Constantine the Great

Life and work

Constantine was proclaimed emperor by his troops in York in AD 306 after the death of his father, Constantius Chlorus. He spent years consolidating power in a fractured empire ruled by competing claimants under the Tetrarchy system established by Diocletian.

In AD 312, before the decisive Battle of the Milvian Bridge against his rival Maxentius, Constantine reported a vision (variously described by Eusebius and Lactantius) instructing him to mark his soldiers' shields with a Christian symbol. His victory secured Rome and, in his own account, convinced him of Christianity's power.

In 313, Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, granting toleration to Christianity and ordering the return of confiscated church property, ending centuries of intermittent persecution. Constantine did not make Christianity the state religion but favored it heavily — funding churches, exempting clergy from taxes, and involving himself directly in church affairs.

When the Arian controversy over the nature of Christ threatened to split the empire's church, Constantine convened and personally opened the Council of Nicaea in 325, seeking unity as much as doctrinal precision. He was baptized only on his deathbed in 337, a common practice at the time reflecting beliefs about baptismal forgiveness.

Constantine also founded the city of Constantinople on the site of Byzantium in 330, moving the empire's center of gravity eastward and creating what would become the capital of the Byzantine Empire and a major center of Christianity for over a millennium.

Historical evidence

In their own words

Granted Christians and all others "free power to follow the religion which each preferred."attributed, Edict of Milan, AD 313

Further reading

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Constantine I
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia: Constantine the Great