Persecution of Christians

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v t e

The persecution of Christians can be

martyred for their faith

, ever since the emergence of Christianity.

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2020 report, Christians in Burma, China, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Vietnam are persecuted; these countries are labelled "countries of particular concern" by the United States Department of State, because of their governments' engagement in, or toleration of, "severe violations of religious freedom".^[5]: 2 The same report recommends that Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, the Central African Republic, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sudan, and Turkey constitute the US State Department's "special watchlist" of countries in which the government allows or engages in "severe violations of religious freedom".^[5]: 2

Much of the persecution of Christians in recent times is perpetrated by

New Testament

Early Christianity began as a sect among Second Temple Jews. Inter-communal dissension began almost immediately.^[6] According to the New Testament account, Saul of Tarsus prior to his conversion to Christianity persecuted early Judeo-Christians. According to the

Early Judeo-Christian

In 41 AD,

Jerusalem's Christians

.

The New Testament states that Paul was himself imprisoned on several occasions by the Roman authorities, stoned by the Pharisees and left for dead on one occasion, and was eventually taken to Rome as a prisoner. Peter and other early Christians were also imprisoned, beaten and harassed. The

First Jewish Rebellion, spurred by the Roman killing of 3,000 Jews, led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the end of Second Temple Judaism (and the subsequent slow rise of Rabbinic Judaism).^[6]

Claudia Setzer asserts that, "Jews did not see Christians as clearly separate from their own community until at least the middle of the second century" but most scholars place the "parting of the ways" much earlier, with theological separation occurring immediately.[9] Second Temple Judaism had allowed more than one way to be Jewish. After the fall of the Temple, one way led to rabbinic Judaism, while another way became Christianity; but Christianity was "molded around the conviction that the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, was not only the Messiah promised to the Jews, but God's son, offering access to God, and God's blessing to non-Jew as much as, and perhaps eventually more than, to Jews".^[10]: 189 While Messianic eschatology had deep roots in Judaism, and the idea of the suffering servant, known as Messiah Ephraim, had been an aspect since the time of Isaiah (7th century BCE), in the first century, this idea was seen as being usurped by the Christians. It was then suppressed, and did not make its way back into rabbinic teaching till the seventh century writings of Pesiqta Rabati.^[11]

The traditional view of the separation of Judaism and Christianity has Jewish-Christians fleeing, en masse, to Pella (shortly before the fall of the Temple in 70 AD) as a result of Jewish persecution and hatred.^[12] Steven D. Katz says "there can be no doubt that the post-70 situation witnessed a change in the relations of Jews and Christians".^[13] Judaism sought to reconstitute itself after the disaster which included determining the proper response to Jewish Christianity. The exact shape of this is not directly known but is traditionally alleged to have taken four forms: the circulation of official anti-Christian pronouncements, the issuing of an official ban against Christians attending synagogue, a prohibition against reading Christian writings, and the spreading of the curse against Christian heretics: the Birkat haMinim.^[13]

Roman Empire

Main articles: Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire and Religious persecution in the Roman Empire § Christianity

Neronian persecution

National Museum, Warsaw) A Christian woman is martyred under Nero in this re-enactment of the myth of Dirce

Main article:

Neronian persecution

The first documented case of imperially supervised persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire begins with Nero (54–68). In the Annals, Tacitus states that Nero blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome, and while it is generally believed to be authentic and reliable, some modern scholars have cast doubt on this view, largely because there is no further reference to Nero's blaming of Christians for the fire until the late 4th century.^[14][15] Suetonius mentions punishments inflicted on Christians, defined as men following a new and malefic superstition, but does not specify the reasons for the punishment; he simply lists the fact together with other abuses put down by Nero.^[15]: 269 It is widely agreed on that the Number of the beast in the Book of Revelation, adding up to 666, is derived from a gematria of the name of Nero Caesar, indicating that Nero was viewed as an exceptionally evil figure.^[16] Several Christian sources report that Paul the Apostle and Saint Peter both died during the Neronian persecution.^{[17][18][19][20]}

From Nero to Decius

In the first two centuries Christianity was a relatively small sect which was not a significant concern of the Emperor. Rodney Stark estimates there were fewer than 10,000 Christians in the year 100. Christianity grew to about 200,000 by the year 200, which works out to about 0.36% of the population of the empire, and then to almost 2 million by 250, still making up less than 2% of the empire's overall population.^[21] According to Guy Laurie, the Church was not in a struggle for its existence during its first centuries.^[22] However, Bernard Green says that, although early persecutions of Christians were generally sporadic, local, and under the direction of regional governors, not emperors, Christians "were always subject to oppression and at risk of open persecution."^[23] Trajan's policy towards Christians was no different from the treatment of other sects, that is, they would only be punished if they refused to worship the emperor and the gods, but they were not to be sought out.^[24]

James L. Papandrea says there are ten emperors generally accepted to have sponsored state sanctioned persecution of Christians,^[25] though the first empire-wide government sponsored persecution was not until Decius in 249.^[26] One early account of a mass killing is the persecution in Lyon in which Christians were purportedly mass-slaughtered by being thrown to wild beasts under the decree of Roman officials for reportedly refusing to renounce their faith according to Irenaeus.^[27][28] In the 3rd century, Emperor Severus Alexander's household contained many Christians, but his successor, Maximinus Thrax, hating this household, ordered that the leaders of the churches should be put to death.^[29][30] According to Eusebius, this persecution sent Hippolytus of Rome and Pope Pontian into exile but other evidence suggests that the persecutions of were local to the provinces where they occurred rather than happening under the direction of the Emperor.^[31]

According to two different Christian traditions, Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the second Jewish revolt against Rome (132–136 AD), who was proclaimed Messiah, persecuted the Christians: Justin Martyr claims that Christians were punished if they did not deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ, while Eusebius asserts that Bar Kokhba harassed them because they refused to join his revolt against the Romans.^[32]

Voluntary martyrdom

Some early Christians sought out and welcomed martyrdom.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch who was arrested and condemned as a criminal before writing his letters while on the way to execution. Ignatius casts his own martyrdom as a voluntary eucharistic sacrifice to be embraced.^[36]

^: 55

"Many martyr acts present martyrdom as a sharp choice that cut to the core of Christian identity – life or death, salvation or damnation, Christ or apostacy..."

