It is the birthday of Constantine the Great (pictured), the Roman emperor who was converted to Christianity in the year 312. He was born in Serbia in about 272 to Helena (now St Helena). She and Constantine made a huge impact on early Christianity.
Today in 1534 the German city of Münster introduced the unique policy of compulsory believers’ baptism. The Anabaptists who had taken over the city spent three days rebaptizing all Lutherans and Catholics in the marketplace. Those who refused were variously abused and expelled from the city, without any belongings or food, in a snow storm. Come to think of it, getting baptized in a snow storm can’t have been much fun either.
Today in 380, the Emperor Theodosius issued an edict, Cunctos Populos (‘All people’) which demanded that everyone in the empire practise the Christianity of the Nicene Creed, confessing ‘the deity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost of equal majesty, in a holy trinity’. Rome became a one religion empire.
Image: Simon Jenkins