The Spread of Christianity Throughout Europe Essay

The rise of Christianity and Islam happened during a turbulent time in history, when major civilizations like the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire were in decline due to political infighting, disease, and outside barbarians constantly applying pressure. Christianity was adopted in the heart of the Roman Empire, as a way to continue the influence of Rome, while not being able to control all of Europe militarily. (Rise of Christianity, 2012) Therefore, early Christianity, as adopted by Rome, was about maintaining influence in the continent through the use of priests and monarchs under a feudalist system of control. The main benefit of Christianity came from its use of Latin and the Bible, a common language across the old Roman Empire, as well as a new technology in books that enabled priests to record extremely deep and convincing stories in an easily index able format. The Roman pagan religion used tablets for its mode of communication, tablets which could not hold very much information at all, and that lost legitimacy compared to the life of Jesus and the depth of the biblical writing style. Christianity rose during an age of danger in Europe, and the feudal system with knights and castles was simply the most beneficial system of governance that humanity had. (Stark, 1996)

Christianity was born and flourished in an empire where the common language was Latin and Greek. Two important people like Paul and Constantine further influenced and were a major part of the development of Christianity. The history of the Jews leading up to the time of Jesus had a major impact on the development of Christianity. “When Christianity was clearly identified as a distant religion, the new religion was considered by its members to be the fulfillment of Judaism rather than a new religion.” “Since Jesus was a Jew and preached to the Jews, Christianity was closely linked to Judaism.” The development of Christianity was due to several historical, political, and social circumstances.

The rise of universal religions across the continents was greatly influenced by commerce, politics and the political leaders at the time. Political leaders were accepting the teachings and foundations of various faiths, and this allowed for these regions to thrive. In the Roman Empire, the conversion of Emperor Constantine played a key role in the spread of Christianity. Constantine and the people who succeeded him were pleased with the teachings of Christianity, and this allowed for the religion to spread beyond the cities into hinterlands. In addition, the collapse of the Roman Empire further led to the spread of Christianity since the church was the only source of unity around which people coalesced. Also, trade and commerce further facilitated

The fall of the Roman Empire in the West is seen as one of the most pivotal points in all of human history. This event traditionally marks the transition from classical civilization to the birth of Europe. There is an absolutely tremendous scholarly interest in this subject; thousands of books have been published and endless numbers of essays and theories, as to the cause, have been written. Why did the Roman Empire in the West fall? It is difficult to pinpoint a simple explanation. Some scholars have tried to identify one main problem which caused the fall. Some say the culprit is lead, and its use in water pipes; others find that Christian ideology is to blame. The issue is confusingly complex and it stands to reason that one

Christianity at this time was closely linked with cultural connections. If a group of Christians declared that their success in battle or harvest was due to the intervention of their God, Then pagans, in times of misfortune, may be more susceptible to praying to the ‘Christian’ God due to their desperateness. The barbaric ages are known for the regressive changes on society from the prosperous Roman Empire to what came to be known as the Dark Ages. The Roman Empire was famously a Christianised place, the legacy of its sophisticated architecture, politics and even literacy were all superior to that of the barbarians. Such consumer orientated society was often linked to their faith, suggesting if the barbarians Christianised then they too could live lavish

Christianity spread greatly during the third century B.C.E. for many various reasons. First of all, Christianity promised many suffering people the hope of salvation and immortality. It also gave life a moral purpose and meaning. Christianity’s savior-god (Jesus) was a human and therefore relatable to others. Christianity had also taken on an organized structure, including bishops as well as a clergy, due to Christian persecutions. A few Roman emperors during the third century attempted to stop Christianity’s growth by more frequent persecutions, but the religion was already too strong by that time. Christianity was officially tolerated when Constantine, a Christian himself, passed the Edict of Milan. Later

After Constantine’s conversion to Christianity and the Edict of Milan that was established by him and his co-emperor Licinius giving religious freedom to all, this religion began slowly drawing more and more converts. Christianity was appealing to many because of its message and declaration of personal salvation, its ability to foster within its followers a sense of community and identity, and the benefits of being a part of the emperor’s new faith. In addition, it was freely opened to all men and women regardless of their class which meant freemen and slaves could join. Yet, this caused resentment among people of polytheistic religions. A main point of contention among polytheists was that in their minds, t was illogical to follow a Savior

One of the supposed breakpoints in history is the ‘conversion’ of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 AD. Two Christian narrators to a military campaign against a political rival, Maxentius, tied the moment of Constantine’s conversion. The conversion was the result of either a vision or a dream in which Christ directed him to fight under Christian standards, and his victory apparently assured Constantine in his faith in a new god. Although he immediately declared that Christians and pagans should be allowed to worship freely, and restored property confiscated during persecutions and other lost privileges to the Christians, these measures did not mark a complete shift to a Christian style of rule.

