Included are the following: Baptist Student Movement, Canterbury Club ( Episcopal ), Christian Science Organization, Friends' Meeting for Worship, Hillel ( Jewish ), Liberal Religious Fellowship, Lutheran Student Association, Newman Club ( Roman Catholic ), Presbyterian Student Fellowship, United Student Fellowship ( Congregational-Baptist ), and Wesley Fellowship ( Methodist ).

In 1960 Ceylon nationalized its sectarian -- preponderantly Christian -- schools, to the rejoicing of most of its 7,000,000 Buddhists and the lament of its 800,000 Roman Catholics.

With a membership currently estimated at over 85 million members worldwide, the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

* 1329 – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Quilon, the first Indian Christian Diocese, is erected by Pope John XXII ; the French-born Jordanus is appointed the first Bishop.

Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family about 330 and was raised in Trier.

The contemporary ecclesiastics recorded with wonder many instances of the Visigoths ' clemency: Christian churches saved from ravage ; protection granted to vast multitudes both of pagans and Christians who took refuge therein ; vessels of gold and silver which were found in a private dwelling, spared because they " belonged to St. Peter "; at least one case in which a beautiful Roman matron appealed, not in vain, to the better feelings of the Gothic soldier who attempted her dishonor.

He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from the Africa Province of the Roman Empire and is generally considered as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all times.

It is has been argued that Luke may be writing: a letter of apology ( traditionally a defense for one ’ s beliefs ), a letter of legitimation for Christian beliefs, a letter to equip the church to function amidst the Roman Empire, or a letter that is apolitical.

Some scholars believe that the apologetic view of Luke ’ s work is overemphasized and that it should not be regarded as a “ major aim of the Lucan writings .” While Munck believes that purpose of Luke ’ s work is not that clear-cut and sympathizes with other claims, he believes that Luke ’ s work can function as an apology only in the sense that it “ presents a defense of Christianity and Paul ” and may serve to “ clarify the position of Christianity within Jewry and within the Roman Empire .” Pervo disagrees that Luke ’ s work is an apology and even that it could possibly be addressed to Rome because he believes that “ Luke and Acts speak to insiders, believers in Jesus .” Freedman believes that Luke is writing an apology but that his goal is “ not to defend the Christian movement as such but to defend God ’ s ways in history .”

This view mainly says that Luke is writing to the church in order to legitimate their Christian beliefs and to show that faith in Christ is compatible with allegiance to the Roman Empire.

By picturing Roman authority negatively proponents of this view believe that it is emphasizing the fact that Christian ’ s should obey and submit to Christ ’ s authority ( Acts 4: 19-20 ; 5: 29 ).

Aagesen was Carl Christian Hall's successor as lecturer on Roman law at the university, and in this department his researches were epoch-making.

The first references in the western historical tradition begin at Syracuse in 399 BC and these devices were widely employed by the Roman Legions in Republican times well before the Christian era.

When the Roman Empire turned Christian during the following century, this imagery came to be used in a more metaphysical sense, and removed legal impediments to the development and public use of the Anno Domini dating system, which came into general use during the reign of Charlemagne.

This is the only evidence so far of a Roman city continuous with the early Christian one.

Anthony went to the Fayyum and confirmed the brethren there in the Christian faith, then returned to his old Roman fort.

Benedict of Nursia () ( c. 480 – 543 ) is a Christian saint, honored by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe and students.

While not considered orthodox Christian, the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica uses roles and titles derived from Christianity for its clerical hierarchy, including bishops who have much the same authority and responsibilities as in Roman Catholicism.

The largest number of Benedictines are Roman Catholics, but there are also some within the Anglican Communion and occasionally within other Christian denominations as well, for example, within the Lutheran Church.

This proved unsuccessful: in 1396 the Christian allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor ( in 1433 ) Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis.

Category: Christian martyrs of the Roman era

It may come from a custom in the late Roman / early Christian era, wherein metal boxes placed outside churches were used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen, which in the Western Church falls on the same day as Boxing Day.

