Sunken Basilica Reveals Glimpse of Early Christianity | Full Episode

This would be after Pagan Emperor Constantine’s regulatory and financial capture of the Christian Church

Thanks

When did that mythical event happen, exactly, and how do you know?

I bet if you asked the Apostles which name they like better, Nicaea or Iznik...😆

Council of Nicaea

In an earlier century, there was probably an Apollo Creed. Got off to a rocky start...

My pleasure!

😆

That all took place in Adrianople.

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Nicaea [wikipedia]

Very good way to express the hijacking of the earthly "church" identity to reprogram it as the Roman Empire's religious organ, ruled by a Nicolaitan* elite aristocratic Gentile clergy.

(Which it has been ever since.)
================
* From νικάω (nee-kah-oh) to overwhelm, and λαός (lah-awss) the lay people

Jan_Sobieski "This would be after Pagan Emperor Constantine’s regulatory and financial capture of the Christian Church"

Jan, your statement is historically FALSE

Have you ever:

read anything about the Church before Constantine in terms of organization, regulation, dogma/doctrine and finances?? I doubt that you have
read anything about the Christian Church OUTSIDE the Roman empire - like in Ethiopia, in India, in Armenia - and how they still had the same or similar dogma, doctrine, regulations, structure?

Sorry, but your statement is historically utterly false and you should retract it

Let me give you proof that your statement:

State of the Church before Constantine:

Structure: The organization (popes, bishops, priests) was already in place well before Constantine
By the mid-3rd century, the Church had already adopted the Roman administrative structure (civitas). In a letter from Bishop Cornelius of Rome (c. 250 AD), he recorded that the Roman church supported 154 clergy and 1,500 widows and distressed persons, indicating a massive, organized welfare system. Refer to History and Literature of Early Christianity by Helmut Koester.
Finances
- : Scholars like Henry Chadwick in The Early Church (1967) note that Christian communities operated "common chests" (arca) based on voluntary donations. By the time of the Diocletian persecution (303 AD), the Church was wealthy enough that the state specifically targeted the confiscation of its property and buildings
Constantine's beliefs and impact on what you, Jan_sobeiski, call "regulatory"
Refer to Timothy Barnes, in Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (2011) -- onstantine did not "capture" the Church’s doctrine so much as he "legislated for unity." At the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), he prioritized political stability. He did not dictate the Creed himself; rather, he pressured the bishops to reach a consensus to prevent civil unrest. As H.A. Drake explains in Constantine and the Bishops (2000), the Emperor saw himself as the "Bishop of those outside the Church," managing its public impact rather than its internal theology.

your (Jan's) false statement of "Financial capture"
Constantine didn't seize Church funds; he provided them. He granted tax exemptions to clergy (to match those of pagan priests) and used imperial funds to build grand basilicas like St. Peter’s in Rome and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Refer to The Impact of Constantine on Christianity
And Jan, imardmd1 -- you guys seem to have NO CLUE about the Marthomite church in India (from 52 AD), the Ethiopian Church (from the Apostolic times), and Armenian (well before Constantine_
These were OUTSIDE the Roman empire (do you guys understand that??)

The strongest proof against the "capture" theory is the consistency of Christian doctrine in regions Constantine never controlled.
- Armenia
  The Kingdom of Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion in 301 AD (under Tiridates III), over a decade before Constantine's Edict of Milan. Their liturgy and doctrine developed independently but remained consistent with the "proto-orthodox" faith of Rome.
- Ethiopia (Askum)
  . The Ethiopian Church remained doctrinally aligned with Alexandria (Egypt) and the broader Christian world, independent of Roman imperial "regulation."
- India the St. Thomas Christians
  - The St Thomas Christians had been in India since 52 AD - their adherence to core doctrines (the Trinity, the divinity of Christ) despite geographic isolation suggests that these beliefs were not "inventions" of Constantine's Council of Nicaea and their organization, regulatory and financial structures were like the Catholic-Orthodox
In short, Jan, from a historical perspective this was not in any way a capture. The fact that the same doctrines existed in Ethiopia and Armenia proves that Constantine did not "manufacture" the faith's core tenets.

