Christianity — A Brief Global History | From the Roman Empire to the Modern World

Christianity. A brief global history. Christianity, the world's most widespread religion, begins with the life of Jesus Christ in the Roman province of Judea. His resurrection and divine nature are matters of faith, yet his existence and death by crucifixion around 30 CE are widely accepted by historians. The early spread of Christianity is credited to a small circle of devoted followers, the apostles. Around 36 CE, Paul, after a vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, joins the mission. He dedicates his life to spreading the gospel, the good news of Christ's death and resurrection, and finds remarkable success across the Mediterranean, even in Italy. Tradition holds that around 42 CE, the Apostle Mark founded the church in Alexandria, the forerunner of today's Coptic Orthodox Church. Another tradition says that in 52 CE, the Apostle Thomas reached India and established small communities, though most historians are cautious due to limited evidence. By the first century CE, missionaries like Paul have established Christian communities from North Africa to Italy. By 100 CE, the four gospels, the heart of the New Testament, are complete. They remain foundational to Christianity today. Christianity continues to grow within the Roman Empire and beyond. Around 301 CE, King Tiridates III adopts Christianity as the state religion of Armenia, making it the world's oldest Christian state. Christians face persecution across the empire, where the emperor is venerated as divine. In 312 CE, according to Christian chroniclers, Emperor Constantine sees a sign of the cross before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The next year, he issues the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity across the empire. In 325 CE, he convenes the Council of Nicaea, the first of many church councils to settle theological disputes. Roughly 300 bishops attend evidence of Christianity's early growth and organization. The council affirms the Nicene Creed, still recited by Christians worldwide. Yet Christianity remains diverse, with many sects and debates, especially about the nature of Christ and the The Age of Saints, sounding on 330, Christianity spreads south into Africa. King Azana makes it the official religion of the Aksumite Kingdom, in the Horn of Africa, the origin of today's ancient Ethiopian church. In 380 CE, Emperor Theodosius issues the first Roman law formally defining Orthodox Christian belief, and Christianity becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire. Across its lands, Christians destroy or convert pagan temples. Later emperors ban the old cults and persecute their followers, labeled pagans. The so-called barbarian peoples who overrun much of the Western Roman Empire, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, also embrace Christianity, though many first adopt the Arian Creed. Around 405 CE, Jerome completes a new Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, which becomes the official text of the Catholic Church and underlies Catholic Bibles to this day. Over the next two centuries, missionaries, often at great risk, seek to convert pagan rulers and their peoples. Winning over a powerful leader becomes a key strategy, often bringing entire realms to the new faith. Christianity keeps spreading across Western Europe even after Rome's fall. 432 CE, Saint Patrick begins the conversion of Ireland. 508 CE, Clovis, King of the Franks, is baptized, completing the Christianization of Gaul. 563 CE, Columba founds the monastery on Iona, one of the oldest in Western Europe. 589 CE, King Richard converts the Visigoths from Arianism to Catholicism. 597 CE, Pope Gregory the Great sends Augustine to Britain. He converts Ethelbert of Kent, beginning England's conversion. Holy Wars and a divided Christendom. In 635, Alopen becomes the first known Christian missionary to reach China. Tang Emperor Taizong permits Christian preaching. Churches are built and texts translated, with theology adapting to local terms from Taoism and Buddhism. Meanwhile, Arab armies proclaiming Islam conquer much of the Middle East and North Africa, including Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. By 720, Muslim conquests reach the Iberian Peninsula. Most Muslim rulers, however, tolerate Christian communities as second-class subjects. The churches survive. Medieval Europe is fragmented into many kingdoms. Charlemagne expands his power across Francia, Bavaria, Saxony, and northern Spain, enforcing conversions by the sword in some regions. In 800, the Pope crowns him Emperor of the Romans, beginning a line that lasts a thousand years. Further north and east, royal conversions propel the faith. 965, Herald Bluetooth of Denmark. Late Tenth Sea, Mieczko War and the Polish elite. 988, Vladimir the Great of Kyiv, seen as the baptizer of Ukraine and Rus. A century earlier, Cyril and Methodius create the first Slavic alphabet and translate core liturgical texts. Olaf Tryggvason of Norway sends missions to Iceland and Greenland. Stephen of Hungary and Olaf Skutkunung of Sweden push conversion, often amid fierce resistance. In 1054, tensions between the Greek East, under the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Latin West, under the Pope in Rome, culminate in the Great Schism, a lasting division between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Under pressure from the Seljuks, the Byzantine Empire seeks help. In 1095, Pope Urban II calls for a crusade to aid Byzantium and regain the Holy Land, offering remission of sins. Tens of thousands respond. The First Crusade succeeds and creates several Christian states in the Levant. But within two centuries, they all fall to Muslim neighbors. On the Iberian Peninsula, Christian rulers slowly reclaim lands lost in the 8th century, the Reconquista. In Northern Europe, Baltic and Finnish pagan peoples face crusades as well. Christianity keeps advancing eastward. Giovanni da Montecorvino, a papal legate, travels through Armenia, Persia, and India to China, becoming in 1294 the first bishop of what would become Beijing. In 1386, Jogaila, last pagan ruler of Lithuania, is baptized and begins converting his realm. In 1453, the Ottomans conquer Constantinople, center of the Eastern Church, the city long hailed as the New Rome. Thereafter, the Russian Orthodox Church proclaims Moscow the Third Rome, with a duty to guard orthodoxy. Centuries pass, but the idea of responsibility endures. In modern terms, caring for people can mean building businesses, creating jobs, and serving communities. The Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery sends Western European powers to the far ends of the earth, and with them, Christianity. 