Like the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholic Church through Apostolic succession traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.

Catholics maintain that the " one, holy, catholic and apostolic church " founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Roman Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.

In continental Europe, Roman law persisted, but with a stronger influence from the Christian Church.

:" Meanwhile it happened that Swedish ambassadors had come to the Emperor Louis the Pious, and, amongst other matters which they had been ordered to bring to the attention of the emperor, they informed him that there were many belonging to their nation who desired to embrace the Christian religion, and that their king so far favoured this suggestion that lie would permit God's priests to reside there, provided that they might be deemed worthy of such a favour and that the emperor would send them suitable preachers.

When the church was founded by Saint Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, a great multitude of native Egyptians ( as opposed to Greeks or Jews ) embraced the Christian faith.

The temple survived until 390 AD, when the Christian emperor Theodosius I silenced the oracle by destroying the temple and most of the statues and works of art in the name of Christianity.

The Diocletianic Persecution ( 303 – 11 ), the Empire's last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity, did not destroy the Empire's Christian community ; indeed, after 324 Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine.

The emperor was the first knight of Christendom, and the other Christian kings were his brother-knights sworn to Christian chivalry with its devotion to justice and charity.

At one time or another they have characterized him as a political propagandist, a good courtier, the shrewd and worldly adviser of the Emperor Constantine, the great publicist of the first Christian emperor, the first in a long succession of ecclesiastical politicians, the herald of Byzantinism, a political theologian, a political metaphysician, and a caesaropapist.

His army elected Jovian as the new emperor, and to rescue his army he was forced to surrender Nisibis to Persia, and permit the expulsion of the entire Christian population.

The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos ( r. 945 – 959 ), in his book De Administrando Imperio, admonishes his son and heir, Romanos II ( r. 959 – 963 ), to never reveal the secrets of its construction, as it was " shown and revealed by an angel to the great and holy first Christian emperor Constantine " and that the angel bound him " not to prepare this fire but for Christians, and only in the imperial city ".

Julian resolved, in late 362, to vigorously prosecute Gregory and his other Christian critics ; however, the emperor perished the following year during a campaign against the Persians.

With the death of the emperor, Gregory and the Eastern churches were no longer under the threat of persecution, as the new emperor Jovian was an avowed Christian and supporter of the church.

The immediate occasion for the war was the uprising of the Protestant nobility of Bohemia against the emperor, but the conflict was widened into a European War by the intervention of King Christian IV of Denmark ( 1625 – 29 ), Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden ( 1630 – 48 ) and France under Cardinal Richelieu.

The Fall of Constantinople and the death of the last Greek Orthodox Christian emperor contributed to this new idea of Moscow as ' New Rome ' and the seat of Orthodox Christianity.

According to Lampridius, the emperor Alexander Severus ( 222 – 235 ), who was not a Christian, had kept a domestic chapel for the veneration of images of deified emperors, of portraits of his ancestors, and of Christ, Apollonius, Orpheus and Abraham.

He was the last emperor of the Constantinian dynasty, the empire's first Christian dynasty.

In the turmoil after the death of Constantine in 337, in order to establish himself as sole emperor, Julian's zealous Arian Christian cousin Constantius II led a massacre of most of Julian's close relatives.

On December 11, 361, Julian entered Constantinople as sole emperor and, despite his rejection of Christianity, his first political act was to preside over Constantius ' Christian burial, escorting the body to the Church of the Apostles, where it was placed alongside that of Constantine.

320 ) who became an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his religious policy as it developed, and tutor to his son.

According to Luther H. Martin, Roman Mithraism came to an end with the anti-pagan decrees of the Christian emperor Theodosius during the last decade of the 4th century.

Assuming that it was not abandoned it would certainly have been closed down in 425 by the Christian emperor Theodosius II when he prohibited the worship of the old Roman and Greek gods.

In 1398 and 1399, Boniface IX appealed to Christian Europe in favor of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, threatened at Constantinople by Sultan Bayezid I, but there was little enthusiasm for a new crusade at such a time.