[Antoninus]

For the anniversary of this great event. May God send the world a new Constantine.

[Antoninus]

Catholic history ping!

[Birdman]

Amen. Not a stretch to suggest that Constantine saved the Church, and the magnificent infrastructure he put in place sustains us to this day.

[Nateman]

By this sign you shall see victory.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Thanks for posting that.

[Bigg Red]

Yes, a new Constantine.

[Cronos]

Just to add on to your excellent article - Constantine did do a lot to promote Christianity. He officially legalized Christianity in February 313 AD with the Edict of Milan, which allowed Christianity to spread. He ordered the construction of Christian churches such as the Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the original Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.

He also appointed Christians to positions of prominence in the Roman government and gave certain privileges to Christian clergy. He even called Christian bishops together to settle the issue of the Arian controversy with the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which he attended as an observer but did not partake in.

That being said, there are a still a lot of things Constantine didn’t do; he never outlawed traditional Greco-Roman religious practices, he never forbade people from worshipping the traditional Greco-Roman deities, and, as I discuss in this article from August 2019

, he certainly had nothing to do with the creation of the New Testament canon.

In other words, Constantine didn’t tell everyone to convert to Christianity or die; instead, he simply implemented policies that allowed Christianity to spread.

Ultimately, Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman Empire, but not by Constantine. On 27 February 380 AD, nearly half a century after Constantine’s death, the Roman emperors Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II signed the Edict of Thessalonica, which declared Nicene Christianity the official, state religion of the Roman Empire.

By this point, though, the vast majority of people in the Roman Empire were already at least somewhat Christian. Although many people remained unbaptized, many of them worshipped the Christian God.