Constantine Unites Romans With Religion

Constantine served as the first Christian emperor of Rome during the 300s C.E. After his predecessor, Diocletian, brought back the old Roman gods in an attempt to restore Roman traditions, Constantine ended the persecution of Christians during his reign and encouraged the spread and unification of the religion throughout the empire.

This video from the History Channel's website explains that Constantine recognized that the Roman population was divided between several religions and races. He felt that he could bring unity to the empire by bringing all of the Christian groups together to work through the disputes that separated them from one another.

It was at the Council of Nicaea that Constantine gathered all of the Christian bishops in the Roman empire to unify Christians' views on issues such as the Trinity, Jesus' divinity, and the date of the Resurrection of Jesus. After much debate, the representatives from the different Christian groups agreed upon a universal doctrine that became known as the Nicene Creed, which laid out the core beliefs of Christianity.

While I can agree that a unification of the Roman Christian population would have been beneficial to the empire at this time and although I am not Christian, I am unsettled by the fact that these religious debates and discussions were led by an emperor rather than a religious leader within the Church.

East Vs. West - The First Reformation

Rome's mysterious sister lay in Constantinople.
For a very long time the two were one, the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Church, separated by political and geographic differences. Yet, over time, relations between the two bodies began to grow sour. Various minor disputes over church doctrine, administrative structure, even practices wedged themselves into a further divide. However, the biggest dividing factor was the fall of Rome in the West. With this decisive action perpetrated by "barbarians," "Rome" continued, yet in two different factions. The Goths took over, seeing themselves as continuing the Roman tradition, while at the same time, in the east, Byzantium continued the Roman Empire - in their thinking at least.

This is a link that gives a great overview of the Eastern Empire and the feelings held by it. From here we see the "last nail in the coffin" so to speak, as Justinian (the Eastern Emperor) had wanted to reclaim the West, as he saw himself as ruler over the entirety of Rome. However, soon the Vatican claimed the West. His subsequent military failures only proved to strengthen the Vatican's claim as these attempts drained the East of much needed resources and all but destroyed Italy; because of limited resources, and the barbarian nuisance, the East could not hold onto the West. After the death of Justinian, all hope of reconquering the West were lost and would remain so.