CREȘTINISMUL CA RELIGIE DE DREPT ÎN CULTURA ȘI ISTORIA BIZANTINĂ ȘI ROMANĂ
CHRISTIANITY AS THE OFFICIAL RELIGION IN BYZANTINE AND ROMAN CULTURE AND HISTORY

Summary/Abstract: Christianity as the official religion in Byzantine and Roman culture and history. Popular and political ascendancy was contested between the Nicene and Arian forms of Christianity, as well as a brief imperial reinstatement of paganism. But the milestones summarize a trajectory of transformation in a relatively short time. From systemic persecution—the Diocletian persecution at the turn of the century—to tolerance as a reluctant acceptance (in 311), to a more systematic form of religious freedom explicitly extended to many religious paths on an equal footing (the Edict of Milan of 313), to the specification of Christianity as the favored religion and, finally (in 380), the official religion of the Empire, Christians traversed, in just a few generations, a dramatic range of positions in their social/political status. This journey led to the stable official status that characterized subsequent Christian history in the Roman world and culture. In this study we briefly present the secular power relations between which Christianity has swung towards being recognized as a legitimate religion.

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