Frauds the early church commited tfor political gain?

Question

In the museum of hoaxes, there was a document that was supposedly a roman emperor that gavew authority to the church to rule the empire. Couple centuries later, it turned out to be a hoax. I do not know the exact details, however I was wondering what other historic examples with good proof such politicing were done in the church's early days in order to gain more political power.

Dear bruhaha, I thank you for correcting me on my errors. As I said, I did not remember the full details. What I am concerned about is how often the catholic church and its memebers did this. Tis not a rant against the religion itself. When one realises what corruption can be commited by human beings who use religion for worldly gains, they become more immune against such things and stronger in faith and closer to God, and not a pawn to corrupt clergy.

Answer 1

The document you are referring to is known as "the Donation of Constantine".

But you've made quite a serious error in describing it as a "fraud committed by the EARLY church". The whole point of its being a forgery is that the document was NOT written during the early centuries of the Church, but MUCH later -- in this case OVER FOUR CENTURIES after its supposed date.

But how can you fault the "early church" for what someone did hundreds of years later ??! No, the point was that the Donation, and other efforts to maintain and consolidate the power of the Church (or more often of the PAPACY), were all the work of a later era.

By the way, there were critics of its authenticity fairly early on, though it was not considered "decisively refuted" till a careful 15th century analysis.

As for the EARLY Church -- note that the Church in the time of Constantine was not the sort of political power it later became.

So, please feel free to criticize these later abuses by church leaders. . .but do NOT blame people who had nothing to do with it and lived long before such corruption took place.

Answer 2

Religious orders have always abused their trusted positions to gain influence over nations. The Pagan priesthoods did it in Greece and Rome, the Christians did it in Rome, and throughout their history all over the world, Islam did it in their regions, Shinto was forced on Japan...The list just goes on and on.
For Christianity and Rome, look up the Bishop of Milan, he was one of the major figures in the Empires conversion to Christianity and one of the major reasons for the loss of Imperial authority.