Check the references and from now on, Jan, stop spreading the lie that Constantine "captured" the church

Jan, as to your "Council of Nicaea" -- have you even bothered to READ the text of the council of nicea before you spread historical falsehoods?????

Apologies for the harsh language, but I cannot stand when people don't bother to check for easily and readily available historical FACTS before they post as in your "council of nicea" statement

Constantine's role in the Council of Nicea was purely, in film terms as the "Executive Producer" rather than the "Lead Writer." He provided the venue, the funding, and the political pressure for a result, but he generally left the technical "scripting" (theology) to the bishops—provided they could agree. He didn't really care WHAT they agreed on as long as they stopped fighting

How do we know he didn't care WHAT? Because on his deathbed he was baptised an Arian Christian, not a Catholic-Orthodox Christian.

Constantine summoned approximately 318 bishops. Crucially, he paid for their travel using the Imperial Post, a luxury usually reserved for high-ranking state officials.

He sat in on the sessions, often wearing his imperial purple but without a bodyguard, to signal he was a "fellow servant." According to the historian Eusebius of Caesarea (Life of Constantine), he gave the opening speech in Latin, urging for "peace and unanimity."

Scholars like J.N.D. Kelly in Early Christian Creeds argue Constantine didn't necessarily understand the deep metaphysics - he wanted religious peace and an end to the arian riots

His control was most visible after the vote. He declared that anyone who didn't sign the Creed would be exiled. This wasn't about "capturing" the Church’s soul; it was about treating a theological disagreement as a threat to public order.

The Church structure remained the same before and after the council

The Church had arch-bishops before, the council formalized it. The council did forbid bishops and clergy moving from small, poor cities to larger ones without archbishop approval - this was a "regulatory" move to stop clerical "careerism" that started appearing once the Church became a legal career path.

Refer The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Nicaea by Hamilton Hess (Oxford University Press).

Constantine didn't 'capture' the Church's finances - read The Christianization of the Roman Empire by Ramsay MacMullen.

The theological core remained the same as was the episcopal structure

imardmd1 - then name Νικόλαος (Nikolaos) does indeed come from:

νικάω (nikao): "to conquer," "to prevail," or "to be victorious."
λαός (laos): "the people."

however, this does not mean "conquering the people." It means "Victory of the people" or "Victorious among the people." It is a common "triumphant" name, much like Nike (Victory) or Demosthenes (Strength of the people).

If you wanted to create a Greek word meaning "to conquer the laity," it would follow a different grammatical structure. it would be Laokratos (Λαοκράτος) or Laonikos (Λαόνικος)

furthermore, "Nicolaitan" refers to the followers of a specific person named Nicolas. In the Book of Acts (6:5), a man named Nicolas of Antioch, a proselyte to Judaism and then a convert to Christianity, was chosen as one of the seven deacons.

According to Irenaeus (Against Heresies, Book I, Chapter 26), the Nicolaitans were not criticized for their "church hierarchy" , but for Antinomianism. They taught that because they were saved by grace, they could eat food sacrificed to idols and engage in sexual immorality without sinning.

"The Nicolaitanes are the followers of that Nicolas who was one of the seven first ordained to the diaconate... They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence." — Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses

So, imardmd1 -- your statement is also false - DOUBLY false - it doesn't mean what you say linguistically, and the Nicolaitians weren't clergy over the laity.Just think, imardmd1 - the history and theology you are taught has such lies, what else have the pastors etc. kept from you? perhaps it is time for you to believe Jesus's words in John 6?

Structure: The organization (popes, bishops, priests) was already in place well before Constantine

Finances

Constantine's beliefs and impact on what you, Jan_sobeiski, call "regulatory"

your (Jan's) false statement of "Financial capture"

And Jan, imardmd1 -- you guys seem to have NO CLUE about the Marthomite church in India (from 52 AD), the Ethiopian Church (from the Apostolic times), and Armenian (well before Constantine_

Armenia

Ethiopia (Askum)

India the St. Thomas Christians

The Church structure remained the same before and after the council