- Edict of Milan (313 AD)
The Edict of Milan was a document created in 313 AD, a letter penned from Roman Emperor Licinius to the governors of his Eastern imperial provinces, commanding them to treat the Christians more kindly. This edict was the result of a meeting between Licinius and Emperor Constantine I earlier that year, where they both agreed that it was time to treat the Christians well. The Edict also declared that the meeting places and property of Christians were to be restored to them: "the same shall be restored to the Christians without payment or any claim of recompense and without any kind of fraud or deception". This letter was drafted specifically to convince the Eastern Caesar Maximinus Daia to release his Christian prisoners and slaves in the mines; Constantine and Licinius had already done so in their Western provinces. With the Edict of Milan, Christians were granted religious liberty (as were all other religions), beginning the end of Roman persecution of Christianity.
- Council of Nicea (325 AD)
The First Council of Nicea, which gathered in 325 AD, was the first attempt to create a centralized church for Christianity and achieve a sense of consensus within the whole of Christianity. This meeting was important for many reasons; first, it firmly established throughout Christendom the interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and God (i.e. whether or not they were one being or only the same in divine purpose), as well as established the Christian observance of Easter as a holiday, and cemented a date. The Council was called by Emperor Constantine, evincing further support of the Roman Empire in Christian affairs. However, its most important contribution, arguably, was settling the debate about the divinity of Christ. The Nicene Creed, which provided a concrete summary of the Christian faith, was also created at that Council – its stipulations included Christ’s divinity, and also rejected the Arian idea that Christ came from nothing.
- Edict of Thessalonica (380 AD)
In 380 AD, Christianity was declared to be the state religion of the Roman Empire. This came by way of the Emperor Theodosius, who chose to endorse Nicean Christianity and deemed all other sects of Christianity heretical. In this move, Arian Christianity, which was previously endorsed by Constantius and Valens, became outdated, being replaced by the Trinitarian version of Christiantiy that valued the divinity of Christ. This led to the persecution of heretics starting in 385 AD, including Priscillian, one of the first Christian heretics put to death. This event sparked the official endorsement of Christianity as the sole religion of the Roman Empire, lending it legitimacy and allowing it to spread throughout Europe. Its immediate importance was the establishment of the divinity of Christ as a mandated belief in Rome, which in the long run cemented Nicean/Trinitarian Christianity as the definitive version of Christianity celebrated and endorsed throughout the world.
- The Great Schism (1054 AD)
The Great Schism, or the East-West Schism, was a point in time in which the Church was divided between Greek and Latin churches, which occurred in 1054 AD. These two churches split up into what would become the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, respectively. This split came about as a result of different disputes about theology from various churches, including the question of where the Holy Spirit came from, the issue of leavened bread being used in the Eucharist, the Pope’s status as a universal authority in matters of God, and so on. This move signaled the split in the established single church of Christianity into two major churches, which would largely define doctrinal politics for the next millennium, and the two churches continue to disagree about church policy to this day.
- Luther’s 95 Theses (1517 AD)
The publication of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses again the Catholic Church signaled the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Written by him in 1717, Luther posted the theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, complaining of the Catholic Church’s corruption and the false selling of the healing power of indulgences – which just turned out to be one giant grift on the part of the Church to get more money in exchange for promises of absolution. These and other problems led Luther to write his theses and post them on the door. The largest contribution to church history that came from this was the Protestant Reformation and the rise of Lutheranism – a church that chose to have a greater balance between Jewish and Christian texts in their practice of religion. This led to the establishment of the Protestant Church, and established a rivalry between it and the Roman Catholic Church that remains to this day.
- Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy (1534 AD)
King Henry VIII of England was an important figure in the English Reformation., most notably for his Act of Supremacy. With this Act, Henry declared himself the head of the Church of England. There were many reasons for this move, not the least of which was the desire for Henry to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, a move which had been refused by Pope Clement VII (because of Catherine’s blood relation to the Holy Roman Emperor). This was the beginning of the religious rifts that would start to occur in England, continuing with the Protestant Reformation.
- Second Vatican Council (1962 AD)
Perhaps the most important move in Christian history of the 20th century was the Second Vatican Council, formed in 1962 to address the way the Roman Catholic Church was relating to the modern world. The Second Vatican is often not fully recognized by some sects of Christianity, including traditional Catholics who hated the attempts at modernization, and others who even dispute the Pope’s validity in light of the breaking of these traditions. Many significant changes made to church doctrine at the Council included revising the liturgy to include more laypersons, and the outright condemnation of acts of war meant to destroy entire cities.
Works Cited
Carroll, Warren H., The Building of Christendom, 1987.
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Ehler, Sidney and Morrall, John B. Church and State Through the Centuries: A Collection of
Historical Documents with Commentaries (1967), p. 6.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Book 5.
Halsall, Paul, “Theodosian Code XCI.i.2.” Medieval Sourcebook: Banning of Other Religions
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Loades, David. Henry VIII and His Queens (England: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1994).
Loyn, H.R., The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia (1989).
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O'Malley, John W. What Happened at Vatican II. (Harvard University Press, 2008).
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