Gnostics).^[36]

^: 145

The category of voluntary martyr began to emerge only in the third century in the context of efforts to justify flight from persecution.[37] The condemnation of voluntary martyrdom is used to justify Clement fleeing the Severan persecution in Alexandria in 202 AD, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp justifies Polycarp's flight on the same grounds. "Voluntary martyrdom is parsed as passionate foolishness" whereas "flight from persecution is patience" and the end result a true martyrdom.^[36]: 155

Daniel Boyarin rejects use of the term "voluntary martyrdom", saying, "if martyrdom is not voluntary, it is not martyrdom".^[38] G. E. M. de Ste. Croix adds a category of "quasi-voluntary martyrdom": "martyrs who were not directly responsible for their own arrest but who, after being arrested, behaved with" a stubborn refusal to obey or comply with authority.^[36]: 153 Candida Moss asserts that De Ste. Croix's judgment of what values are worth dying for is modern, and does not represent classical values. According to her there was no such concept as "quasi-volunteer martyrdom" in ancient times.^[36]: 153

Decian persecution

Main article: Decian persecution

In the reign of the emperor

Cyprian of Carthage fled his episcopal see to the countryside.^[39] The Christian church, despite no indication in the surviving texts that the edict targeted any specific group, never forgot the reign of Decius whom they labelled as that "fierce tyrant".^[26] After Decius died, Trebonianus Gallus (r. 251–253) succeeded him and continued the Decian persecution for the duration of his reign.^[39]

Valerianic persecution

The accession of Trebonianus Gallus's successor Valerian (r. 253–260) ended the Decian persecution.^[39] In 257 however, Valerian began to enforce public religion. Cyprian of Carthage was exiled and executed the following year, while Pope Sixtus II was also put to death.^[39] Dionysius of Alexandria was tried, urged to recognize "the natural gods" in the hope his congregation would imitate him, and exiled when he refused.^[39]

Valerian was defeated by the Persians at the Battle of Edessa and himself taken prisoner in 260. According to Eusebius, Valerian's son, co-augustus, and successor Gallienus (r. 253–268) allowed Christian communities to use again their cemeteries and made restitution of their confiscated buildings.^[39] Eusebius wrote that Gallienus allowed the Christians "freedom of action".^[39]

Late Antiquity

Roman Empire

The Great Persecution

Main article: Diocletianic Persecution

See also: Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

The Great Persecution, or Diocletianic Persecution, was begun by the senior

Donatist schism.^[39] According to Eusebius's Martyrs of Palestine and Lactantius's De mortibus persecutorum, a fourth edict in 304 demanded that everyone perform sacrifices, though in the western empire this was not enforced.^[39]

An "unusually philosophical" dialogue is recorded in the trial proceedings of

praefectus Aegypti on 4 February 305 (the 10th day of Mecheir

).

In the western empire, the Diocletianic Persecution ceased with the usurpation by two emperors' sons in 306: that of Constantine, who was

Iberia, neither was inclined to continue the persecution.^[39] In the eastern empire however, Galerius, now augustus, continued Diocletian's policy.^[39] Eusebius's Church History and Martyrs of Palestine both give accounts of martyrdom and persecution of Christians, including Eusebius's own mentor Pamphilus of Caesarea, with whom he was imprisoned during the persecution.^[39]

Maximinus Daia, depicted in the Menologion of Basil II

Maximinus Daia, depicted in the Menologion of Basil II

When Galerius died in May 311, he is reported by Lactantius and Eusebius to have composed a deathbed edict – the

Maximinus Daia (r. 310–313) was enforcing Diocletian's persecution in his territories in Anatolia and the Diocese of the East in response to petitions from numerous cities and provinces, including Antioch, Tyre, Lycia, and Pisidia.^[39] Maximinus was also encouraged to act by an oracular pronouncement made by a statue of Zeus Philios set up in Antioch by Theotecnus of Antioch, who also organized an anti-Christian petition to be sent from the Antiochenes to Maximinus, requesting that the Christians there be expelled.^[39] Among the Christians known to have died in this phase of the persecution are the presbyter Lucian of Antioch, the bishop Methodius of Olympus in Lycia, and Peter, the patriarch of Alexandria. Defeated in a civil war by the augustus Licinius (r. 308–324), Maximinus died in 313, ending the systematic persecution of Christianity as a whole in the Roman Empire.^[39] Only one martyr is known by name from the reign of Licinius, who issued the Edict of Milan jointly with his ally, co-augustus, and brother-in-law Constantine, which had the effect of resuming the toleration of before the persecution and returning confiscated property to Christian owners.^[39]

The New Catholic Encyclopedia states that "Ancient, medieval and early modern hagiographers were inclined to exaggerate the number of martyrs. Since the title of martyr is the highest title to which a Christian can aspire, this tendency is natural".^[41] Attempts at estimating the numbers involved are inevitably based on inadequate sources.^[42]

Constantinian period

Main article: Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

See also: Religious policies of Constantine the Great

The Christian church marked the conversion of Constantine the Great as the final fulfillment of its heavenly victory over the "false gods".^{[43]: xxxii} The Roman state had always seen itself as divinely directed, now it saw the first great age of persecution, in which the Devil was considered to have used open violence to dissuade the growth of Christianity, at an end.^[44] The orthodox catholic Christians close to the Roman state represented imperial persecution as an historical phenomenon, rather than a contemporary one.^[44] According to MacMullan, the Christian histories are colored by this "triumphalism".^[45]: 4

