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136-519: Anti-Christian sentiment has frequently led to the persecution of Christians throughout history. Anti-Christian sentiment is sometimes referred to as Christophobia or Christianophobia, although these terms actually encompass "every form of discrimination and intolerance against Christians", according to the Council of European Episcopal Conferences . Anti-Christian sentiment began in the Roman Empire during

272-674: A battle against the Jews and Christians who were living in Jerusalem. In the battle's aftermath, many Jews were killed and the survivors fled to Caesarea, which was still being held by the Persian army. Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution The aim of a number of separate policies conducted by various governments of France during the French Revolution ranged from

408-747: A double line of bishops for the same cities, all competing for the loyalty of the people. Augustine was distressed by the ongoing schism, but he held the view that belief cannot be compelled, so he appealed to the Donatists using popular propaganda, debate, personal appeal, General Councils, appeals to the emperor and political pressure, but all attempts failed. The Donatists fomented protests and street violence, accosted travelers, attacked random Catholics without warning, often doing serious and unprovoked bodily harm such as beating people with clubs, cutting off their hands and feet, and gouging out eyes while also inviting their own martyrdom. By 408, Augustine supported

544-634: A general or official persecution. According to the Collectio Avellana , on the death of Pope Liberius in 366, Damasus, assisted by hired gangs of "charioteers" and men "from the arena", broke into the Basilica Julia to violently prevent the election of Pope Ursicinus . The battle lasted three days, "with great slaughter of the faithful" and a week later Damasus seized the Lateran Basilica , had himself ordained as Pope Damasus I , and compelled

680-447: A mass killing is the persecution in Lyon in which Christians were purportedly mass-slaughtered by being thrown to wild beasts under the decree of Roman officials for reportedly refusing to renounce their faith according to Irenaeus . In the 3rd century, Emperor Severus Alexander 's household contained many Christians, but his successor, Maximinus Thrax , hating this household, ordered that

816-629: A neutral, moderate position (the orthodox), and those who were anti-martyrdom (the Gnostics ). The category of voluntary martyr began to emerge only in the third century in the context of efforts to justify flight from persecution. The condemnation of voluntary martyrdom is used to justify Clement fleeing the Severan persecution in Alexandria in 202 AD, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp justifies Polycarp's flight on

952-555: A new Roman Republic , and also imprisoned Pope Pius VI , who would die in captivity in Valence , France in August 1799. However, after Napoleon seized control of the government in late 1799, France entered into year-long negotiations with new Pope Pius VII , resulting in the Concordat of 1801 . This formally ended the dechristianization period and established the rules for a relationship between

1088-652: A peace treaty of 562 between Khosrow and his Roman counterpart Justinian I ( r.  527–565 ), Persia's Christians were granted the freedom of religion; proselytism was, however, a capital crime. By this time the Church of the East and its head, the Catholicose of the East , were integrated into the administration of the empire and mass persecution was rare. The Sassanian policy shifted from tolerance of other religions under Shapur I to intolerance under Bahram I and apparently

1224-412: A person to be executed without trial". Although Nazi Germany never officially proclaimed a Kirchenkampf against Christian churches, top Nazis freely expressed their contempt for Christian teachings in private conversations. Nazi ideology conflicted with traditional Christian beliefs in various respects – Nazis criticized Christian notions of "meekness and guilt" on the basis that they "repressed

1360-481: A policy of forced conversion". Pagans remained in important positions at his court. He outlawed the gladiatorial shows, destroyed some temples and plundered more, and used forceful rhetoric against non-Christians, but he never engaged in a purge. Maxentius' supporters were not slaughtered when Constantine took the capital; Licinius' family and court were not killed. However, followers of doctrines which were seen as heretical or causing schism were persecuted during

1496-595: A return to some form of religion-based faith was beginning to take shape and a law passed on 21 February 1795 legalized public worship, albeit with strict limitations. The ringing of church bells, religious processions and displays of the Christian cross were still forbidden. As late as 1799, priests were still being imprisoned or deported to penal colonies. Persecution only worsened after the French army led by General Louis Alexandre Berthier captured Rome in early 1798, declared

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1632-402: A return to the policy of Shapur until the reign of Shapur II . The persecution at that time was initiated by Constantine 's conversion to Christianity which followed that of Armenian king Tiridates in about 301. The Christians were thus viewed with suspicions of secretly being partisans of the Roman Empire. This did not change until the fifth century when the Church of the East broke off from

1768-738: A serious opponent. The use of the double expression may be indicative of the Greek-speaking Christians deported by Shapur I from Antioch and other cities during his war against the Romans. Constantine 's efforts to protect the Persian Christians made them a target of accusations of disloyalty to Sasanians. With the resumption of Roman-Sasanian conflict under Constantius II , the Christian position became untenable. Zoroastrian priests targeted clergy and ascetics of local Christians to eliminate

1904-404: A stubborn refusal to obey or comply with authority. Candida Moss asserts that De Ste. Croix's judgment of what values are worth dying for is modern, and does not represent classical values. According to her there was no such concept as "quasi-volunteer martyrdom" in ancient times. In the reign of the emperor Decius ( r.  249–251 ), a decree was issued requiring that all residents of

2040-469: A unique historical situation" and is therefore context dependent, while others see it as inconsistent with his other teachings. His authority on the question of coercion was undisputed for over a millennium in Western Christianity , and according to Brown "it provided the theological foundation for the justification of medieval persecution." Callinicus I , initially a priest and skeuophylax in

2176-496: A whole in the Roman Empire. Only one martyr is known by name from the reign of Licinius, who issued the Edict of Milan jointly with his ally, co- augustus , and brother-in-law Constantine, which had the effect of resuming the toleration of before the persecution and returning confiscated property to Christian owners. The New Catholic Encyclopedia states that "Ancient, medieval and early modern hagiographers were inclined to exaggerate

2312-522: Is frequently accompanied by religious discrimination and religious persecution . According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom 's 2020 report, Christians in Burma , China , Eritrea , India , Iran , Nigeria , North Korea , Pakistan , Russia , Saudi Arabia , Syria , and Vietnam are persecuted; these countries are labelled "countries of particular concern" by

