1-of-2}}
{{Commons category-inline}}
The following links give an overview of the history of Christianity:
* [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPM1XS9K9 ''Historical Christianity: The Ancient Communal Faith'':] Print, ebook, and audiobook
* {{cite AV media |people=[[Diarmaid MacCulloch]] |date=2010 |title=A History of Christianity |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntrqh |type=Television production |publisher=[[BBC Four]] |access-date=7 April 2022}}
* [http://www.tyndale.ca/seminary/mtsmodular/reading-rooms/history History of Christianity Reading Room:] Extensive online resources for the study of global church history (Tyndale Seminary).
* [https://archive.today/20071016200443/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1%E2%80%9349 ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas'':] Christianity in History
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120111152750/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1%E2%80%9350 ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas'':] Church as an Institution
* [https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/sketches-of-church-history/ Sketches of Church History] From AD&nbsp;33 to the Reformation by Rev. J. C Robertson, M.A., Canon of Canterbury
* {{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Church History |volume=6 |pages=330–45 |short=y}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20170420050908/http://historyofchristianity.org.uk/ A History of Christianity in 15 Objects] online series in association with Faculty of Theology, Uni. of Oxford from September 2011
{{Col-2-of-2}}
The following links provide quantitative data related to Christianity and other major religions, including rates of adherence at different points in time:
* [http://www.thearda.com American Religion Data Archive]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070202101418/http://baptistpillar.com/bd0547.htm Historical Christianity], A timeline with references to the descendants of the early church.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150924101404/http://www.shol.com/featheredprop/Timeline.htm Reformation Timeline], A short timeline of the Protestant Reformation.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130126010821/http://www.fourthcentury.com/ Fourth-Century Christianity]

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[[Category:History of Christianity| ]]
[[Category:History of religion by religion]]