Church and State

106 eventsShow on the timeline

The changing relation between the churches and political power: illegal sect, imperial religion, medieval contests of pope and emperor, established churches, toleration and religious freedom.

Jesus was executed by a Roman governor, and for three centuries his followers had no legal standing. After Constantine the question was reversed: how far should rulers direct the church, or the church the rulers? This thread follows the answers given, from the Christian empire to the investiture contest, the wars of religion and the modern separation of church and state.

The thread from start to finish

63 BC, firm date
Pompey Takes Jerusalem
Called in by two Hasmonean brothers who are fighting for the throne, the Roman general Pompey storms the temple mount and enters the sanctuary. Judea loses its independence and becomes tributary to Rome.
40 BC to 37 BC, estimated date
Herod the Great Becomes King of Judea
The Roman senate names Herod, son of the Idumean Antipater, king of the Jews. Three years later he takes Jerusalem with a Roman army, and the last Hasmonean king is executed. Herod rules as Rome’s client until his death.
27 BC, firm date
Augustus Becomes Rome’s First Emperor
Octavian, victor in Rome’s civil wars, formally hands the state back to the senate and people and receives the name Augustus and command of the provinces that hold the armies. From now on one man rules the Roman world. Jesus is born in his reign.
4 BC, estimated date
The Death of Herod and the Division of His Kingdom
Herod the Great dies at Jericho. Augustus divides his kingdom among three sons: Archelaus in Judea, Antipas in Galilee and Perea, Philip in the north-east. Matthew sets the return of Jesus’ family from Egypt at this point.
AD 6, firm date
Judea Comes under Direct Roman Rule
Augustus banishes Archelaus and puts Judea, Samaria and Idumea under a Roman governor. Quirinius, legate of Syria, registers property for taxation, and Judas the Galilean calls for resistance.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
The Trials before the Council and Pilate
The Gospels tell how Jesus is questioned before the high priest Caiaphas and the council, judged guilty of blasphemy, and handed in the morning to the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, who has him flogged and orders him crucified as “King of the Jews”.
AD 44, firm date
Herod Agrippa Kills James and Dies at Caesarea
Acts says that King Herod Agrippa I had the apostle James, son of Zebedee, put to death and imprisoned Peter, who escaped. The king died suddenly at Caesarea. Acts and Josephus both describe his death, and the figures Josephus gives put it in AD 44.
about AD 49, estimated date
Claudius Expels Jews from Rome
The emperor Claudius orders Jews to leave Rome after disturbances that Suetonius links to one “Chrestus”. Acts names Aquila and Priscilla, whom Paul meets at Corinth, among those who left. Whether “Chrestus” means Christ is disputed.
about AD 57 to AD 59, estimated date
Paul’s Arrest and Imprisonment at Caesarea
A riot in the temple puts Paul into Roman custody. He is held for two years at Caesarea under the governor Felix, defends himself before Festus and King Agrippa, and appeals to the emperor.
AD 64, firm date
The Great Fire of Rome and Nero’s Persecution
Fire destroys much of Rome in July of AD 64. To turn suspicion from himself, the historian Tacitus says, Nero blames the Christians of the city and has them put to death with public cruelty.
AD 66 to AD 70, firm date
The Jewish Revolt and the Destruction of the Temple
Judaea rises against Rome in AD 66. After four years of war Titus takes Jerusalem; the temple is burned, the city is razed, and the daily sacrifice comes to an end.
about AD 112, estimated date
Pliny Asks Trajan How to Treat Christians
The governor of Bithynia and Pontus reports to the emperor on his trials of Christians and on what they do when they meet. Trajan rules that they are not to be hunted out, but are to be punished if accused and convicted.
AD 132 to AD 135, estimated date
The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Aelia Capitolina
The Jews of Judaea rise against Rome under Simon bar Kosiba, called Bar Kokhba. Hadrian’s armies crush the revolt at great cost, Jerusalem becomes the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina, and Jews are barred from the city.
about AD 155 to AD 165, estimated date
Justin Martyr Defends the Faith and Describes Its Worship
Justin, a philosopher turned Christian teacher at Rome, addresses a defence of the Christians to the emperor Antoninus Pius and describes their baptism and Sunday Eucharist. Some years later he is tried by the city prefect and beheaded.
about AD 197 to AD 220, estimated date
Tertullian Writes Christian Theology in Latin
At Carthage Tertullian writes a large body of Christian literature in Latin: a defence of the Christians before Roman governors, attacks on Marcion and other teachers, and a treatise on God as Trinity, three persons of one substance.