2448-628: Is ongoing and systematic. According to the Christian organization Open Doors , North Korea persecutes Christians more than any other country in the world. The issue of Christianophobia was considered by the UK parliament on 5 December 2007 in a Westminster Hall Commons debate. Some people, such as actor Rainn Wilson , who is not a Christian himself, have argued that Hollywood has often expressed anti-Christian bias. Actor Matthew McConaughey has stated that he has seen Christians in Hollywood hiding their faith for

2584-724: Is recorded in the trial proceedings of Phileas of Thmuis , bishop of Thmuis in Egypt 's Nile Delta , which survive on Greek papyri from the 4th century among the Bodmer Papyri and the Chester Beatty Papyri of the Bodmer and Chester Beatty libraries and in manuscripts in Latin , Ethiopic , and Coptic languages from later centuries, a body of hagiography known as the Acts of Phileas . Phileas

2720-560: The Acts of the Apostles , a year after the Roman Crucifixion of Jesus , Stephen was stoned for his transgressions of the Jewish law . And Saul (also known as Paul ) acquiesced, looking on and witnessing Steven's death. Later, Paul begins a listing of his own sufferings after conversion in 2 Corinthians 11: "Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I

2856-484: The praefectus urbi Viventius and the praefectus annonae to exile Ursicinus. Damasus then had seven Christian priests arrested and awaiting banishment, but they escaped and "gravediggers" and minor clergy joined another mob of hippodrome and amphitheatre men assembled by the pope to attack the Liberian Basilica , where Ursacinus's loyalists had taken refuge. According to Ammianus Marcellinus , on 26 October,

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2992-451: The 10 Plagues of Egypt in the Book of Exodus . Augustine did not see these early persecutions in the same light as that of fourth century heretics. In Augustine's view, when the purpose of persecution is to "lovingly correct and instruct", then it becomes discipline and is just. Augustine wrote that "coercion cannot transmit the truth to the heretic, but it can prepare them to hear and receive

3128-731: The Armenian genocide and other contemporaneous persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire ( Greek genocide , and Assyrian genocide ) constitute an extermination campaign, or genocide , carried out by the Ottoman Empire against its Christian subjects . The Affair of the Cards was a political scandal which broke out in 1904 in France, during the Third French Republic . From 1900 to 1904,

3264-630: The Church of the Theotokos of Blachernae , became patriarch of Constantinople in 693 or 694. Having refused to consent to the demolition of a chapel in the Great Palace , the Theotokos ton Metropolitou , and having possibly been involved in the deposition and exile of Justinian II ( r.  685–695, 705–711 ), an allegation denied by the Synaxarion of Constantinople , he was himself exiled to Rome on

3400-733: The Church of the West . Zoroastrian elites continued viewing the Christians with enmity and distrust throughout the fifth century with threat of persecution remaining significant, especially during war against the Romans. Zoroastrian high priest Kartir , refers in his inscription dated about 280 on the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht monument in the Naqsh-e Rostam necropolis near Zangiabad, Fars , to persecution ( zatan – "to beat, kill") of Christians ("Nazareans n'zl'y and Christians klstyd'n "). Kartir took Christianity as

3536-601: The Edict of Milan in 312. By the year 380, Christians had begun to persecute each other. The schisms of late antiquity and the Middle Ages – including the Rome–Constantinople schisms and the many Christological controversies – together with the later Protestant Reformation provoked severe conflicts between Christian denominations . During these conflicts, members of the various denominations frequently persecuted each other and engaged in sectarian violence . In

3672-405: The Edict of Thessalonica , establishing Nicene Christianity as the state religion and as the state church of the Roman Empire on 27 February 380. After this began state persecution of non-Nicene Christians, including Arian and Nontrinitarian devotees. When Augustine became coadjutor Bishop of Hippo in 395, both Donatist and Catholic parties had, for decades, existed side-by-side, with

3808-466: The Great Fire of Rome , and while it is generally believed to be authentic and reliable, some modern scholars have cast doubt on this view, largely because there is no further reference to Nero's blaming of Christians for the fire until the late 4th century. Suetonius mentions punishments inflicted on Christians, defined as men following a new and malefic superstition, but does not specify the reasons for

3944-563: The Gregorian Calendar was reimplemented in 1795. Anti-clerical parades were held, and the Archbishop of Paris , Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel , was forced to resign his duties and made to replace his mitre with the red " Cap of Liberty ". Street and place names with any sort of religious connotation were changed, such as the town of St. Tropez , which became Héraclée. Religious holidays were banned and replaced with holidays to celebrate

4080-585: The Legislative Assembly and its successor, the National Convention , as well as by département councils throughout the country. Many of the acts of dechristianization in 1793 were motivated by the seizure of Church gold and silver to finance the war effort. In November 1793, the département council of Indre-et-Loire abolished the word dimanche (English: Sunday ). The Gregorian calendar , an instrument decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582,

4216-579: The Macarian campaign against the Donatists from 346 – 348 which only succeeded in renewing sectarian strife and creating more martyrs. Donatism continued. The fourth century was dominated by its many conflicts defining orthodoxy versus heterodoxy and heresy. In the Eastern Roman empire, known as Byzantium, the Arian controversy began with its debate of Trinitarian formulas which lasted 56 years. As it moved into

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4352-709: The National Constituent Assembly published the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that stripped clerics of their special rights—the clergy were to be made employees of the state, elected by their parish or bishopric, and the number of bishoprics was to be reduced—and required all priests and bishops to swear an oath of fidelity to the new order or face dismissal, deportation or death. French priests had to receive Papal approval to sign such an oath, and Pius VI spent almost eight months deliberating on

4488-494: The September Massacres . Priests were among those drowned in mass executions ( noyades ) for treason under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Carrier ; priests and nuns were among the mass executions at Lyons , for separatism , on the orders of Joseph Fouché and Collot d'Herbois . Hundreds more priests were imprisoned and made to suffer in abominable conditions in the port of Rochefort . Anti-Church laws were passed by

4624-788: The Taliban in Afghanistan , the Islamic State as well as the United Wa State Army and participants in the Kachin conflict in Myanmar . Early Christianity began as a sect among Second Temple Jews . Inter-communal dissension began almost immediately. According to the New Testament account, Saul of Tarsus prior to his conversion to Christianity persecuted early Judeo-Christians . According to