Peter Leithart says that, "[Constantine] did not punish pagans for being pagans, or Jews for being Jews, and did not adopt a policy of forced conversion".^[46]: 61 Pagans remained in important positions at his court.^[46]: 302 He outlawed the gladiatorial shows, destroyed some temples and plundered more, and used forceful rhetoric against non-Christians, but he never engaged in a purge.^[46]: 302 Maxentius' supporters were not slaughtered when Constantine took the capital; Licinius' family and court were not killed.^[46]: 304 However, followers of doctrines which were seen as heretical or causing schism were persecuted during the reign of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, and they would be persecuted again later in the 4th century.^[47] The consequence of Christian doctrinal disputes was generally mutual excommunication, but once Roman government became involved in ecclesiastical politics, rival factions could find themselves subject to "repression, expulsion, imprisonment or exile" carried out by the Roman army.^[48]: 317

In 312, the Christian sect called Donatists appealed to Constantine to solve a dispute. He convened a synod of bishops to hear the case, but the synod sided against them. The Donatists refused to accept the ruling, so a second gathering of 200 at Arles, in 314, was called, but they also ruled against them. The Donatists again refused to accept the ruling, and proceeded to act accordingly by establishing their own bishop, building their own churches, and refusing cooperation.^{[48]: 317 [47]: xv} This was a defiance of imperial authority, and it produced the same response Rome had taken in the past against such refusals. For a Roman emperor, "religion could be tolerated only as long as it contributed to the stability of the state".^[49]: 87 Constantine used the army in an effort to compel Donatist' obedience, burning churches and martyring some from 317 – 321.^{[47]: ix, xv} Constantine failed in reaching his goal and ultimately conceded defeat. The schism remained and Donatism continued.^[48]: 318 After Constantine, his youngest son Flavius Julius Constans, initiated the Macarian campaign against the Donatists from 346 – 348 which only succeeded in renewing sectarian strife and creating more martyrs. Donatism continued.^[47]: xvii

The fourth century was dominated by its many conflicts defining orthodoxy versus heterodoxy and heresy. In the Eastern Roman empire, known as Byzantium, the

Pope Felix II, who had replaced him, was then driven out along with his followers.^[51]

The last emperor of the Constantinian dynasty, Constantine's half-brother's son Julian (r. 361–363) opposed Christianity and sought to restore traditional religion, though he did not arrange a general or official persecution.^[39]

Valentinianic–Theodosian period

According to the

Valentinian the Great to remove Damasus from the throne of Saint Peter, calling him a murderer for having waged a "filthy war" against the Christians.^[51]

In the 4th century, the

Terving king Athanaric in c. 375 ordered the Gothic persecution of Christians.^[53] Athanaric was perturbed by the spread of Gothic Christianity among his followers, and feared for the displacement of Gothic paganism

.

It was not until the later 4th century reigns of the augusti

state church of the Roman Empire on 27 February 380. After this began state persecution of non-Nicene Christians, including Arian and Nontrinitarian devotees.^[54]

^: 267

When Augustine became coadjutor Bishop of Hippo in 395, both Donatist and Catholic parties had, for decades, existed side-by-side, with a double line of bishops for the same cities, all competing for the loyalty of the people.^{[47]: xv [a]: 334} Augustine was distressed by the ongoing schism, but he held the view that belief cannot be compelled, so he appealed to the Donatists using popular propaganda, debate, personal appeal, General Councils, appeals to the emperor and political pressure, but all attempts failed.^{[56]: 242, 254} The Donatists fomented protests and street violence, accosted travelers, attacked random Catholics without warning, often doing serious and unprovoked bodily harm such as beating people with clubs, cutting off their hands and feet, and gouging out eyes while also inviting their own martyrdom.^{[57]: 120–121} By 408, Augustine supported the state's use of force against them.^{[55]: 107–116} Historian Frederick Russell says that Augustine did not believe this would "make the Donatists more virtuous" but he did believe it would make them "less vicious".^[58]: 128

Augustine wrote that there had, in the past, been ten Christian persecutions, beginning with the Neronian persecution, and alleging persecutions by the emperors

10 Plagues of Egypt in the Book of Exodus.^{[note 1][59]} Augustine did not see these early persecutions in the same light as that of fourth century heretics. In Augustine's view, when the purpose of persecution is to "lovingly correct and instruct", then it becomes discipline and is just.^[60]: 2 Augustine wrote that "coercion cannot transmit the truth to the heretic, but it can prepare them to hear and receive the truth".^{[55]: 107–116} He said the church would discipline its people out of a loving desire to heal them, and that, "once compelled to come in, heretics would gradually give their voluntary assent to the truth of Christian orthodoxy."^[58]: 115 He opposed the severity of Rome and the execution of heretics.^[61]

^: 768

It is his teaching on coercion that has literature on Augustine frequently referring to him as le prince et patriarche de persecuteurs (the prince and patriarch of persecutors).[57]^{: 116 [55]: 107} Russell says Augustine's theory of coercion "was not crafted from dogma, but in response to a unique historical situation" and is therefore context dependent, while others see it as inconsistent with his other teachings.^[58]: 125 His authority on the question of coercion was undisputed for over a millennium in Western Christianity, and according to Brown "it provided the theological foundation for the justification of medieval persecution."^{[55]: 107–116}

Heraclian period

immured.^{[62]: 58–59} He is said to have survived forty days when the wall was opened to check his condition, though he died four days later.^[62]

