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| Christianity |
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| History of religions |
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The history of Christianity begins with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teacher and healer who was crucified and died c. AD 30–33 in Jerusalem in the Roman province of Judea. Afterwards, his followers, a set of apocalyptic Jews, proclaimed him risen from the dead. Christianity began as a Jewish sect and remained so for centuries in some locations, diverging gradually from Judaism over doctrinal, social and historical differences. In spite of the persecution of Christians 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.
Constantine the Great was the first Roman Emperor that converted to Christianity. In 313, he issued the Edict of Milan expressing tolerance for all religions. He did not make Christianity the state religion, but he did provide crucial support. Constantine called the first of seven ecumenical councils. By the Early Middle Ages, Eastern and Western Christianity had already begun to diverge, while missionary activities spread Christianity across Europe. Monks and nuns played a prominent role in establishing a Christendom that influenced every aspect of medieval life.
From the ninth-century into the twelfth, politicization and Christianization went hand-in-hand in developing East-Central Europe, influencing culture, language, literacy, and literature of Slavic countries and Russia. The Byzantine Empire was more prosperous than the Western Roman Empire, and Eastern Orthodoxy was influential, however, centuries of Islamic aggression and the Crusades negatively impacted Eastern Christianity. During the High Middle Ages, Eastern and Western Christianity had grown far enough apart that differences led to the East–West Schism of 1054. Temporary reunion was not achieved until the year before the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The fall of the Byzantine Empire put an end to the institutional Christian Church in the East as established under Constantine, though it survived in altered form.
Various catastrophic circumstances, combined with a growing criticism of the Catholic Church in the 1300–1500s, led to the Protestant Reformation and its related reform movements. Reform, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, were followed by the European wars of religion, the development of modern political concepts of tolerance, 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 more than two billion Christians worldwide and Christianity has become the world's largest, and most widespread religion.[1][2] Within the last century, the centre of growth has shifted from West to East and from the North to the Global South becoming a global religion in the twenty-first century.[3][4][5][6]
- ^ Pew Research 2011.
- ^ Britannica 2022, "It has become the largest of the world's religions and, geographically, the most widely diffused of all faiths.".
- ^ Jenkins 2011, pp. 101–133.
- ^ Freston 2008, pp. 109–133.
- ^ Robbins 2004, pp. 117–143.
- ^ Robert 2000, pp. 50–58.