4760-620: The United States Department of State , because of their governments' engagement in, or toleration of, "severe violations of religious freedom". The same report recommends that Afghanistan , Algeria , Azerbaijan , Bahrain , the Central African Republic, Cuba , Egypt , Indonesia , Iraq , Kazakhstan , Malaysia , Sudan , and Turkey constitute the US State Department's "special watchlist" of countries in which

4896-704: The deistic Cult of the Supreme Being and the atheistic Cult of Reason , with the revolutionary government briefly mandating observance of the former in April 1794. In 18th-century France , the vast majority of the population adhered to the Catholic Church , the only religion officially allowed in the kingdom since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Large minorities of French Protestants, mostly Huguenots and German Lutherans , and Jews still lived in France. The Edict of Versailles , commonly known as

5032-465: The desecration and burning of monasteries, convents, and churches. The failed coup of July 1936 set loose a violent onslaught on those that revolutionaries in the Republican zone identified as enemies; "where the rebellion failed, for several months afterwards merely to be identified as a priest, a religious , or simply a militant Christian or member of some apostolic or pious organization, was enough for

5168-515: The early centers of Christianity in the Roman Empire . Since the emergence of Christian states in Late Antiquity , Christians have also been persecuted by other Christians due to differences in doctrine which have been declared heretical . Early in the fourth century , the empire's official persecutions were ended by the Edict of Serdica in 311 and the practice of Christianity legalized by

5304-459: The first century of the Christian era to the present day . Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of being martyred for their faith , ever since the emergence of Christianity. Early Christians were persecuted at the hands of both Jews , from whose religion Christianity arose , and the Romans who controlled many of

5440-505: The messiah would have died on a cross was offensive to some of the Jews because they awaited a messiah who had different characteristics. On the subject of historical Anti-Christian sentiments of early Muslims, professor Sidney H. Griffith explains that "The cross and the icons publicly declared those very points of Christian faith which the Quran, in the Muslim view, explicitly denied: that Christ

5576-674: The 20th century, Christian populations were persecuted, sometimes, they were persecuted to the point of genocide , by various states, including the Ottoman Empire and its successor state Turkey , which committed the Hamidian massacres , the Armenian genocide , the Assyrian genocide , the Greek genocide , and the Diyarbekir genocide , and atheist states such as those of the former Eastern Bloc . The persecution of Christians has continued to occur during

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5712-550: The 21st century . Christianity is the largest world religion and its adherents live across the globe. Approximately 10% of the world's Christians are members of minority groups which live in non-Christian-majority states. The contemporary persecution of Christians includes the official state persecution mostly occurring in countries which are located in Africa and Asia because they have state religions or because their governments and societies practice religious favoritism. Such favoritism

5848-540: The Antiochenes to Maximinus, requesting that the Christians there be expelled. Among the Christians known to have died in this phase of the persecution are the presbyter Lucian of Antioch , the bishop Methodius of Olympus in Lycia , and Peter , the patriarch of Alexandria . Defeated in a civil war by the augustus Licinius ( r.  308–324 ), Maximinus died in 313, ending the systematic persecution of Christianity as

5984-635: The Arian Christian Auxentius of Milan . When Constantius returned to Rome in 357, he consented to allow the return of Liberius to the papacy; the Arian Pope Felix II , who had replaced him, was then driven out along with his followers. The last emperor of the Constantinian dynasty , Constantine's half-brother 's son Julian ( r.  361–363 ) opposed Christianity and sought to restore traditional religion, though he did not arrange

6120-554: The Armenian War , pays a tribute to the battles waged to defend Christianity. Another revolt was waged from 481 to 483 which was suppressed. However, the Armenians succeeded in gaining freedom of religion among other improvements. Accounts of executions for apostasy of Zoroastrians who converted to Christianity during Sasanian rule proliferated from the fifth to early seventh century, and continued to be produced even after collapse of Sasanians. The punishment of apostates increased under Yazdegerd I and continued under successive kings. It

6256-417: The Catholic Church (in the spirit of conventional anti-clericalism ) and its clergy. In August 1789, the state cancelled the taxing power of the Church. The issue of Church property became central to the policies of the new revolutionary government. Declaring that all Church property in France belonged to the nation, confiscations were ordered and Church properties were sold at public auction . In July 1790,

6392-440: The Catholic Church and the French state. Victims of the Reign of Terror totaled somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000. According to one estimate, among those condemned by the revolutionary tribunals about 8 percent were aristocrats , 6 percent clergy, 14 percent middle class, and 70 percent were workers or peasants accused of hoarding, evading the draft, desertion, rebellion, and other purported crimes. Of these social groupings,

6528-482: The Christian sect called Donatists appealed to Constantine to solve a dispute. He convened a synod of bishops to hear the case, but the synod sided against them. The Donatists refused to accept the ruling, so a second gathering of 200 at Arles, in 314, was called, but they also ruled against them. The Donatists again refused to accept the ruling, and proceeded to act accordingly by establishing their own bishop, building their own churches, and refusing cooperation. This

6664-431: The Christians "freedom of action". The Great Persecution, or Diocletianic Persecution, was begun by the senior augustus and Roman emperor Diocletian ( r.  284–305 ) on 23 February 303. In the eastern Roman empire, the official persecution lasted intermittently until 313, while in the western Roman empire the persecution went unenforced from 306. According to Lactantius 's De mortibus persecutorum ("on

6800-412: The Christians." Marco Polo also said that, "indeed, it is a fact that all the Saracens in the world are agreed in wishing ill to all the Christians in the world". At the time of the Reformation, anti-Christian sentiment grew with the rise of atheism . During the Reign of Terror , a period of the French Revolution , radical revolutionaries and their supporters desired a cultural revolution that would rid

6936-412: The Church and execute James the Just , then leader of Jerusalem's Christians . The New Testament states that Paul was himself imprisoned on several occasions by the Roman authorities, stoned by the Pharisees and left for dead on one occasion, and was eventually taken to Rome as a prisoner. Peter and other early Christians were also imprisoned, beaten and harassed. The First Jewish Rebellion , spurred by