AD 250, firm date
The Decian Persecution
The emperor Decius orders the inhabitants of the empire to sacrifice to the gods and obtain a certificate. Bishops are executed or driven into hiding, many Christians comply, and the churches are left divided over how to receive them back.
AD 301 (traditional) or c. 314, traditional date
Armenia Adopts Christianity
King Tiridates of Armenia, by the account of the Armenian church, is converted by Gregory the Illuminator and brings his court and people to baptism. The Armenian church dates this to 301; the story was written down more than a century later.
AD 303 to AD 311, firm date
The Great Persecution under Diocletian
In February 303 Diocletian orders churches demolished and Scriptures burned. Further edicts imprison the clergy and require everyone to sacrifice. The persecution is brief in the West and lasts eight years in the East.
30 April AD 311, firm date
Galerius Grants Toleration
The emperor Galerius, mortally ill, issues an edict that ends the Great Persecution in his territories. It allows Christians to exist again and to rebuild their meeting places, and asks them to pray for the emperors and the state.
28 October AD 312, firm date
Constantine’s Victory at the Milvian Bridge
Constantine defeats Maxentius outside Rome and becomes master of the western empire. Christian writers say that he fought under a sign of Christ shown to him beforehand, in a dream according to Lactantius, in the sky according to the later account of Eusebius.
AD 313, firm date
The Edict of Milan
Constantine and Licinius agree at Milan that Christians and everyone else may worship as they choose. The text that survives is a letter Licinius had posted at Nicomedia in June 313, which also orders confiscated church property returned.
AD 314, firm date
The Donatist Schism and the Council of Arles
Two rival bishops claim Carthage after the persecution. One party appeals to Constantine, who refers the case to bishops at Rome and then to a council at Arles. Both find for Caecilian, but the African church is still divided ninety years later.
May AD 325, firm date
The First Council of Nicaea
Constantine gathers some three hundred bishops at Nicaea over the teaching of Arius. They confess the Son to be “of one substance with the Father”, agree a common date for Easter and issue twenty canons. Catholic, Orthodox and Reformation churches still appeal to the council.
c. AD 326–337, estimated date
The Conversion of Georgia
Rufinus, about 402, tells how a captive Christian woman brought the king and queen of the Iberians to the faith and how they asked Constantine for clergy. Georgian tradition names her Nino and the king Mirian and sets the story at Mtskheta.
11 May AD 330, firm date
Constantine Dedicates Constantinople
Constantine rebuilds Byzantium on the Bosphorus as a new imperial city, names it after himself and dedicates it on 11 May 330. He means it to equal Rome and calls it New Rome, and in 381 its bishop is ranked next after the bishop of Rome.
c. AD 330–356, estimated date
King Ezana of Aksum Becomes Christian
Ezana, king of Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands, sets up an inscription that opens in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A letter of the emperor Constantius II names Frumentius, ordained by Athanasius of Alexandria, as bishop of Aksum.
AD 359 to AD 360, firm date
The Councils of Rimini and Seleucia
The emperor Constantius II summons the western bishops to Rimini and the eastern to Seleucia. Under imperial pressure the delegates of both accept a creed that calls the Son like the Father and forbids the Nicene language of substance.
AD 361 to AD 363, firm date
Julian Tries to Restore the Old Religion
Julian, a nephew of Constantine, renounces the Christianity in which he was raised, reopens the temples and bars Christians from teaching the classics. He dies on campaign in Persia after less than two years as sole ruler.
27 February AD 380, firm date
The Edict of Thessalonica
By an edict issued at Thessalonica, the emperor Theodosius orders all his peoples to hold the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria in the one deity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christians who believe otherwise are declared heretics.
AD 390, estimated date
Ambrose Calls an Emperor to Penance
After Theodosius orders a massacre at Thessalonica, Ambrose of Milan writes that he cannot celebrate the eucharist in the emperor’s presence until he repents. Theodosius does public penance. Later writers add a confrontation at the church door that is not in the letter.