^: 58–59

Sassanian Empire

Violent persecutions of Christians began in earnest in the long reign of

Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, refused to collect it.^[63] Often citing collaboration with the Romans, the Persians began persecuting and executing Christians.^[63] Passio narratives describe the fate of some Christians venerated as martyrs; they are of varying historical reliability, some being contemporary records by eyewitnesses, others were reliant on popular tradition at some remove from the events.^[63] An appendix to the Syriac Martyrology of 411 lists the Christian martyrs of Persia, but other accounts of martyrs' trials contain important historical details on the workings of the Sassanian Empire's historical geography and judicial and administrative practices.^[63] Some were translated into Sogdian and discovered at Turpan.^[63]

Under

Catholicose of the East, were integrated into the administration of the empire and mass persecution was rare.^[63]

The Sassanian policy shifted from tolerance of other religions under

Church of the West.^[64] Zoroastrian elites continued viewing the Christians with enmity and distrust throughout the fifth century with threat of persecution remaining significant, especially during war against the Romans.^[65]

Zoroastrian high priest

Constantine's efforts to protect the Persian Christians made them a target of accusations of disloyalty to Sasanians. With the resumption of Roman-Sasanian conflict under Constantius II, the Christian position became untenable. Zoroastrian priests targeted clergy and ascetics of local Christians to eliminate the leaders of the church. A Syriac manuscript in Edessa in 411 documents dozens executed in various parts of western Sasanian Empire.^[65]

In 341,

Khuzistan and many other provinces.^[69]

eastern Roman empire. Bahram demanded their return, beginning the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422. The war ended with an agreement of freedom of religion for Christians in Iran with that of Mazdaism in Rome. Meanwhile, Christians suffered destruction of churches, renounced the faith, had their private property confiscated and many were expelled.^[71]

Yeghishe in his The History of Vardan and the Armenian War, pays a tribute to the battles waged to defend Christianity.^[72] Another revolt was waged from 481 to 483 which was suppressed. However, the Armenians succeeded in gaining freedom of religion among other improvements.^[73]

Accounts of executions for apostasy of Zoroastrians who converted to Christianity during Sasanian rule proliferated from the fifth to early seventh century, and continued to be produced even after collapse of Sasanians. The punishment of apostates increased under Yazdegerd I and continued under successive kings. It was normative for apostates who were brought to the notice of authorities to be executed, although the prosecution of apostasy depended on political circumstances and Zoroastrian jurisprudence. Per Richard E. Payne, the executions were meant to create a mutually recognised boundary between interactions of the people of the two religions and preventing one religion challenging another's viability. Although the violence on Christians was selective and especially carried out on elites, it served to keep Christian communities in a subordinate and yet viable position in relation to Zoroastrianism. Christians were allowed to build religious buildings and serve in the government as long as they did not expand their institutions and population at the expense of Zoroastrianism.^[74]

Khosrow I was generally regarded as tolerant of Christians and interested in the philosophical and theological disputes during his reign. Sebeos claimed he had converted to Christianity on his deathbed. John of Ephesus describes an Armenian revolt where he claims that Khusrow had attempted to impose Zoroastrianism in Armenia. The account, however, is very similar to the one of Armenian revolt of 451. In addition, Sebeos does not mention any religious persecution in his account of the revolt of 571.^[75] A story about Hormizd IV's tolerance is preserved by the historian al-Tabari. Upon being asked why he tolerated Christians, he replied, "Just as our royal throne cannot stand upon its front legs without its two back ones, our kingdom cannot stand or endure firmly if we cause the Christians and adherents of other faiths, who differ in belief from ourselves, to become hostile to us."^[76]

During the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628

Main article:

Sasanian conquest and occupation of Jerusalem

Several months after the Persian conquest in AD 614, a riot occurred in Jerusalem, and the Jewish governor of Jerusalem Nehemiah was killed by a band of young Christians along with his "council of the righteous" while he was making plans for the building of the Third Temple. At this time the Christians had allied themselves with the Eastern Roman Empire. Shortly afterward, the events escalated into a full-scale Christian rebellion, resulting in a battle against the Jews and Christians who were living in Jerusalem. In the battle's aftermath, many Jews were killed and the survivors fled to Caesarea, which was still being held by the Persian army.

The Judeo-Persian reaction was ruthless – Persian Sasanian general Xorheam assembled Judeo-Persian troops and went and encamped around Jerusalem and besieged it for 19 days.^[77] Eventually, digging beneath the foundations of the Jerusalem, they destroyed the wall and on the 19th day of the siege, the Judeo-Persian forces took Jerusalem.^[77]

According to the account of the Armenian ecclesiastic and historian Sebeos, the siege resulted in a total Christian death toll of 17,000, the earliest and thus most commonly accepted figure.^[78]: 207 Per Strategius, 4,518 prisoners alone were massacred near Mamilla reservoir.^[79] A cave containing hundreds of skeletons near the Jaffa Gate, 200 metres east of the large Roman-era pool in Mamilla, correlates with the massacre of Christians at hands of the Persians mentioned in the writings of Strategius. While reinforcing the evidence of massacre of Christians, the archaeological evidence seem less conclusive on the destruction of Christian churches and monasteries in Jerusalem.^{[79][80][failed verification]}

According to the later account of Strategius, whose perspective appears to be that of a Byzantine Greek and shows an antipathy towards the Jews,^[81] thousands of Christians were massacred during the conquest of the city. Estimates based on varying copies of Strategos's manuscripts range from 4,518 to 66,509 killed.^[79] Strategos wrote that the Jews offered to help them escape death if they "become Jews and deny Christ", and the Christian captives refused. In anger the Jews allegedly purchased Christians to kill them.^[82] In 1989, a mass burial grave at Mamilla cave was discovered in by Israeli archeologist Ronny Reich, near the site where Strategius recorded the massacre took place. The human remains were in poor condition containing a minimum of 526 individuals.^[83]