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7072-701: The Decian persecution. In 257 however, Valerian began to enforce public religion. Cyprian of Carthage was exiled and executed the following year, while Pope Sixtus II was also put to death. Dionysius of Alexandria was tried, urged to recognize "the natural gods" in the hope his congregation would imitate him, and exiled when he refused. Valerian was defeated by the Persians at the Battle of Edessa and himself taken prisoner in 260. According to Eusebius, Valerian's son, co- augustus , and successor Gallienus ( r.  253–268 ) allowed Christian communities to use again their cemeteries and made restitution of their confiscated buildings. Eusebius wrote that Gallienus allowed

7208-427: The Edict of Tolerance, had been signed by Louis XVI on 7 November 1787. It did not give non-Catholics in France the right to openly practice their religions but only the rights to legal and civil status, which included the right to contract marriages without having to convert to the Catholic faith. At the same time, libertine thinkers had popularized atheism and anti-clericalism . The Ancien Régime institutionalised

7344-418: The French state of all Christian influence. In 1789, church lands were expropriated and priests killed or forced to leave France. Later in 1792, "refractory priests" were targeted and replaced with their secular counterpart from the Jacobin club. Anti-Christian sentiments increased during 1793 and a campaign of dechristianization occurred, and new forms of moral religion emerged, including the deistic Cult of

7480-423: The Neronian persecution. In the first two centuries Christianity was a relatively small sect which was not a significant concern of the Emperor. Rodney Stark estimates there were fewer than 10,000 Christians in the year 100. Christianity grew to about 200,000 by the year 200, which works out to about 0.36% of the population of the empire, and then to almost 2 million by 250, still making up less than 2% of

7616-431: The Persian conquest in AD 614, a riot occurred in Jerusalem, and the Jewish governor of Jerusalem Nehemiah was killed by a band of young Christians along with his "council of the righteous" while he was making plans for the building of the Third Temple . At this time the Christians had allied themselves with the Eastern Roman Empire . Shortly afterward, the events escalated into a full-scale Christian rebellion, resulting in

7752-409: The Roman authorities, it was also expressed by the Jews. Because Christianity was a sect which was largely emerging from Judaism at that time, this sentiment was the anger of an established religion towards a new and revolutionary faith. Paul of Tarsus , who persecuted Christians before he became a Christian, highlighted the Crucifixion of Jesus as a 'stumbling block' to the Jews, and the belief that

7888-530: The Roman emperor Constantius II ( r.  337–361 ), Shapur imposed a tax to cover the war expenditure, and Shemon Bar Sabbae , the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon , refused to collect it. Often citing collaboration with the Romans, the Persians began persecuting and executing Christians. Passio narratives describe the fate of some Christians venerated as martyrs; they are of varying historical reliability, some being contemporary records by eyewitnesses, others were reliant on popular tradition at some remove from

8024-517: The Roman killing of 3,000 Jews, led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD , the end of Second Temple Judaism (and the subsequent slow rise of Rabbinic Judaism ). Claudia Setzer asserts that, "Jews did not see Christians as clearly separate from their own community until at least the middle of the second century" but most scholars place the "parting of the ways" much earlier, with theological separation occurring immediately. Second Temple Judaism had allowed more than one way to be Jewish. After

8160-511: The Supreme Being and the atheistic Cult of Reason . The drownings at Nantes targeted many Catholic priests and nuns. The first drownings happened on the night of 16 November 1793. The victims were 160 arrested Catholic priests that were labeled " refractory clergy " by the National Convention . When British writer Charles Montagu Doughty journeyed around Arabia, the local Bedouins said to him, "Thou wast safe in thine own country, though mightest have continued there; but since thou art come into

8296-446: The Supreme Being , without the alleged "superstitions" of Catholicism, supplanted both Catholicism and the rival Cult of Reason . Both new religions were short-lived. Just six weeks before his arrest, on 8 June 1794, the still-powerful Robespierre personally led a vast procession through Paris to the Tuileries garden in a ceremony to inaugurate the new faith. His execution occurred shortly afterward, on 28 July 1794. By early 1795,

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8432-399: The West, the center of the controversy was the "champion of orthodoxy", Athanasius . In 355 Constantius, who supported Arianism, ordered the suppression and exile of Athanasius, expelled the orthodox Pope Liberius from Rome, and exiled bishops who refused to assent to Athanasius's exile. In 355, Dionysius , bishop of Mediolanum ( Milan ) was expelled from his episcopal see and replaced by

8568-408: The account of Eusebius, an unnamed Christian man (named by later hagiographers as Euethius of Nicomedia and venerated on 27 February) tore down a public notice of an imperial edict while the emperors Diocletian and Galerius were in Nicomedia ( İzmit ), one of Diocletian's capitals; according to Lactantius, he was tortured and burned alive. According to Lactantius, the church at Nicomedia ( İzmit )

8704-416: The appropriation by the government of the great landed estates and the large amounts of money held by the Catholic Church to the termination of Christian religious practice and of the religion itself. There has been much scholarly debate over whether the movement was popularly motivated or motivated by a small group of revolutionary radicals. These policies, which ended with the Concordat of 1801 , formed

8840-455: The authority of the clergy in its status as the First Estate of the realm . As the largest landowner in the country, the Catholic Church controlled vast properties and extracted massive revenues from its tenants; the Church also had an enormous income from the collection of compulsory tithes . Since the Church kept the registry of births, deaths, and marriages and was the only institution that provided hospitals and education in most parts of

8976-414: The basis of the later and less radical laïcité policies. The French Revolution initially began with attacks on Church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy, an action with which even many Christians could identify, since the Gallican Church held a dominant role in pre-revolutionary France . During a one-year period known as the Reign of Terror , the episodes of anti-clericalism became some

9112-555: The birth, death, and marriage registers away from the Church. An ever-increasing view that the Church was a counter-revolutionary force exacerbated the social and economic grievances and violence erupted in towns and cities across France. In Paris , over a forty-eight-hour period beginning on 2 September 1792, as the Legislative Assembly (successor to the National Constituent Assembly ) dissolved into chaos, three Church bishops and more than two hundred priests were massacred by angry mobs; this constituted part of what would become known as

9248-505: The bishop Cyprian of Carthage fled his episcopal see to the countryside. The Christian church, despite no indication in the surviving texts that the edict targeted any specific group, never forgot the reign of Decius whom they labelled as that "fierce tyrant". After Decius died, Trebonianus Gallus ( r.  251–253 ) succeeded him and continued the Decian persecution for the duration of his reign. The accession of Trebonianus Gallus's successor Valerian ( r.  253–260 ) ended