1482, a Portuguese caravel reaches the Kingdom of Congo. Nine years later, its ruler Nzinga Anangkuvu and many nobles accept Christianity. Though the king later renounces Catholicism, the faith remains the state religion. 1492, Spain's Catholic monarchs take Granada, ending the Reconquista. That same year, Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas, opening the way to colonization and conversion in the New World. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issues a bull granting Spain claims in South America, declaring the exaltation and spread of the Catholic faith to be paramount for the salvation of souls and the conversion of barbarous peoples. The Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494, splits the New World, lands west to Spain, east to Portugal. Where Spanish and Portuguese expeditions go, missionaries follow. In New Spain and Peru, Catholicism is imposed, often by force, with attempts to eradicate indigenous religions, and the same occurs in Portuguese Brazil. The era also launches the transatlantic slave trade. Enslaved Africans are transported to the Americas. Christianity spreads in West Africa, in part as a byproduct. By the 16th century, Portuguese missions create durable coastal Christian communities. Meanwhile, Europe approaches a new rupture. In 1517, Martin Luther condemns what he sees as corruption in the Roman Church, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Reform ideas spread quickly, helped by the printing press, and are adopted by rulers for both political and spiritual reasons. Protestantism takes root across northern Europe. In 1534, Henry VIII breaks with Rome and becomes head of the Church of England. From the outset, Protestantism divides into many currents, Calvinists, Lutherans, Baptists, Anabaptists, Moravians, Anglicans, Presbyterians. Even so, Catholicism remains Christianity's largest branch and spreads through Southeast Asia with Iberian trade. Francis Xavier travels across Asia-Goa, 1542, Indonesia, 1545, Japan, 1549, finding many converts. 1565, the Philippines become a Spanish colony. Catholic missionaries soon make Christianity dominant there. In the early 17th century, Protestants from England and the Netherlands found colonies along North America's coast. Many are Puritans, seeking religious freedom and exemplary Christian communities. John Eliot engages with Massachusetts tribes and, by 1663, publishes a Bible in their language conversions remain limited. In the centuries that follow, growing European populations spread Christianity across the continent. By the late 18th century, Christianity is firmly rooted throughout the Americas. In Britain and the future United States, waves of revival, the Great Awakenings, help shape modern evangelicalism, emphasizing scripture and personal salvation. A century earlier, Russia experiences a church schism. At the Great Moscow Council, 1666 and 1667, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich backs reforms. Opponents are anathematized, Patriarch Nikon is deposed, officially not for doctrine, but for abandoning his sea and seeking ecclesial power over the Tsar. Old believers are branded state criminals. Exile, imprisonment, even immolations in wooden huts follow. Monks of Solovetsky Monastery revolt, holding out for eight years. In 1682, Avakum is executed. His life spreads widely. Old believers go underground into forests, the Don, the Pomor region, Siberia, the Urals, and abroad, forming diverse communities, priestly, priestless, and others. Later, Peter the Morse tightens taxes and social restrictions. By the 19th century, persecutions ease, but limits remain. Only in 1905 does Nicholas II grant legal rights, allowing old believers to build churches and worship openly. Modern Missions. At the height of European imperialism, Christianity reaches the planet's last remote regions with migrants and missionaries. 1788, Christianity arrives in Australia with the first British penal colony. 1797, the London Missionary Society sends preachers to eastern Polynesia, kicking off the main wave of evangelization across the South Pacific. From there, it reaches New Zealand, where in 1814, Samuel Marsden delivers the first Christian sermon. Missionaries spread the faith throughout India. Notably Baptist pastor William Carey, dubbed the father of modern missions, who translates the Bible into seven Indian languages. Many Hindus and Muslims resist. This resentment contributes to the Great Indian Uprising of 1857. It is the age of the heroic missionary. David Livingston explores Central Africa and records Victoria Falls for Europeans. Others follow. Adoniram and Anne Judson spend decades in Burma. Mary Selessor preaches in Nigeria, learning ethic to reach local communities. 1884, American Presbyterians arrive in Korea, bringing western medicine along with the faith. Christianity grows rapidly. Today, a third of South Koreans are Christian. In the 1880s, European powers launch the Scramble for Africa, colonizing 90% of the continent by 1914 and bringing Christianity with them. China remains largely resistant for centuries. By the early 20th century, converts number only about 100,000. Backlash erupts in the Boxer Rebellion, where thousands of Chinese Christians are killed. After 1900, large-scale missions build thousands of churches. By 1945, Christians reach about 4 million. In the 20th century, the rise of communism threatens Christianity and other faiths. In the Soviet Union and across Central and Eastern Europe, churches are dismantled and worship suppressed. Yet Christianity proves remarkably resilient. After these regimes fall, churches revive and congregations return. Even in communist China, millions of Christians worship today despite strict state controls. For nearly two millennia, the efforts of missionaries, rulers, migrants, and communities have carried Christianity to every corner of the globe. Today, Christians number about 2.3 billion, nearly one-third of humanity, living and praying in almost every country. For believers, for people of other faiths, and for the non-religious alike, it remains a truly extraordinary historical journey.