Why was the Christian Church successful in Rome?

Answer 1

AnswerAs is so often the case, it came down to what the sovereign wanted. When Emperor Constantine chose Christianity, he gave the new religion considerable state patronage and began the long persecution of the pagan religion. The dynastic succession of his sons ensured that Rome would remain under Christian rule, apart from the brief rule of Julian the Apostate. When Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE, Christians were still in the minority, but the writing was on the wall. When Theodosius banned the public worship of the pagan gods in 391, it was not much longer before he had increased the intensity of the persecution of pagans so that only the most faithful or the most geographically remote pagans could resist the attraction of Christianity. State intervention assured the success of the Christian Church.

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Catholic AnswerThe answer of the Church has always been that the ground of Rome was fertilized by the blood of the martyrs who gave their lives for God, and for His Church. The Christian Church was wildly successful in Rome for three centuries before it was legalized, one has only to read the accounts of the persecutions, the tortures, and the various ways in which the martyrs were killed to realize that God certainly worked miracles in the belief of people that they would convert in droves to a religion that almost guaranteed that they were going to lose their property, their money, and some of them their lives. Indeed, what drove people to embrace a new religion that would result in their lives being ruined or ended? God, who was offering them an eternity of happiness in heaven, and glory that would outshine the worst tortures that they had to endure. The legalization of the Church in the fourth century was probably not the best thing for her, throughout history, when Christianity becomes comfortable and acceptable, all kinds of people join for all the wrong reasons and the faith declines. The only way that we can gain heaven is to accept the cross, the Christian Church in Rome had a very obvious cross for centuries.