9384-424: The blank book, all Christian scripture must be burned). An anti-Christian treatise published in Al-Andalus was titled as "Hammers [for breaking] crosses." The Persian poet Mu'izzi urged the grandson of Alp Arslan to root out and wipe out all Christians in the world in an act of genocide: For the sake of the Arab religion, it is a duty, O ghazi king, to clear the country of Syria of patriarchs and bishops, to clear

9520-469: The burning of a Zoroastrian fire temple by a Christian priest, and further persecutions occurred in the reign of Bahram V ( r.  420–438 ). Under Yazdegerd II ( r.  438–457 ) an instance of persecution in 446 is recorded in the Syriac martyrology Acts of Ādur-hormizd and of Anāhīd . Some individual martyrdoms are recorded from the reign of Khosrow I ( r.  531–579 ), but there were likely no mass persecutions. While according to

9656-456: The circulation of official anti-Christian pronouncements, the issuing of an official ban against Christians attending synagogue, a prohibition against reading Christian writings, and the spreading of the curse against Christian heretics: the Birkat haMinim . The first documented case of imperially supervised persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire begins with Nero (54–68). In the Annals , Tacitus states that Nero blamed Christians for

9792-942: The clergy of the Catholic Church suffered proportionately the greatest loss. Anti-Church laws were passed by the Legislative Assembly and its successor, the National Convention , as well as by département councils throughout the country. The Concordat of 1801 endured for more than a century until it was abrogated by the government of the Third Republic, which established a policy of laïcité on 11 December 1905. Under threat of death, imprisonment, military conscription, and loss of income, about twenty thousand constitutional priests were forced to abdicate and hand over their letters of ordination, and six thousand to nine thousand of them agreed or were coerced to marry . Many abandoned their pastoral duties altogether. Nonetheless, some of those who had abdicated continued covertly to minister to

9928-660: The country, it influenced all citizens. A milestone event of the Revolution was the abolition of the privileges of the First and Second Estate on the night of 4 August 1789 . In particular, it abolished the tithes gathered by the Catholic clergy. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 proclaimed freedom of religion across France in these terms: Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus,

10064-570: The course of France’s dechristianization was the Festival of Reason , which was held in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November 1793. The dechristianization campaign can be seen as the logical extension of the materialist philosophies of some leaders of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire , while for others with more prosaic concerns it provided an opportunity to unleash resentments against

10200-481: The deaths of the persecutors"), Diocletian's junior emperor, the caesar Galerius ( r.  293–311 ) pressured the augustus to begin persecuting Christians. Eusebius of Caesarea 's Church History reports that imperial edicts were promulgated to destroy churches and confiscate scriptures, and to remove Christian occupants of government positions, while Christian priests were to be imprisoned and required to perform sacrifice in ancient Roman religion . In

10336-439: The destruction and defacement of Christian images [and crosses] in the early Islamic period due to the conflict with Muslims they aroused." The prominent Andalusian jurist Ibn Rushd decreed that "golden crosses must be broken up before being distributed" as plunder. "As for their sacred books [Bibles], one must make them disappear", he added (he later clarified that unless all words can be erased from every page in order to resell

10472-444: The destruction of religion , and to achieve this goal, it officially denounced religious beliefs as superstitious and backward. The Communist Party destroyed churches , ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called " scientific atheism ", with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers. According to some sources,

10608-836: The empire should perform sacrifices, to be enforced by the issuing of each person with a libellus certifying that they had performed the necessary ritual. It is not known what motivated Decius's decree, or whether it was intended to target Christians, though it is possible the emperor was seeking divine favors in the forthcoming wars with the Carpi and the Goths . Christians that refused to publicly offer sacrifices or burn incense to Roman gods were accused of impiety and punished by arrest, imprisonment, torture or execution. According to Eusebius, bishops Alexander of Jerusalem , Babylas of Antioch , and Fabian of Rome were all imprisoned and killed. The patriarch Dionysius of Alexandria escaped captivity, while

10744-478: The empire's overall population. According to Guy Laurie , the Church was not in a struggle for its existence during its first centuries. However, Bernard Green says that, although early persecutions of Christians were generally sporadic, local, and under the direction of regional governors, not emperors, Christians "were always subject to oppression and at risk of open persecution." Trajan 's policy towards Christians

10880-601: The events. An appendix to the Syriac Martyrology of 411 lists the Christian martyrs of Persia , but other accounts of martyrs' trials contain important historical details on the workings of the Sassanian Empire's historical geography and judicial and administrative practices. Some were translated into Sogdian and discovered at Turpan . Under Yazdegerd I ( r.  399–420 ) there were occasional persecutions, including an instance of persecution in reprisal for

11016-428: The exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law. Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law. On 10 October 1789, the National Constituent Assembly seized

11152-519: The faith, had their private property confiscated and many were expelled. Yazdegerd II had ordered all his subjects to embrace Mazdeism in an attempt to unite his empire ideologically. The Caucasus rebelled to defend Christianity which had become integrated in their local culture, with Armenian aristocrats turning to the Romans for help. The rebels were however defeated in a battle on the Avarayr Plain . Yeghishe in his The History of Vardan and

11288-489: The fall of the Temple in 70 AD) as a result of Jewish persecution and hatred. Steven D. Katz says "there can be no doubt that the post-70 situation witnessed a change in the relations of Jews and Christians". Judaism sought to reconstitute itself after the disaster which included determining the proper response to Jewish Christianity. The exact shape of this is not directly known but is traditionally alleged to have taken four forms:

11424-558: The fall of the Temple, one way led to rabbinic Judaism, while another way became Christianity; but Christianity was "molded around the conviction that the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, was not only the Messiah promised to the Jews, but God's son, offering access to God, and God's blessing to non-Jew as much as, and perhaps eventually more than, to Jews". While Messianic eschatology had deep roots in Judaism, and

11560-408: The first century. The steady growth of the Christian movement was viewed with suspicion by both the authorities and the people of Rome . This led to the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire . During the second century, Christianity was viewed as a negative movement in two ways. The first way encompasses the accusations which were made against adherents of the Christian faith in accordance with

