Christianity

Topics represented

Christianity (34) · Religion (34) · Catholic Christianity (17) · Protestantism (12) · Early Church (11) · Councils (8) · Religious conflict (7) · Political history (7) · Religious law (6) · Ecumenism (6) · Law & constitutions (5) · Orthodox Christianity (4)

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1. c. 30

   Crucifixion of Jesus and origins of the Christian movement

   Jesus’ execution under Roman rule in Judea is the conventional historical starting point for the movement whose followers later proclaimed his resurrection. It is neither an exact date nor an instantaneous institutional founding.

2. c. 49–c. 50

   Jerusalem assembly on Gentile believers

   Acts 15 preserves a deliberation by Jerusalem leaders about admitting Gentile believers. It marks expansion beyond Jewish-Christian communities, though its date is approximate.

3. 64

   Repression of Christians after the Great Fire of Rome

   Tacitus records Nero’s punishment of people identified as Christians after the Great Fire of Rome. It documents a localized persecution, not a continuous empire-wide policy throughout the first century.

4. 250–311

   Imperial persecutions from Decius to Galerius

   Edicts under Decius and the “Great Persecution” begun by Diocletian sought to compel sacrifice and weaken churches. The range groups distinct episodes and does not imply identical experience in every province.

5. 303–311

   Great Persecution and Tetrarchic religious policy

   A series of Tetrarchic edicts targeted Christian buildings, texts, rights, and clergy, with uneven regional enforcement. “Great Persecution” describes imperial policy, not an identical experience for every community.

6. 311

   Galerius’ Edict of Toleration

   Galerius ended the official persecution he had promoted and permitted Christians to exist and pray for the state, under conditions. It was a legal change before the arrangements of Constantine and Licinius.

7. 312

   Constantine wins at the Milvian Bridge

   Constantine defeated Maxentius near Rome and secured control of Italy. Later accounts of religious signs differ; this entry records above all a change in imperial competition.

8. 313

   Agreement of Milan and freedom of worship

   The imperial letter associated with Licinius and Constantine ordered the return of places of worship and granted religious liberty to Christians and others. “Edict of Milan” is a later historiographical label.

9. 313

   Milan agreement and religious toleration

   The communication attributed to Constantine and Licinius grants Christians and others freedom of worship and provides for restitutions. It does not establish a state church or exhaust Constantine’s and his colleagues’ changing religious policies.

10. 325

    First Council of Nicaea

    Bishops gathered at Nicaea formulated a confession against Arius’ position and issued disciplinary and Easter-date provisions. It was decisive, but did not immediately settle all Christological disputes.

11. 325

    Council of Nicaea and imperial patronage

    Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to address ecclesial disputes, including the Arian controversy and Easter’s date. It marked a court–church relationship, not the end of doctrinal disagreements.

12. 380

    Edict of Thessalonica and imperial Nicene Christianity

    The edict Cunctos populos endorsed the Nicene faith of Rome and Alexandria as the imperial norm. It marks a new relationship between state authority and Christianity, not the immediate disappearance of other traditions.

13. 381

    First Council of Constantinople

    The council reaffirmed and expanded the Nicene formulation, especially concerning the Holy Spirit, and shaped the ranking of episcopal sees. Its reception and text should be distinguished from later attributions.

14. 431

    Council of Ephesus

    The council rejected Nestorius and affirmed the use of Theotokos for Mary in the Christological controversy. Churches that did not accept its later reception should be represented precisely.

15. 451

    Council of Chalcedon

    Chalcedon’s definition affirmed Christ “in two natures”. Its divergent reception contributed to an enduring separation between Chalcedonian and Oriental Orthodox churches; it was not a single geographic break.

16. c. 530–c. 547

    Rule of Saint Benedict and Western monasticism

    The Rule associated with Benedict of Nursia ordered communal monastic life through prayer, work, obedience, and stability. Its exact date and initial adoption are debated; its later Western importance is central.

17. c. 1054

    Rupture between Rome and Constantinople

    The excommunications of 1054 are a conventional symbol of separation between Latin and Greek communions. They should be understood as a long process shaped by language, jurisdiction, theology, and politics.

18. 1095–1099

    First Crusade and capture of Jerusalem

    After Urban II’s call at Clermont, crusader armies captured Jerusalem in 1099. This records the religious-military program and extreme violence against Muslim and Jewish inhabitants, without celebratory language.

19. 1378–1417

    Western Schism

    For nearly four decades, rival papal obediences coexisted in Rome and Avignon, later Pisa. The Council of Constance helped end this fracture; it should not be confused with the East–West schism.

20. 1414–1418

    Council of Constance and conciliar authority

    The Council of Constance sought to end the Western Schism and issued Haec Sancta and Frequens, central texts for conciliarist formulations. The authority and reception of Haec Sancta remained contested; this records an ecclesial constitutional dispute, not an uncontested rule for the whole Church.

21. 1478

    Spanish Inquisition as a crown-controlled tribunal

    Sixtus IV’s bull Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus established the Spanish Inquisition in Castile in 1478. Unlike other inquisitions run by mendicant orders at papal behest, it operated under crown control; its scope, tribunals, and practices changed over time and should not be reduced to one image.

22. 1491

    Conversion of the Kongo court

    King Nzinga a Nkuwu was baptized after diplomatic contact with Portugal, beginning a Central African history of local appropriation and negotiation of Catholicism. It was not a uniform or passive conversion of all Kongo people.

23. 1517

    Public beginning of the Lutheran Reformation

    The circulation of Martin Luther’s 95 theses against indulgences opened a controversy that transformed churches, states, and reading cultures. The story that they were nailed to a door is not undisputed documentary fact.

24. 1521

    Diet of Worms and imperial condemnation of Luther

    Luther appeared before the Diet, and the Edict of Worms placed him under imperial ban. The episode consolidated conflict among reform, ecclesial authority, and the political structures of the Holy Roman Empire.

25. 1534

    Act of Supremacy and England’s break with Rome

    Parliament declared Henry VIII “Supreme Head” of the Church of England. The English Reformation changed repeatedly under later monarchs; this act is an initial institutional point, not its final definition.

26. 1537

    Sublimis Deus bull

    In 1537 Paul III declared that Indigenous peoples should not be deprived of liberty or property or reduced to slavery because they were not Christians. It was a normative papal intervention, not general civil legislation: it did not by itself halt conquest, coerced labor, or other forms of colonial domination.

27. 1539

    Francisco de Vitoria’s relectiones on the Indies

    The De indis and De iure belli lectures, delivered at Salamanca in 1539, examined title, communication, war, and conversion in Castilian expansion. They were scholarly arguments in theology and natural law, not enacted legislation; their later uses do not remove their colonial and intellectual limits.

28. 1540

    Approval of the Society of Jesus

    The bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae approved the Society of Jesus. Its educational, missionary, and intellectual networks were central to Catholic renewal and global expansion.

29. 1545–1563

    Council of Trent and Catholic renewal

    The council defined Catholic positions on Scripture, justification, sacraments, and clerical reform amid Reformation controversies. It was a three-stage process and its implementation varied by region.

30. c. 1550–c. 1551

    Valladolid debate

    The Valladolid controversy set arguments by Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda against each other on conquest, war, and the status of Indigenous peoples. It was a political-theological junta and debate, not a court issuing a final, binding judgment that by itself transformed colonial law.