From the many excavations carried out in the Galilee, it is clear that all churches had been destroyed during the period between the Persian invasion and the Arab conquest in 637. The church at Shave Ziyyon was destroyed and burnt in 614. Similar fate befell churches at Evron, Nahariya, 'Arabe and monastery of Shelomi. The monastery at Kursi was damaged in the invasion.^[84]

Pre-Islamic Arabia

Main article: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

In AD 516, tribal unrest broke out in Yemen and several tribal elites fought for power. One of those elites was Joseph

Byzantine Greek sources claim that he fought his war because Christians in Yemen refused to renounce Christianity. In 2009, a documentary that aired on the BBC defended the claim that the villagers had been offered the choice between conversion to Judaism or death and 20,000 Christians were then massacred by stating that "The production team spoke to many historians over a period of 18 months, among them Nigel Groom, who was our consultant, and Professor Abdul Rahman Al-Ansary, a former professor of archaeology at the King Saud University in Riyadh."^[85] Inscriptions documented by Yousef himself show the great pride that he expressed after killing more than 22,000 Christians in Zafar and Najran.^[86] Historian Glen Bowersock described this massacre as a "savage pogrom that the Jewish king of the Arabs launched against the Christians in the city of Najran. The king himself reported in excruciating detail to his Arab and Persian allies about the massacres that he had inflicted on all Christians who refused to convert to Judaism."^[87]

Early Middle Ages

Rashidun Caliphate

Since they are considered "

Zoroastrians), which was inferior to the status of Muslims.^[88][89] Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and persecution in that they were banned from proselytising (for Christians, it was forbidden to evangelize or spread Christianity) in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs.^[88] Under the Islamic law (sharīʿa), Non-Muslims were obligated to pay the jizya and kharaj taxes,^[88][89] together with periodic heavy ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam.^[88] Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would sell them as slaves to Muslim households where they were forced to convert to Islam.^[88]

According to the tradition of the

martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers;^{[89][90][91][92]} many were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.^[90][91][92]

When Amr ibn al-As conquered Tripoli in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their jizya.^[93][94][95]

Around the year 666 C.E Uqba ibn Nafi “conquered the southern Tunisian cities... slaughtering all the Christians living there."^[96] Muslim sources report him waging countless raids, often ending with the complete ransacking and mass enslavement of cities.^[97]

Archaeological evidence from North Africa in the region of Cyrenaica points to the destruction of churches along the route the Islamic conquerors followed in the late seventh century, and the remarkable artistic treasures buried along the routes leading to the North of Spain by fleeing Visigoths and Hispano-Romans during the early eighth century consist largely of religious and dynastic paraphernalia that the Christian inhabitants obviously wanted to protect from Muslim looting and desecration.^[98]

Umayyad Caliphate

According to the

hadd, which could include the Islamic death penalty.^[90][91][92]

In general, Christians subject to Islamic rule were allowed to practice their religion with some notable limitations stemming from the apocryphal

Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, who slowly converted to Islam.^[102]

In

Abd al-Rahman II and Muhammad I, and Eulogius' hagiography describes in detail the executions of the martyrs for capital violations of Islamic law, including apostasy and blasphemy.^[90][91][92]

After the Arab conquests a number of Christian Arab tribes suffered enslavement and forced conversion.[104]

In the early eighth century under the Umayyads, 63 out of a group of 70 Christian pilgrims from

Iconium were captured, tortured, and executed under the orders of the Arab Governor of Ceaserea for refusing to convert to Islam (seven were forcibly converted to Islam under torture). Soon afterwards, sixty more Christian pilgrims from Amorium were crucified in Jerusalem.^[105]

Almoravid Caliphate

The Almohads wreaked enormous destruction on the Christian population of Iberia. Tens of thousands of the native Christians in Iberia (Hispania) were deported from their ancestral lands to Africa by the Almoravids and Almohads.They suspected that the christians could pose as a fifth column that could potentially help their coreligionists in the north of Iberia. Many Christians died en route to north Africa during these expulsions.[106]^[107] Christians under the Almoravids suffered persecutions and mass expulsions to Africa. In 1099 the Almoravids sacked the great church of the city of Granada. In 1101 Christians fled from the city of Valencia to the Catholic kingdoms. In 1106 the Almoravids deported Christians from Malaga to Africa. In 1126, after a failed Christian rebellion in Granada, the Almoravids expelled the city's entire Christian population to Africa. And in 1138, Ibn Tashufin forcibly took many thousands of Christians with him to Africa.^[108]

The oppressed Mozarabs sent emissaries to the king of Aragon, Alphonso 1st le Batailleur (1104–1134), asking him to come to their rescue and deliver them from the Almoravids. Following the raid the king of Aragon launched in Andalusia in 1125–26 in responding to the pleas of Grenada's Mozarabs, the latter were deported en masse to Morocco in the fall of 1126.^[109] Another wave of expulsions to africa took place 11 years later and as a result very very few Christians were left in Andalusia. Whatever was left of the Christian Catholic population in Granada was exterminated in the aftermath of a revolt against the Almohads in 1164. The Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf boasted that he had left no church or synagogue standing in al-Andalus.^[107]

Muslim clerics in Al Andalus viewed Christians and Jews as unclean and dirty and feared that too much contact with them would contaminate Muslims. In Seville the faqih Ibn Abdun issued these regulations segregating people of the two faiths:^[110]

A Muslim must not massage a Jew or a Christian nor throw away his refuse nor clean his latrines. The Jew and the Christian are better fitted for such trades, since they are the trades of those who are vile. A Muslim should not attend to the animal of a Jew or of a Christian, nor serve him as a muleteer [neither Catholics nor Jews could ride horses; only Muslims could], nor hold his stirrup. If any Muslim is known to do this, he should be denounced.… No … [unconverted] Jew or Christian must be allowed to dress in the costume of people of position, of a jurist, or of a worthy man [this provision echoes the Pact of Umar]. They must on the contrary be abhorred and shunned and should not be greeted with the formula, “Peace be with you,” for the devil has gained mastery over them and has made them forget the name of God. They are the devil's party, “and indeed the devil's party are the losers” (Qur’an 57:22). They must have a distinguishing sign by which they are recognized to their shame [emphasis added].