11696-611: The first great age of persecution, in which the Devil was considered to have used open violence to dissuade the growth of Christianity, at an end. The orthodox catholic Christians close to the Roman state represented imperial persecution as an historical phenomenon, rather than a contemporary one. According to MacMullan, the Christian histories are colored by this "triumphalism". Peter Leithart says that, "[Constantine] did not punish pagans for being pagans, or Jews for being Jews, and did not adopt

11832-794: The government allows or engages in "severe violations of religious freedom ". Much of the persecution of Christians in recent times is perpetrated by non-state actors which are labelled "entities of particular concern" by the US State Department, including the Islamist groups Boko Haram in Nigeria , the Houthi movement in Yemen , the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province in Pakistan , al-Shabaab in Somalia ,

11968-501: The harvest and other non-religious symbols. Many churches were converted into "temples of reason", in which Deistic services were held. Local people often resisted this dechristianisation and forced members of the clergy who had resigned to conduct Mass again. Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety denounced the dechristianizers as foreign enemies of the Revolution, and established their own new religion. This Cult of

12104-468: The idea of the suffering servant, known as Messiah Ephraim, had been an aspect since the time of Isaiah (7th century BCE), in the first century, this idea was seen as being usurped by the Christians. It was then suppressed, and did not make its way back into rabbinic teaching till the seventh century writings of Pesiqta Rabati. The traditional view of the separation of Judaism and Christianity has Jewish-Christians fleeing, en masse , to Pella (shortly before

12240-516: The implementation of secularist and anticlerical articles. The rebellion was instigated as a response to an executive decree by Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles to strictly enforce Article 130 of the Constitution, a decision known as Calles Law . Calles sought to eliminate the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico, its affiliated organizations and to suppress popular religiosity. To help enforce

12376-518: The issue. On 13 April 1791, the Pope denounced the Constitution, resulting in a split in the French Catholic Church . Over fifty percent became abjuring priests ("jurors"), also known as " constitutional clergy ", and nonjuring priests as "refractory clergy". In September 1792, the Legislative Assembly legalized divorce , contrary to Catholic doctrine. At the same time, the state took control of

12512-491: The land of Rum [Anatolia] from priests and monks. You should kill those accursed dogs and wretched creatures... You should... cut their throats... You should make polo -balls of the Franks' heads in the desert, and polo sticks from their hands and feet" Marco Polo journeyed throughout the East in the 13th century and made an observation of the people of Arabia: "The inhabitants are all Saracens [Muslims], and utterly detest

12648-689: The land of the Moslemin [Muslims], God has delivered thee into our hands to die—so perish all the Nasara [Christians]! And be burned in hell with your father, Sheytan [Satan]." Doughty also records how Muslims in Arabia would, while circling around the Kaaba, supplicate Allah to "curse and destroy" the Jews and Christians. Many Christians were persecuted and/or killed during the Armenian genocide , Greek genocide , and Assyrian genocide . Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi argue that

12784-599: The later part of his reign however, suppressing missionary activities. Bahram V continued and intensified their persecution, resulting in many of them fleeing to the eastern Roman empire . Bahram demanded their return, beginning the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422 . The war ended with an agreement of freedom of religion for Christians in Iran with that of Mazdaism in Rome. Meanwhile, Christians suffered destruction of churches, renounced

12920-442: The law, Calles seized Church properties, expelled foreign priests, and closed monasteries, convents, and religious schools. Some have characterized Calles as the leader of an atheist state and his program as being one to eradicate religion in Mexico. Tomás Garrido Canabal led persecutions against the Church in his state, Tabasco , killing many priests and laymen and driving the remainder underground. The First Portuguese Republic

13056-464: The leaders of the church. A Syriac manuscript in Edessa in 411 documents dozens executed in various parts of western Sasanian Empire. In 341, Shapur II ordered the persecution of all Christians. In response to their subversive attitude and support of Romans, Shapur II doubled the tax on Christians. Shemon Bar Sabbae informed him that he could not pay the taxes demanded from him and his community. He

13192-500: The leaders of the churches should be put to death. According to Eusebius, this persecution sent Hippolytus of Rome and Pope Pontian into exile, but other evidence suggests that the persecutions were local to the provinces where they occurred rather than happening under the direction of the Emperor. According to two different Christian traditions, Simon bar Kokhba , the leader of the second Jewish revolt against Rome (132–136 AD), who

13328-448: The most violent of any in modern European history . The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the Church, abolished the Catholic monarchy, nationalized Church property, exiled 30,000 priests, and killed hundreds more. In October 1793, the Christian calendar was replaced with one reckoned from the date of the Revolution, and Festivals of Liberty, Reason, and the Supreme Being were scheduled. New forms of moral religion emerged, including

13464-467: The new government decreed that all convents, monasteries and religious orders were to be suppressed. All residents of religious institutions were expelled and their goods were confiscated. The Jesuits were forced to forfeit their Portuguese citizenship. A series of anti-Catholic laws and decrees followed each other in rapid succession. The Red Terror in Spain committed various acts of violence that included

13600-485: The number of martyrs. Since the title of martyr is the highest title to which a Christian can aspire, this tendency is natural". Attempts at estimating the numbers involved are inevitably based on inadequate sources. The Christian church marked the conversion of Constantine the Great as the final fulfillment of its heavenly victory over the "false gods". The Roman state had always seen itself as divinely directed, now it saw

13736-596: The people. By the end of the decade, approximately thirty thousand priests had been forced to leave France, and several hundred who did not leave were executed. Most French parishes were left without the services of a priest and deprived of the sacraments . Any non-juring priest faced the guillotine or deportation to French Guiana . By Easter 1794, few of France's forty thousand churches remained open; many had been closed, sold, destroyed, or converted to other uses. Victims of revolutionary violence, whether religious or not, were popularly treated as Christian martyrs, and

13872-483: The persecution in which James the Great lost his life, Saint Peter narrowly escaped and the rest of the apostles took flight. After Agrippa's death in 44, the Roman procuratorship began (before 41 they were Prefects in Iudaea Province) and those leaders maintained a neutral peace, until the procurator Porcius Festus died in 62 and the high priest Ananus ben Ananus took advantage of the power vacuum to attack