AD 398 to AD 407, firm date
John Chrysostom, Preacher and Exile
John, a presbyter of Antioch known for his preaching, is made bishop of Constantinople in 398. His reforms and his plain speaking make enemies among the clergy and at court. A synod deposes him, the emperor banishes him twice, and he dies in exile in 407.
August AD 410, firm date
The Sack of Rome and Augustine’s City of God
Alaric’s Goths take and plunder Rome in August 410. Pagans blame the disaster on the abandonment of the old gods. Augustine answers with the City of God, twenty-two books on the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, written over a number of years.
AD 476, firm date
The End of the Western Roman Empire
The general Odoacer deposes the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus at Ravenna and rules Italy as king. No Western emperor follows, and the bishops of Rome begin to deal with distant emperors and with kings of another confession.
AD 482 to AD 519, firm date
The Henotikon and the Acacian Schism
The emperor Zeno tries to reunite the supporters and opponents of Chalcedon with a statement of faith that neither adopts nor expressly condemns the council. Rome answers by declaring Acacius of Constantinople deposed, and the two sees stay out of communion for thirty-five years.
c. AD 496–508, estimated date
The Baptism of Clovis
Clovis, king of the Franks, is baptised a Catholic Christian by Bishop Remigius of Reims, with many of his warriors. Unlike the Burgundian and Visigothic kings, who were Arians, he shares the faith of his Gallo-Roman subjects and their bishops.
27 December AD 537, firm date
Justinian Builds Hagia Sophia
After rioters burn the cathedral of Constantinople in 532, the emperor Justinian rebuilds it as a vast domed church, dedicated on 27 December 537. In the same years he sets out in law his view of priesthood and empire as two gifts of God.
AD 637/638, estimated date
Jerusalem Surrenders to the Caliph Umar
Later Christian and Muslim historians tell how Jerusalem, after a siege, was yielded on terms to the caliph Umar; the Christian account names the patriarch Sophronius. One Muslim historian quotes the written guarantee given to its people and churches.
AD 726–730, estimated date
The Iconoclast Controversy Begins
The emperor Leo III moves against religious images, and the patriarch Germanus resigns rather than consent. John of Damascus writes in their defence from outside the empire. In 754 a council under Leo’s son condemns images as contrary to the doctrine of Christ.
AD 754 to AD 756, firm date
The Donation of Pepin and the Papal States
Threatened by the Lombards and unaided by the emperor, Pope Stephen II crosses the Alps to the Frankish king Pepin. Pepin defeats the Lombards and gives Ravenna and its cities not to the emperor but to St Peter, making the pope a ruler of territory.
25 December AD 800, firm date
Charlemagne Is Crowned Emperor
On Christmas Day 800, in St Peter’s at Rome, Pope Leo III sets a crown on the head of the Frankish king Charles and the Romans acclaim him emperor. The sources of the time disagree about who planned it and whether the king wished it.
February AD 962, firm date
Otto I Is Crowned Emperor
Called into Italy by Pope John XII, the German king Otto I is crowned emperor at Rome and confirms the papal territories, while requiring each new pope to make a promise before the emperor’s envoys. Within two years he has the pope deposed.
AD 966, estimated date
The Baptism of Mieszko I of Poland
Mieszko, duke of the Poles, marries the Bohemian princess Dobrawa and is baptized, and his people follow him. The annals of the Kraków chapter date the baptism to 966. In 1000 the emperor Otto III founds an archbishopric at Gniezno.
AD 988/989, estimated date
The Baptism of Rus’
Vladimir, prince of Kyiv, accepts baptism from Constantinople and marries the emperor’s sister. The chronicle of Kyiv tells of a choice among faiths and of his people baptized in the Dnieper; Greek and Arabic writers tell of an alliance.
AD 999/1000, estimated date
Iceland Adopts Christianity by Law
At the Althing the pagan lawspeaker Thorgeir, asked to settle the dispute between Christians and heathens, rules that all Icelanders shall be baptized and live under one law, with a few old customs allowed for a time.
AD 1000 or 1001, estimated date
Stephen I and the Christian Kingdom of Hungary
Stephen, ruler of the Hungarians, defeats pagan rebels, founds bishoprics with Esztergom at their head, and is crowned king. A writer of his own day credits the emperor Otto III; a Life written a century later says that the pope sent the crown.
