Why was Constantine the Great so famous?

Answer 1

Constantine the Great was famous because he was the first Christian emperor of Rome. It was he who influenced the change in faith from the old gods to Christianity in Rome.

The epithet "the Great" was added to his name by Christians because he had provided so much financial and imperial support for their faith. The pagans refused to use this epithet because it was he who began the long persecution of the pagan religion.

Some years after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine declared that he had seen a sign in the sky, assuring him of victory under the Christian God. The Christian historian, Eusebius, recorded his assertion to this effect nearly a quarter of a century later, but even he believed that the emperor was not altogether telling the truth about his vision.

Answer 2

After his death, the Christians referred to Emperor Constantine as Constantine the Great, although the pagan majority refused to use that apellation. He did so much to advance the cause of Christianity and so much to frustrate the pagan faithful that he polarised society.

Constantine provided state patronage to the Christian Church, even elevating its bishops to the same status as the leaders of paganism. He initiated the persecution of the pagan temples and set in place a culture of stealing treasure and property from the temples. By the end of his reign, the great majority of the population remained firmly pagan, but the temples were on the defensive and Constantine's sons were to continue his policies to entrench Christianity.

Answer 3

By the time of the fourth-century Roman Emperor Constantine, Christianity had grown slowly to around ten per cent of the population of the Roman Empire. Without the state patronage that Constantine gave the Christian Church, as well as the persecution that he instituted of the pagan temples, Christianity might well have remained a small but important religious cult within the empire. His support for only one branch of Christianity also meant that the Gnostic Christian churches were allowed to wither, until by the fifth century they were no longer a significant presence in the empire. However, Arianism flourished during his reign and came close to dominating the Trinitarian group that eventually succeeded.

Constantine also called the Council of Nicaea and saw the adoption of a number of doctrines and practices that were to define the future Christian Church.