14008-461: The philosophical and theological disputes during his reign. Sebeos claimed he had converted to Christianity on his deathbed. John of Ephesus describes an Armenian revolt where he claims that Khusrow had attempted to impose Zoroastrianism in Armenia. The account, however, is very similar to the one of Armenian revolt of 451. In addition, Sebeos does not mention any religious persecution in his account of

14144-531: The pope's mob killed 137 people in the church in just one day, and many more died subsequently. The Roman public frequently enjoined the emperor Valentinian the Great to remove Damasus from the throne of Saint Peter, calling him a murderer for having waged a "filthy war" against the Christians. In the 4th century, the Terving king Athanaric in c.  375 ordered the Gothic persecution of Christians . Athanaric

14280-570: The prefectural administrations, the Masonic lodges of the Grand Orient de France and other intelligence networks established data sheets and created a secret surveillance system of all army officers in order to ensure that Christians would be excluded from promotions and advancement in the military hierarchy, and " free-thinking " officers would be promoted instead. The Cristero War was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico in response to

14416-413: The principles which were held by the Roman population. The second way encompasses the supplementary controversy which was aroused during the intellectual age. Anti-Christian sentiment is visible in the New Testament , and it seems to have been anticipated by Jesus of Nazareth , as it was documented by the writers of the gospels . The anti-Christian sentiment of the first century was not just expressed by

14552-622: The properties and land held by the Catholic Church and decided to sell them to fund the assignat Revolutionary currency. On 12 July 1790, the assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that subordinated the Catholic Church in France to the French government. It was never accepted by the Pope and other high-ranking clergy in Rome . The programme of dechristianization waged against Catholicism, and eventually against all forms of Christianity, included: An especially notable event that took place in

14688-547: The punishment; he simply lists the fact together with other abuses put down by Nero. It is widely agreed on that the Number of the beast in the Book of Revelation , adding up to 666, is derived from a gematria of the name of Nero Caesar, indicating that Nero was viewed as an exceptionally evil figure. Several Christian sources report that Paul the Apostle and Saint Peter both died during

14824-416: The reign of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, and they would be persecuted again later in the 4th century. The consequence of Christian doctrinal disputes was generally mutual excommunication, but once Roman government became involved in ecclesiastical politics, rival factions could find themselves subject to "repression, expulsion, imprisonment or exile" carried out by the Roman army. In 312,

14960-501: The return of Justinian to power in 705. The emperor had Callinicus immured . He is said to have survived forty days when the wall was opened to check his condition, though he died four days later. Violent persecutions of Christians began in earnest in the long reign of Shapur II ( r.  309–379 ). A persecution of Christians at Kirkuk is recorded in Shapur's first decade, though most persecution happened after 341. At war with

15096-432: The revolt of 571. A story about Hormizd IV 's tolerance is preserved by the historian al-Tabari . Upon being asked why he tolerated Christians, he replied, "Just as our royal throne cannot stand upon its front legs without its two back ones, our kingdom cannot stand or endure firmly if we cause the Christians and adherents of other faiths, who differ in belief from ourselves, to become hostile to us." Several months after

15232-523: The sake of their careers. Starting in June 2021, over 68 Christian churches were desecrated, damaged, or destroyed across Canada . Officials speculated that the fires and other acts of vandalism were reactions to the reported discovery of unmarked graves at Canadian Indian residential school sites in May 2021. Persecution of Christians The persecution of Christians can be historically traced from

15368-467: The same grounds. "Voluntary martyrdom is parsed as passionate foolishness" whereas "flight from persecution is patience" and the result a true martyrdom. Daniel Boyarin rejects use of the term "voluntary martyrdom", saying, "if martyrdom is not voluntary, it is not martyrdom". G. E. M. de Ste. Croix adds a category of "quasi-voluntary martyrdom": "martyrs who were not directly responsible for their own arrest but who, after being arrested, behaved with"

15504-700: The state's use of force against them. Historian Frederick Russell says that Augustine did not believe this would "make the Donatists more virtuous" but he did believe it would make them "less vicious". Augustine wrote that there had, in the past, been ten Christian persecutions, beginning with the Neronian persecution, and alleging persecutions by the emperors Domitian , Trajan , "Antoninus" ( Marcus Aurelius ), "Severus" ( Septimius Severus ), and Maximinus ( Thrax ), as well as Decian and Valerianic persecutions, and then another by Aurelian as well as by Diocletian and Maximian. These ten persecutions Augustine compared with

15640-764: The total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million. At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941. Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era has been taking place in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Middle East since 1989. Christians are persecuted widely across the Islamic world . Native Christian communities are subjected to persecution in several Muslim-majority countries such as Egypt and Pakistan. The persecution of Christians in North Korea

15776-571: The truth". He said the church would discipline its people out of a loving desire to heal them, and that, "once compelled to come in, heretics would gradually give their voluntary assent to the truth of Christian orthodoxy." He opposed the severity of Rome and the execution of heretics. It is his teaching on coercion that has literature on Augustine frequently referring to him as le prince et patriarche de persecuteurs (the prince and patriarch of persecutors). Russell says Augustine's theory of coercion "was not crafted from dogma, but in response to

15912-452: The violence on Christians was selective and especially carried out on elites, it served to keep Christian communities in a subordinate and yet viable position in relation to Zoroastrianism. Christians were allowed to build religious buildings and serve in the government as long as they did not expand their institutions and population at the expense of Zoroastrianism. Khosrow I was generally regarded as tolerant of Christians and interested in

16048-457: The violent instincts necessary to prevent inferior races from dominating Aryans". Aggressive anti-church radicals like Alfred Rosenberg and Martin Bormann saw the conflict with the churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anti-clerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists. Hitler himself disdained Christianity, as Alan Bullock noted: In Hitler's eyes, Christianity

16184-504: The way to execution. Ignatius casts his own martyrdom as a voluntary eucharistic sacrifice to be embraced. "Many martyr acts present martyrdom as a sharp choice that cut to the core of Christian identity – life or death, salvation or damnation, Christ or apostacy..." Subsequently, the martyr literature has drawn distinctions between those who were enthusiastically pro-voluntary-martyrdom (the Montanists and Donatists ), those who occupied