1075 to 1077, firm date
The Investiture Controversy and Canossa
Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of Germany break over the appointment of bishops. Deposed and excommunicated in 1076, Henry comes as a barefoot penitent to the castle of Canossa in January 1077 and is absolved. The conflict goes on.
1095 to 1099, firm date
The First Crusade
In 1095 Pope Urban II calls the knights of the West to go east in arms for the remission of their sins. Four years later the armies storm Jerusalem and massacre its defenders and inhabitants, as their own writers report.
23 September 1122, firm date
The Concordat of Worms
Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V end the dispute over investiture. The emperor gives up investing bishops with ring and staff and allows free election; the pope lets him be present at elections in Germany and confer the bishop’s worldly holdings by the sceptre.
29 December 1170, firm date
The Murder of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, back from six years of exile for resisting Henry II’s claims over the church, is cut down by four knights in his own cathedral. He is venerated as a martyr, and the king does public penance at his tomb.
1209 to 1229, firm date
The Albigensian Crusade
After a papal legate is murdered, Innocent III calls for arms against the count of Toulouse and the heretics of his lands. Crusaders sack Béziers in 1209, and twenty years of war end with the count’s heir submitting to the church and the French crown.
1231, firm date
The Papal Inquisition Is Established
Gregory IX issues statutes against heretics and commissions Dominican friars to seek them out, try them and hand the unrepentant to the secular power. Papal inquisitors begin work at Toulouse; in 1252 Innocent IV orders the cities of northern Italy to force confessions.
18 November 1302, firm date
Boniface VIII Issues Unam Sanctam
In his conflict with Philip IV of France, Pope Boniface VIII declares that the church has one head, that the temporal sword is subject to the spiritual, and that it is necessary for salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.
1419 to 1436, firm date
The Hussites and the Compacts of Basel
After the burning of Jan Hus, Praguers and Taborites defend the lay chalice in arms. A crusade proclaimed by Martin V fails before Prague in 1420, the city states its demands in Four Articles, and in 1436 legates of the Council of Basel concede the chalice at Jihlava.
30 May 1431, firm date
The Trial of Joan of Arc
A church court at Rouen under Bishop Pierre Cauchon tries Joan of Arc for heresy, and on 30 May 1431 she is burned as relapsed. In 1456 judges appointed by Pope Callixtus III declare that trial and its sentences null. Both verdicts are known from the courts’ own records.
29 May 1453, firm date
The Fall of Constantinople
After a siege of some eight weeks the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II takes Constantinople on 29 May 1453. The last emperor, Constantine XI, dies in the fighting, Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque, and the sultan makes the anti-unionist monk Gennadius patriarch.
1478 to 1492, firm date
The Spanish Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews
In 1478 Sixtus IV lets Ferdinand and Isabella appoint inquisitors against baptised Jews said to keep Jewish rites. Burnings begin at Seville in 1481; in 1482 the pope writes of complaints against the inquisitors. In 1492 the monarchs order all Jews to leave their kingdoms.
3 May 1491, firm date
The King of Kongo Is Baptised
On 3 May 1491 the king of Kongo is baptised at his court by Portuguese friars and takes the name João. The account is Portuguese. A generation later his son Afonso I writes as a Christian king, asking Lisbon for priests and protesting against the trade in his people.
1493, firm date
Christianity Crosses the Atlantic
In 1493 Pope Alexander VI grants the lands Columbus has found to the crown of Castile and charges it to convert their peoples. A second fleet carries priests to Hispaniola, where mass is said in January 1494 and a friar, Ramón Pané, records the first baptisms.
1520 to 1521, firm date
Luther Is Excommunicated and Outlawed at Worms
Leo X condemns forty-one of Luther’s propositions in 1520 and excommunicates him in January 1521. Before Charles V at Worms that April, Luther refuses to retract unless convinced by Scripture or evident reason. An imperial edict outlaws him, and he is hidden in a Saxon castle.
29 January 1523, firm date
Zwingli and the Reformation in Zurich
Zwingli, preacher at Zurich’s Great Minster, defends his teaching in sixty-seven articles before the city council on 29 January 1523. The council rules that he is to go on preaching, and by Easter 1525 it has abolished the mass in the city.