In Christianity, as mentioned before, to be a good Christian, a person must not commit sins such as murder, adultery and sexual immorality. This made the people in the Roman Empire recognize that Christian morals could actually give them hope and are actually righteous, making more people convert to the religion. One example of a moral in Christianity is in “ New Testament: Luke 10:25-40”, it states, “Similarly, a Levite[important religious leader]when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan[person from a group that was not respected] as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion.” This piece of evidence from the Bible shows one part of being Christian is to be kind to others no matter what. Most people in the Roman Empire believed in this moral and started to practice the religion. Another example of a Christian moral is in the article, “The Rise of Christianity” by Rodney Stark. In this article, it says, “The ancient Roman world was not kind to women and children. Married men would sleep with other women(especially slaves and prostitutes), and the unwanted offspring of these unions were usually aborted or simply left to die from exposure after birth.” These circumstances in the Roman Empire made people, especially women, realize they wanted to follow the Christian practice because of its morals. They felt that Christianity was an escape for them, so more and more people converted and spread Christianity through the Roman

Christianity created order from chaos. When the Roman Empire was in the middle ages the belief of Christianity helped pull people together into a community that could relate to each other. The relationship of the pope and the state allowed for the Romans to unify as an empire. Because the Roman Empire adopted the Christianity, it was eventually spread into the rest of Europe and thus helped in the creation of modern civilized societies. Christianity has played a big part in the formation of Europe that we know today because societies are based on religion.

The Romans were a well-established civilization of immense power in the Hellenistic era, conquering nearly the whole Italian Peninsula and most of Europe. Unfortunately, a time of continuous difficulty led Rome to its decline in 476 CE. The fall of Rome can be characterized as a series of troubling events that provoked an influx of citizens to Catholicism in the hope of receiving eternal salvation. Most importantly, it allowed the Catholic Church to rise in power from 590 to 1517 CE and become the most dominating and influential community in Europe. For one, Rome was unable to govern its excessively large empire, which set the beginning of a steady economic decline. Moreover, the public executions of Christians piqued the curiosity of the population, causing rumors of salvation to spread like wildfire. Finally, Constantine’s reign as emperor changed the tide of Rome from being initially an anti-Christian empire to being a fully in support of the religion. Accordingly, the fall of Rome influenced people to convert to Catholicism, which allowed it to thrive in power in Europe.

Christianity has been around for thousands of years. It is known for being the largest most well-known religion on our planet today. It has influenced the hearts of millions of people and in a sense made our country that much safer. Without many of the guidelines set in this religion, many are to believe we would live in a much more chaotic society due to the fact much of the United States citizens practice Christianity. My goal in this essay is to give a brief history lesson on the early years of this religion and to share my research on how and why Christianity spread in U.S then and still today. I will approach this topic from 3 different geography themes. In no order, the themes are distribution, migration, and ethnicity.

Christianity is a relatively young religion. When compared to the course of mankind on earth, the religion itself essentially began a short time ago. Simply put, no one knows how old mankind is. We estimate that the earliest signs of presence on earth dates back approximately 1,200,00 years ago (Latourette 3). Taking these mass amounts of time into account, Christianity and its two- thousand years of existence, seem very brief. When Christianity is placed in the setting of human kind it is still spry. Civilization is now considered to have begun from ten to twelve thousand years ago, meaning, Christianity has only been present during a fifth of the presence of civilization (Latourette 3). Furthermore, Christianity appeared in a period which

A modern secular historian may use this document as a means of evidence illustrating how the adoption of Christianity by political leaders and kings following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire had a great influence on the religious beliefs and practices that spread and were accepted within their states. Based on the information provided regarding Clovis’s conversion, a secular, or non-religious, historian, may determine that Clovis’s difficulties during his war with the Alemanni, or Germanic tribes, humbled him and instilled him with faith in God, enabling his success in war. It can then be inferred that as news of his success reaches new lands, more people decided to convert to Christianity knowing that King Clovis also participated in the belief system and that it had brought him the ascendancy and prosperity needed to consolidate the Franks and defeat external adversaries.

While there is no denying that Christianity and religious practices were an integral part of medieval society, it is clear that medieval people were blindly following the teachings of religious officials and information told to them by noble peoples. People in this time period relied heavily on information being passed on to them through stories and sermons. Nobody seemed to question what any noble person or religious authority had to say about christianity and good religious practices. These people were religiously superstitious and could also even be ignorant about religion and why they were going to church and praying to God. Although religion was an important part of medieval peoples’ lives, the medieval age was a time of religious ignorance and superstition.