Byzantine Empire

synaxaria, was supposed to have been 95 years old when he was tortured for his iconodulism.^[62]: 43 In the reign of Leo III the Isaurian (r. 717–741), he was mutilated by rhinotomy and his head burnt.^[62]

^: 43

patrikios Justinian, a courtier of the emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641), having been castrated and enrolled in the cathedral clergy of Hagia Sophia when his father was executed in 669, was later bishop of Cyzicus and then patriarch of Constantinople from 715.^{[62]: 45–46} In 730, in the reign of Leo III (r. 717–741), Germanus was deposed and banished, dying in exile at Plantanion (Akçaabat).^{[62]: 45–46} Leo III also exiled the monk John the Psichaites, an iconodule, to Cherson, where he remained until after the emperor's death.^[62]

^: 57

According only to the Synaxarion of Constantinople, the clerics

romanized: Χērólophos, lit. 'dry hill' near the Forum of Arcadius.^[62]

^: 49

Saint Andrew in Krisei was named after him, though his existence is doubted by scholars.^[62]

^: 19

Having defeated and killed the emperor Nikephoros I (r. 802–811) at the Battle of Pliska in 811, the First Bulgarian Empire's khan, Krum, also put to death a number of Roman soldiers who refused to renounce Christianity, though these martyrdoms, known only from the Synaxarion of Constantinople, may be entierely legendary.^{[62]: 66–67} In 813 the Bulgarians invaded the thema of Thrace, led by Krum, and the city of Adrianople (Edirne) was captured.^[62]: 66 Krum's successor Dukum died shortly after Krum himself, being succeeded by Ditzevg, who killed Manuel the archbishop of Adrianople in January 815.^[62]: 66 According to the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Menologion of Basil II, Ditzevg's own successor Omurtag killed some 380 Christians later that month.^[62]: 66 The victims included the archbishop of Develtos, George, and the bishop of Thracian Nicaea, Leo, as well as two strategoi called John and Leo. Collectively these are known as the Martyrs of Adrianople.^[62]: 66

The Byzantine monk Makarios, of the Pelekete monastery in Bithynia, having already refused an enviable position at court offered by the iconoclast emperor Leo IV the Khazar (r. 775–780) in return for the repudiation of his iconodulism, was expelled from the monastery by Leo V the Armenian (r. 813–820), who also imprisoned and exiled him.^[62]: 65

The patriarch Nikephoros I of Constantinople dissented from the iconoclast Council of Constantinople of 815 and was exiled by Leo V as a result.^{[62]: 74–75} He died in exile in 828.^{[62]: 74–75}

In spring 816, the Constantinopolitan monk

iconophilism by the emperor Leo V.^[62]: 28 In 815, during the reign of Leo V, having been appointed hegoumenos of the Kathara Monastery in Bithynia by the emperor Nikephoros I, John of Kathara was exiled and imprisoned first in Pentadactylon, a stronghold in Phrygia, and then in the fortress of Kriotauros in the Bucellarian thema.^{[62]: 55–56} In the reign of Michael II he was recalled, but exiled again under Theophilos, being banished to Aphousia (Avşa) where he died, probably in 835.^[62]

^: 55–56

Chora Monastery.^[62]

^: 70–71

According to

Chalke Gate of the Great Palace of Constantinople.^[62]

^: 61–62

Symeon Stylites of Lesbos was persecuted for his iconodulism in the second period of official iconoclasm. He was imprisoned and exiled, returning to Lesbos only after the vernation of icons was restored in 842.^{[62]: 32–33} The bishop George of Mytilene, who may have been Symeon's brother, was exiled from Constantinople in 815 on account of his iconophilia. He spent the last six years of his life in exile on an island, probably one of the Princes' Islands, dying in 820 or 821.^{[62]: 42–43} George's relics were taken to Mytilene to be venerated after the restoration of iconodulism to orthodoxy under the patriarch Methodios I, during which the hagiography of George was written.^{[62]: 42–43}

The bishop

Triumph of Orthodoxy.^[111]

^: 219

Evaristos, a relative of

Gallipoli peninsula) for his support of his hegumenos Nicholas and his patron the patriarch Ignatios of Constantinople when the latter was deposed by Photios I in 858.^{[62]: 41, 72–73} Both Nicholas and Evaristos went into exile.^{[62]: 41, 72–73} Only after many years was Evaristos allowed to return to Constantinople to found a monastery of his own.^{[62]: 41, 72–73} The hegumenos Nicholas, who had accompanied Evaristos to the Chersonese, was restored to his post at the Stoudios Monastery.^{[62]: 72–73} A partisan of Ignatios of Constantinople and a refugee from the Muslim conquest of Sicily, the monk Joseph the Hymnographer was banished to Cherson from Constantinople on the elevation of Ignatios's rival Photios in 858. Only after the end of Photios's patriarchate was Joseph allowed to return to the capital and become the cathedral skeuophylax of Hagia Sophia.^[62]

^: 57–58

Euthymius, a monk,

patriarch of Constantinople by the emperor. When Leo VI died and Nicholas Mystikos was recalled to the patriarchal throne, Euthymius was exiled.^[62]

^: 38–40

Abbasid Caliphate

The

patriarch of Constantinople Ignatios that "they are just and do us no wrong nor show us any violence".^[89]