1524 to 1525, firm date
The German Peasants’ War
In 1525 peasants in Swabia, Franconia and Thuringia rise, arguing their demands from the gospel in twelve printed articles. Luther first blames lords and peasants alike, then urges the rulers to strike the rebels down. Thomas Müntzer is taken at Frankenhausen in May.
21 January 1525, firm date
The First Anabaptists
In January 1525 former followers of Zwingli at Zurich begin to baptise adults on confession of faith. The council answers with banishment and, from 1526, with death by drowning; Felix Manz is drowned in 1527. The Schleitheim articles of that year state what they believed.
19 April 1529, firm date
The Protestation at Speyer
At the diet of Speyer in April 1529 the majority revokes the latitude that the diet of 1526 had left to each ruler in religion. A group of princes and fourteen cities enter a formal protest, holding that in matters of salvation each must answer to God for himself.
1534, firm date
England Breaks with Rome
Parliament forbids appeals to Rome and in 1534 declares Henry VIII the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. John Fisher and Thomas More, who deny the title, are beheaded in 1535.
1536 to 1541, firm date
Calvin’s Institutes and the Reform of Geneva
John Calvin, a French exile, publishes the Institutes of the Christian Religion at Basel in 1536 and is kept in Geneva by Guillaume Farel. Banished in 1538, he returns in 1541, and the city adopts the church ordinances he asked for.
2 June 1537, firm date
Rome Declares the Peoples of the Americas Free
In the bull Sublimis Deus Pope Paul III declares that the peoples of the Americas are truly human, capable of the Christian faith, and not to be enslaved or deprived of their property. Las Casas and the Crown’s own laws show that enslavement went on.
25 September 1555, firm date
The Peace of Augsburg
The imperial diet at Augsburg makes a lasting peace between the estates of the old religion and those of the Augsburg Confession. Each estate keeps its religion in its own lands; subjects who dissent may emigrate; all other confessions are excluded.
1555 to 1558, firm date
The Burning of Protestants under Mary I
Under Mary I, Parliament returns England to obedience to Rome and revives the medieval heresy laws. From 1555 to 1558 Protestants who will not recant are burned, among them the bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer. John Foxe’s book records them as martyrs.
1559, firm date
The Elizabethan Settlement
Elizabeth I’s first Parliament ends the pope’s jurisdiction in England, makes the queen supreme governor of the church and restores the Prayer Book. In 1570 the pope excommunicates her, and new laws make Catholic priests and those reconciled to Rome traitors.
August 1560, firm date
The Scottish Reformation
In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament, meeting while its Catholic queen is in France, ratifies a Protestant confession of faith written by John Knox and his colleagues, ends the pope’s jurisdiction and forbids the mass.
25 February 1570, firm date
Regnans in Excelsis and the Execution of Catholic Priests under Elizabeth I
In 1570 Pope Pius V declares Elizabeth I deposed. Parliament makes reconciliation with Rome treason, and priests such as the Jesuit Edmund Campion are executed: as traitors, says the government; for their religion, say Catholic writers.
24 August 1572, firm date
The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
After the king’s Catholic sister marries the Protestant Henry of Navarre, the Huguenot leader Coligny is shot in Paris. From 24 August 1572 he and thousands of French Protestants are killed there and in other towns. Accounts of who decided it differed from the first.
26 January 1589, firm date
Moscow Becomes a Patriarchate
In January 1589 Jeremias II of Constantinople, visiting Russia, installs Metropolitan Job as the first patriarch of Moscow. A council at Constantinople confirms it in 1590 and ranks Moscow fifth. The tsar’s charter calls the Russian realm the Third Rome.
1597 to 1614, firm date
The Martyrs of Nagasaki and the Ban on Christianity in Japan
In 1597 the Japanese ruler Hideyoshi has twenty-six Christians, foreign friars and Japanese converts, crucified at Nagasaki. In 1614 the Tokugawa government orders Christianity suppressed throughout Japan as a threat to the country of the gods and of Buddha.
April 1598, firm date
The Edict of Nantes
Henry IV of France issues an edict to settle the civil wars over religion. It restores Catholic worship throughout the kingdom and gives the Reformed freedom of conscience, worship in named places, access to offices and courts in which they are represented.
