Why do so many people think that the Emperor started the Catholic Church when all he did was to make it legal?

Question

Constantine.

If the "church" started by Constantine persecuted the "real" Christians how come Catholics still honor the martyrs that suffered under the previous emperors?

Answer 1

Exactly. They also claim that he wrote the New Testament, when that's not what happened at all. The writings were already there, and he had nothing to do with them whatsoever. He only watched.

It's called revisionist history, and some people here are experts at it.

Answer 2

The Emperor you are referring to Constantine didn't start the Catholic Church, you are right. He did however decree that all the people of Rome would be christian. This decree was the beginning of the powerful church of Rome. It took many years of corruption to form the Roman Catholic Church.

Strange Constantine's take over stopped the Pagan Roman Persecution of Christians but lead to the church that persecuted Christians on a grander scale.

Answer 3

Those who suffered martyrdom under the previous emperors of the Roman Empire were the first Christians. They were called Christians not only because they are believers of Christ but in the same sense, there is no other religious group beside them. Nowadays, the term "Christian" is being a quite confusion among us. There are thousands of Christian group, and every religious sects and group members claims that they are the true Christians.

But remember, we can just use the word Christian to define the people who believe in the right teachings of Christ. And these Christians are those people who belong to the REAL church which Christ had founded unto St. Peter. (Read Matthew16:18).

And this is my answer to your question-Many people think that the Emperor Constantine started the Catholic Church it is because to destroy the authenticity of the Holy Mother Church. It is done by many non-Catholic pastors who want to discredit and destroy the Church because of their mission to destroy the unity of the Church.

PLEASE READ IT IN GOOD FAITH-.
These non-Catholic pastors, who continiously destroy the authenticity of the Church and her doctrines, and to brainwash the people that the Church was just started by the Roman Emperor Constatntine and not Jesus Christ , these pastors are like hungry beasts in the vineyard of our Lord. Wherein their tounge is full of blood of poison to poison the mind of many souls. They are the instruments of the devil to destroy the catholic Church.

These false prophets are the children of the devil. For the scripture itself is the one who is saying that liars are children of the devil. The non-catholic churches that you see, all of them, though I am not judging their members, are all fruit of the works of the works of the devil. We must all realize that.

The Churches or fellowships that attacks and mock the Catholic faith are the instruments of Satan against the will of God. God's will is our salvation. These churches are only founded by men who are whether excommunicated or suspended by the Church. As a fruit of their anger to the Church, they organized their own. One of these is the church called the Anglican Church. Read its history if it was really founded by Christ to Peter (Remember that the only Church that the Lord had founded was the Church he had founded unto Peter in the first century).

The Lutheran Church. How can we say that it holds the sacred truths of Christ? It was just founded by Martin Luther in the 15th century. And Luther was an excommunicated priest. He was excommunicated because of his arrogance and pride. He was then forbidden to preach because of it. That is the reason of his anger to the Church. He just used the issue against indulgences to provoke his anger against the Church. We can be sure that it never holds the sacred truths of salvation.

May we always remember, that ALL CHURCHES, all FELLOWSHIPS, all GROUPS, all SECTS, all DENOMINATIONS that do not hold or profess the sacred truths of Christ are against Christ. Their mission is to mock, attack and destroy the Catholic Church by means of their poisonous means.

And one of those poisonous means they use, is to misinterpret even the Church history, which proves the Church's authenticity, which is stated in your question.

It is Christ who started the Church. It was just named Catholic, which means universal, to distinguih the Church who truly profess the right teachings of Christ and the history of this Church can be traced from Christ to Peter, and Peter to his succesors which is the Pope. In the first to eighth centuries, followers of Christ are obviously Christians simply because there are no schismatic groups at that time yet.

I hope that this helps to anyone and may God bless us all.

In Christ.

Answer 4

Faulty education.

The Church has referred to itself as the “Catholic Church” at least since 107 C.E. (about 10 years after the last book of the New Testament was written), when the Greek term "Katholikos" (meaning universal) appears in the Letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans:

"Wherever the bishop appear, there let the multitude be; even as wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church."

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-smyrnaeans-hoole.html

We do not know how long they had been using the term "Catholic" before it was included in this letter.

All of this was long before the Council of Nicea and the Nicene Creed from 325 C.E. which states, "We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm

With love in Christ.

Answer 5

Because eventually the Romans made it illegal not to believe in one god. I haven't read a lot of middle eastern and western history (I am from Asia), but it seems that the west and middle east are suffering from a religious crisis because with mass media they are realizing how similar they are but they don't want to admit it.

Answer 6

He endorsed it to keep his empire under control. Those who think otherwise simply do not know any better.

Answer 7

I don't know about COnstantine, but I do know that Nero should be cannonized..

Answer 8

so he could control the real christians,but it didn't work.