According to the Synaxarion of Constantinople, the hegumenos Michael of Zobe and thirty-six of his monks at the Monastery of Zobe near Sebasteia (Sivas) were killed by a raid on the community.^[62]: 70 The perpetrator was the "emir of the Hagarenes", "Alim", probably Ali ibn-Sulayman, an Abbasid governor who raided Roman territory in 785 AD.^[62]: 70 Bacchus the Younger was beheaded in Jerusalem in 786–787 AD. Bacchus was Palestinian, whose family, having been Christian, had been converted to Islam by their father.^{[62]: 29–30} Bacchus however, remained crypto-Christian and undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, upon which he was baptized and entered the monastery of Mar Saba.^{[62]: 29–30} Reunion with his family prompted their reconversion to Christianity and Bacchus's trial and execution for apostasy under the governing emir Harthama ibn A'yan.^{[62]: 29–30}

After the 838

During the late 700s in the Abbasid Empire, Muslims destroyed two churches and a monastery near Bethlehem and slaughtered its monks. In 796, Muslims burned another twenty monks to death. In the years 809 and 813 AD, multiple monasteries, convents, and churches were attacked in and around Jerusalem; both male and female Christians were gang raped and massacred. In 929, on Palm Sunday, another wave of atrocities broke out; churches were destroyed and Christians slaughtered. al-Maqrizi records that in the year 936, “the Muslims in Jerusalem made a rising and burnt down the Church of the Resurrection [the Holy Sepulchre] which they plundered, and destroyed all they could of it".^[112]

According to the Synaxarion of Constantinople, Dounale-Stephen, having journeyed to Jerusalem, continued his pilgrimage to Egypt, where he was arrested by the local emir and, refusing to relinquish his beliefs, died in jail c. 950.^{[62]: 33–34} </ref>

When Abd Allah ibn Tahir went to besiege Kaisum, the fortress of Nasr: "There had been great oppression in the whole country because the inhabitants [christian dhimmis] were forced to bring provisions to the camp; and in every place it was a time of famine and a dearth of all sorts of things." In order to rotect themselves from their attackers cannons, Nasr ibn Shabath and his Arab troops used a stratagem that had already been tried at the siege of Balis (using christian women and children as human shields): they forced Christian women and their children to mount the walls so that they were exposed as targets for the Persians. Nasr used the same tactics at the second siege of Kaisum.^[113]

High Middle Ages (1000–1200)

Fatimid Caliphate

The caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996–1021) engaged in a persecution of Christians.^[114] Al-Hakim was "half-insane", and had perpetrated the only general persecution of Christians by Muslims until the Crusades.^[115] Al-Hakim's mother was a Christian, and he had been raised mainly by Christians, and even through the persecution al-Hakim employed Christian ministers in his government.^[116] Between 1004 and 1014, the caliph produced legislation to confiscate ecclesiastical property and burn crosses; later, he ordered that small mosques be built atop church roofs, and later still decreed that churches were to be burned.^[116] The caliph's Jewish and Muslim subjects were subjected to similarly arbitrary treatment.^[116] As part of al-Hakim's persecution, thirty thousand churches were reportedly destroyed, and in 1009 the caliph ordered the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, on the pretext that the annual Holy Fire miracle on Easter was a fake.^[116] The persecution of al-Hakim and the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre prompted Pope Sergius IV to issue a call for soldiers to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land, while European Christians engaged in a retaliatory persecution of Jews, whom they conjectured were in some way responsible for al-Hakim's actions.^[117] In the second half of the eleventh century, pilgrims brought home news of how the rise of the Turks and their conflict with the Egyptians increased the persecution of Christian pilgrims.^[117]

In 1013, at the intervention of the emperor Basil II (r. 960–1025), Christians were given permission to leave Fatimid territory.^[116] In 1016 however, the caliph was proclaimed divine, alienating his Muslim subjects by banning the hajj and the fast of ramadan, and causing him to again favor the Christians.^[116] In 1017, al-Hakim issued an order of toleration regarding Christians and Jews, while the following year confiscated ecclesiastical property was returned to the Church, including the construction materials seized by the authorities from demolished buildings.^[116]

In 1027, the emperor

Sultan Alp Arslan pledged: “I shall consume with the sword all those people who venerate the cross, and all the lands of the Christians shall be enslaved.”[118] Alp Arslan ordered the Turks:^[119]

Henceforth all of you be like lion cubs and eagle young, racing through the countryside day and night, slaying the Christians and not sparing any mercy on the Roman nation

It was said that “the emirs spread like locusts, over the face of the land,”^[120] invading every corner of Anatolia, sacking some of ancient Christianity’s most important cities, including Ephesus, home of Saint John the Evangelist; Nicaea, where Christendom’s creed was formulated in 325; and Antioch, the original see of Saint Peter, and enslaved many.^{[121][122][123]} According to French historian J. Laurent, hundreds of thousands of the native Anatolian Christians were reported to have been massacred or enslaved during the invasions of Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks.^[124][125]

Destruction and desecration of Churches became very widespread during the Turkic invasions of Anatolia which caused enormous damage to the ecclesiastical foundations throughout Asia minor:^[126]

Even before the battle of Manzikert, Turkish raids resulted in the pillaging of the famous churches of St. Basil at caesareia and of the Archangel Michael at Chonae. In the decade following 1071 the destruction of churches and the fligh the clergy became widespread. churches were often pillaged and destroyed. The churches of St. Phocas in Sinope and Nicholas at Myra, both important centers of pilgrimage, were destroyed. The monasteries of Mt. Latrus, Strobilus, and elanoudium on the western coast were sacked and the monks driven out during the early invasions, so that the monasti undations in this area were completely abandoned until the Byzantine reconquest and the extensive support of successive Byzantine emperors once more reconstituted them. Greeks were forced to surround the church of St. John at Ephesus with walls to protect it from the Turks. The disruption of active religious life in the Cappadocian cave-monastic communies is also indicated for the twelfth century.