1609, estimated date
The First Baptist Congregations
English Separatists in Amsterdam, led by John Smyth, reject infant baptism and found their church anew by baptizing believers on confession of faith. Thomas Helwys leads part of the group back to London and argues that no king has power over conscience.
1618 to 1648, firm date
The Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia
A revolt of Bohemian Protestants in 1618 grows into a war that draws in all Germany and its neighbours. The treaties of Osnabrück and Münster in 1648 fix the rights of Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed in the Empire by the year 1624; the pope declares those articles void.
1620, firm date
The Pilgrims Land at Plymouth
Part of an English Separatist congregation that had lived in exile at Leiden sails to New England in 1620, forms itself into a civil body by a written covenant, and founds Plymouth. Half die in the first winter; a peace is made with the sachem Massasoit.
1622 to 1632, firm date
Susenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church
Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia professes the Roman faith under Jesuit guidance and in 1626 swears obedience to the pope. After years of revolt he restores the faith of Alexandria in 1632, and under his son Fasilides the Jesuits are sent out of the country.
22 June 1633, firm date
The Trial of Galileo
The Roman Inquisition judges Galileo vehemently suspected of heresy for holding that the earth moves round the sun, bans his Dialogue and makes him abjure. He is confined to his house near Florence, where he dies in 1642.
1652 to 1667, firm date
Nikon’s Reforms and the Old Believer Schism
Patriarch Nikon of Moscow brings Russian service books and rites into line with Greek usage. The archpriest Avvakum and others refuse the changes as a break with the faith of their fathers, a council of 1667 anathematises those who resist, and the Russian church divides.
1653 to 1713, firm date
Jansenism and the Bull Unigenitus
In 1653 Rome condemns five propositions on grace. The defenders of Cornelius Jansen condemn them too but deny that they are in his book; Rome defines that they are, and in 1713 the bull Unigenitus condemns 101 propositions from Quesnel’s New Testament.
October 1685, firm date
Louis XIV Revokes the Edict of Nantes
By an edict given at Fontainebleau in October 1685, Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes, orders the Reformed churches of France demolished, bans Reformed worship and forbids his Protestant subjects to leave. The Elector of Brandenburg offers those who flee a refuge.
24 May 1689, firm date
The Toleration Act and Locke’s Letter
In May 1689 the English Parliament exempts Protestant dissenters who take the oaths from the penalties of the laws on worship, but not Catholics or those who deny the Trinity. In the same year John Locke’s Letter argues that the care of souls is no business of the magistrate.
25 January 1721 (Old Style), firm date
Peter the Great Replaces the Patriarch with the Holy Synod
In January 1721 (Old Style) Tsar Peter I puts the Russian church under a board of clergy sworn to him as its supreme judge. It takes the patriarch’s place and the name of Most Holy Synod, and in 1723 the patriarch of Constantinople recognises it.
21 July 1773, firm date
The Suppression of the Jesuits
By the brief Dominus ac Redemptor of 21 July 1773 Pope Clement XIV abolishes the Society of Jesus, which the Catholic kings of France, Spain, Portugal and the Two Sicilies had already expelled. In 1814 Pius VII restores it in all countries.
1786 to 1791, firm date
Religious Freedom in the United States
In January 1786 Virginia enacts Jefferson’s statute that no one shall be compelled to support any worship or suffer for his religious opinions. The federal Constitution bars religious tests, and the First Amendment, ratified in 1791, forbids Congress to establish a religion.
1790 to 1801, firm date
The French Revolution and the Church
The National Assembly takes the church’s lands and in 1790 remakes the French church by law, demanding an oath that Pius VI condemns. Priests who refuse it are killed in Paris in 1792 and outlawed in 1793. In 1801 Bonaparte and Pius VII restore Catholic worship by a concordat.
25 March 1807, firm date
Christians and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
After twenty years of campaigning by Quakers, Anglicans and a formerly enslaved writer, Parliament makes the British slave trade unlawful. Other Christians had defended the trade from the Bible, and a missionary society held slaves of its own.
1851 to 1864, firm date
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Hong Xiuquan, a village teacher who read Christian tracts in the light of his own visions, is proclaimed ruler of a new dynasty in 1851 and holds Nanjing from 1853. The missionary who once taught him later denounces his religion; Qing armies take the city in 1864.