16320-551: Was a defiance of imperial authority, and it produced the same response Rome had taken in the past against such refusals. For a Roman emperor, "religion could be tolerated only as long as it contributed to the stability of the state". Constantine used the army in an effort to compel Donatist' obedience, burning churches and martyring some from 317 – 321. Constantine failed in reaching his goal and ultimately conceded defeat. The schism remained and Donatism continued. After Constantine, his youngest son Flavius Julius Constans , initiated

16456-495: Was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest. Throughout the history of the Soviet Union (1917–1991), there were periods when Soviet authorities brutally suppressed and persecuted various forms of Christianity to different extents depending on State interests. The state advocated

16592-406: Was approached by a group of Christians demanding to be executed. The proconsul obliged some of them and then sent the rest away, saying that if they wanted to kill themselves there was plenty of rope available or cliffs they could jump off." Such enthusiasm for death is found in the letters of Saint Ignatius of Antioch , who was arrested and condemned as a criminal before writing his letters while on

16728-541: Was beaten with rods, once I was stoned ..." In 41 AD, Herod Agrippa , who already possessed the territory of Herod Antipas and Philip (his former colleagues in the Herodian Tetrarchy ), obtained the title of King of the Jews , and in a sense, re-formed the Kingdom of Judea of Herod the Great ( r.  37–4 BC ). Herod Agrippa was reportedly eager to endear himself to his Jewish subjects and continued

16864-508: Was condemned at his fifth trial at Alexandria under Clodius Culcianus , the praefectus Aegypti on 4 February 305 (the 10th day of Mecheir ). In the western empire, the Diocletianic Persecution ceased with the usurpation by two emperors' sons in 306: that of Constantine, who was acclaimed augustus by the army after his father Constantius I ( r.  293–306 ) died, and that of Maxentius ( r.  306–312 ) who

17000-547: Was destroyed, while the Optatan Appendix has an account from the praetorian prefecture of Africa involving the confiscation of written materials which led to the Donatist schism . According to Eusebius's Martyrs of Palestine and Lactantius's De mortibus persecutorum , a fourth edict in 304 demanded that everyone perform sacrifices, though in the western empire this was not enforced. An "unusually philosophical" dialogue

17136-687: Was elevated to augustus by the Roman Senate after the grudging retirement of his father Maximian ( r.  285–305 ) and his co- augustus Diocletian in May 305. Of Maxentius, who controlled Italy with his now un-retired father, and Constantine, who controlled Britain , Gaul , and Iberia , neither was inclined to continue the persecution. In the eastern empire however, Galerius, now augustus , continued Diocletian's policy. Eusebius's Church History and Martyrs of Palestine both give accounts of martyrdom and persecution of Christians, including Eusebius's own mentor Pamphilus of Caesarea , with whom he

17272-576: Was enforcing Diocletian's persecution in his territories in Anatolia and the Diocese of the East in response to petitions from numerous cities and provinces, including Antioch , Tyre , Lycia , and Pisidia . Maximinus was also encouraged to act by an oracular pronouncement made by a statue of Zeus Philios set up in Antioch by Theotecnus of Antioch , who also organized an anti-Christian petition to be sent from

17408-449: Was imprisoned during the persecution. When Galerius died in May 311, he is reported by Lactantius and Eusebius to have composed a deathbed edict – the Edict of Serdica – allowing the assembly of Christians in conventicles and explaining the motives for the prior persecution. Eusebius wrote that Easter was celebrated openly. By autumn however, Galerius's nephew, former caesar , and co- augustus Maximinus Daia ( r.  310–313 )

17544-561: Was intensely anti-clerical . Under the leadership of Afonso Costa , the Minister of Justice, the revolution immediately targeted the Catholic Church; the provisional government began devoting its entire attention to an anti-religious policy. On 8 October the religious orders in Portugal were expelled, and their property was confiscated. On 10 October – five days after the inauguration of the Republic –

17680-666: Was martyred and a forty-year-long period of persecution of Christians began. The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon gave up choosing bishops since it would result in death. The local mobads – Zoroastrian clerics – with the help of satraps organized slaughters of Christians in Adiabene , Beth Garmae , Khuzistan and many other provinces. Yazdegerd I showed tolerance towards Jews and Christians for much of his rule. He allowed Christians to practice their religion freely, demolished monasteries and churches were rebuilt and missionaries were allowed to operate freely. He reversed his policies during

17816-424: Was no different from the treatment of other sects; that is, they would only be punished if they refused to worship the emperor and the gods, but they were not to be sought out. James L. Papandrea says there are ten emperors generally accepted to have sponsored state-sanctioned persecution of Christians, though the first empire-wide government-sponsored persecution was not until Decius in 249. One early account of

17952-408: Was normative for apostates who were brought to the notice of authorities to be executed, although the prosecution of apostasy depended on political circumstances and Zoroastrian jurisprudence. Per Richard E. Payne, the executions were meant to create a mutually recognised boundary between interactions of the people of the two religions and preventing one religion challenging another's viability. Although

18088-410: Was perturbed by the spread of Gothic Christianity among his followers, and feared for the displacement of Gothic paganism . It was not until the later 4th century reigns of the augusti Gratian ( r.  367–383 ), Valentinian II ( r.  375–392 ), and Theodosius I ( r.  379–395 ) that Christianity would become the official religion of the empire with the joint promulgation of

18224-472: Was proclaimed Messiah, persecuted the Christians: Justin Martyr claims that Christians were punished if they did not deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ, while Eusebius asserts that Bar Kokhba harassed them because they refused to join his revolt against the Romans. Some early Christians sought out and welcomed martyrdom. According to Droge and Tabor, "in 185 the proconsul of Asia, Arrius Antoninus,

18360-542: Was replaced by the French Republican Calendar which abolished the sabbath , saints' days and any references to the Church. The seven-day week became ten days instead. It soon became clear, however, that nine consecutive days of work were too much, and that international relations could not be carried out without reverting to the Gregorian system, which was still in use everywhere outside of France. Consequently,

18496-482: Was the Son of God and that he died on the cross." for that reason, "the Christian practice of venerating the cross and the icons of Christ and the saints often aroused the disdain of Muslims," so because of that there was an ongoing "campaign to erase the public symbols of Christianity [in formerly Christian lands such as Egypt and Syria], especially the previously ubiquitous sign of the cross. There are archaeological evidences of

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