1869 to 1870, firm date
The First Vatican Council
A council of Catholic bishops at Rome defines that the pope has full jurisdiction over the whole church and is infallible when he defines a doctrine of faith or morals ex cathedra. A minority of bishops stays away from the final vote, and other churches reject the definition.
15 May 1891, firm date
Rerum Novarum and Christian Social Teaching
Pope Leo XIII addresses the condition of industrial workers. His encyclical rejects socialism and class war, defends private property, and teaches that workers are owed a living wage, limits on their hours, the protection of the law and the right to form unions.
1915 to 1916, firm date
The Destruction of the Armenian and Assyrian Christians
From April 1915 the Ottoman government deports Armenians from across the empire toward the Syrian desert, and the American ambassador reports massacre, starvation and the destruction of a people. Assyrian Christians of Urmia and Hakkari are attacked in the same months.
1917 to 1918, firm date
The Russian Church under the Bolsheviks
In November 1917 a council of the Russian Orthodox Church restores the patriarchate and Tikhon takes the patriarchal seat. Two months later the Soviet government separates church and state by decree and declares all church property to be the people’s.
11 February 1929, firm date
The Lateran Treaty Creates Vatican City
On 11 February 1929 the Holy See and Italy sign a treaty and a concordat in the Lateran Palace. Italy recognises the pope’s sovereignty over Vatican City, and the Holy See recognises the Kingdom of Italy with Rome as its capital.
31 May 1934, firm date
The Barmen Declaration
Meeting at Barmen in May 1934, a synod of Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestants declares against the German Christians that Jesus Christ is the one Word of God the church has to hear, and that the state may not become the total order of human life.
14 March 1937, firm date
Mit brennender Sorge: Pius XI on the Church in the German Reich
In an encyclical to the German bishops dated 14 March 1937, Pius XI protests that the concordat of 1933 has been broken and rejects as contrary to faith in God the exalting of race, people or state to the highest value.
9 April 1945, firm date
The Execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, held for two years for his part in the German resistance, is condemned by an SS court-martial at Flossenbürg concentration camp and hanged the next morning. His letters from prison are published in 1951.
1950 to 1954, firm date
The Chinese Church under the People’s Republic
Protestant leaders in the new People’s Republic sign a manifesto pledging loyalty to the state and an end to foreign ties, and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement is organised. Some pastors refuse to join, and Rome rejects a self-governing Catholic church.
16 April 1963, firm date
The Churches and the Civil Rights Movement
Jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for leading a march against segregation, the minister Martin Luther King Jr answers eight white clergymen who had called the protests untimely. His letter defends breaking unjust laws openly and reproaches the white churches.
24 August 1968, firm date
Medellín and Liberation Theology
In 1968 the Catholic bishops of Latin America apply the Second Vatican Council to a continent of mass poverty and speak of liberation. Gustavo Gutiérrez builds a theology on that word, and Rome answers with a warning in 1984 and a positive statement in 1986.
1978 to 1979, firm date
John Paul II and the Churches under Communism
In October 1978 the cardinals elect the archbishop of Kraków as pope. He tells the world not to be afraid and to open the frontiers of states to Christ, and in June 1979 he preaches in Warsaw that Christ cannot be kept out of human history.
24 March 1980, firm date
The Assassination of Óscar Romero
On 24 March 1980 the archbishop of San Salvador is shot dead while celebrating Mass, the day after he had called on soldiers to stop the repression. A UN truth commission later finds that former Major Roberto D’Aubuisson gave the order.
1982 to 1986, firm date
The Churches and Apartheid
Between 1982 and 1986 the Reformed world alliance calls the theological defence of apartheid a heresy, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church adopts the Belhar Confession, and the Kairos Document appears. The Dutch Reformed Church, which had sanctioned apartheid, later confesses it.
9 October 1989, firm date
Churches and the Fall of Communism
On 9 October 1989, after peace prayers in four Leipzig churches, tens of thousands march round the city and the East German state does not use force. A bishop, church groups and party officials had all appealed for calm that day.
6 January 2019, firm date
Constantinople Grants Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew hands Metropolitan Epiphanius a tomos declaring the Orthodox Church in Ukraine autocephalous. The Moscow Patriarchate, which counts Ukraine as its own canonical territory, has already broken communion with Constantinople over the decision.