News of the great tribulation and persecutions of the eastern Christians reached European Christians in the west in the few years after the battle of Manzikert. A Frankish eyewitness says: "Far and wide they [Muslim Turks] ravaged cities and castles together with their settlements. Churches were razed down to the ground. Of the clergyman and monks whom they captured, some were slaughtered while others were with unspeakable wickedness given up, priests and all, to their dire dominion and nuns—alas for the sorrow of it!—were subjected to their lusts."^[127] In a letter to count Robert of Flanders, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos writes:^[128]

The holy places are desecrated and destroyed in countless ways. Noble matrons and their daughters, robbed of everything, are violated one after another, like animals. Some [of their attackers] shamelessly place virgins in front of their own mothers and force them to sing wicked and obscene songs until they have finished having their ways with them... men of every age and description, boys, youths, old men, nobles, peasants and what is worse still and yet more distressing, clerics and monks and woe of unprecedented woes, even bishops are defiled with the sin of sodomy and it is now trumpeted abroad that one bishop has succumbed to this abominable sin.

In a poem, Malik Danishmend boasts: "I am Al Ghazi Danishmend, the destroyer of churches and towers". Destruction and pillaging of churches figure prominently in his poem. Another part of the poem talks about the simultaneous conversion of 5,000 people to Islam and the murder of 5,000 others.^[129]

Michael the Syrian wrote: “As the Turks were ruling the lands of Syria and Palestine, they inflicted injuries on Christians who went to pray in Jerusalem, beat them, pillaged them, and levied the poll tax [jizya]. Every time they saw a caravan of Christians, particularly of those from Rome and the lands of Italy, they made every effort to cause their death in diverse ways".^[130] Such was the fate German pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1064. According to one of the surviving pilgrims:^[131]

Accompanying this journey was a noble abbess of graceful body and of a religious outlook. Setting aside the cares of the sisters committed to her and against the advice of the wise, she undertook this great and dangerous pilgrimage. The pagans captured her, and the sight of all, these shameless men raped her until she breathed her last, to the dishonor of all Christians. Christ's enemies performed such abuses and others like them on the christians.

Crusades

In the

Crusade scholars continue to debate crusading, its causes, and its effects, so scholarship in this field repeatedly undergoes revision and reconsideration.[136]^: 96 Many early crusade scholars saw the source-histories as simple recitations of how events actually transpired, but by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scholarship was increasingly skeptical of that assumption. By 1935, Carl Erdmann published Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (The Origin of the Idea of Crusade), changing the direction of crusader studies more than any other single work by focusing on the ideology of crusade. This ideology indicated the crusades were essentially defensive, which meant that soldiers were there to provide protection for pilgrims and fellow Christians in the East and to reclaim formerly Christian lands lost to Islamic expansion and forced conversion. This ideology remained throughout the Middle Ages despite the failure to finalize these goals.^{[137]: 3 fn 10, 6, 10, 13} Constable adds that those "scholars who see the crusades as the beginning of European colonialism and expansionism would have surprised people at the time. Crusaders would not have denied some selfish aspects... but the predominant emphasis was on the defense and recovery of lands that had once been Christian and on the self-sacrifice rather than the self-seeking of the participants".^[137]: 15

Historian Robert Irwin points out that “Christians living under Muslim rule suffered during the crusading period. They were suspected of acting as spies or fifth columns for the Franks and later the Mongols as well.” According to Coptic chronicles, Saladin had many Christians in Egypt crucified in revenge against his Crusader enemies.^[138]

In 1951, Steven Runciman, a Byzantinist who saw the crusades in terms of East-West relations, wrote in the conclusion of his crusade history, that the "Holy War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance".^{[137]: 3, 9–10} Giles Constable says it is this view of the crusades that is most common among the populace.^[137]: 3 The problem with this view, according to political science professor Andrew R. Murphy,^[139] is that such concepts as intolerance were not part of eleventh century thinking about relationships for any of the various groups involved in or affected by the crusades, neither the Latins, the Byzantines, the Turks, the Baybars, nor others.^{[140]: xii–xvii} Instead, concepts of tolerance began to grow during the crusades from efforts to define legal limits and the nature of co-existence, and these ideas grew among both Christians and Muslims.^[140]: xii

These wars produced multiple massacres perpetrated by both sides. According to Mary Jane Engh's definition of religious persecution, which identifies it as "the repressive action initiated or condoned by authorities against their own people on religious grounds," it is not possible to term these acts of war as religious persecution.^[141]

After the collapse of the

Bar Hebraeus provided this contemporary assessment of the Mongols attitudes toward their Christian subjects after their conversion to Islam: “And having seen very much modesty and other habits of this kind among Christian people, certainly the Mongols loved them greatly at the beginning of their kingdom, a time ago somewhat short. But their love hath turned to such intense hatred that they cannot even see them with their eyes approvingly, because they have all alike become Muslims".^[152] Things became worse when the khan, Mahmud Ghazan, (who converted to Islam in 1295) yielded to “popular pressure which compelled him to persecute Christians,” and culminated in the following ordinance: “The churches shall be uprooted, and the altars overturned, and the celebrations of the Eucharist shall cease, and the hymns of praise, and the sounds of calls to prayer shall be abolished; and the heads of the Christians, and the heads of the congregations of the Jews, and the great men among them, shall be killed"^{[153] [154][155]}

Empowered by this ordinance and believing “that everyone who did not abandon Christianity and deny his faith should be killed,” Muslim mobs ran amok, slaughtering and wreaking havoc among Christian populations. In Armenia, church services were banned and local authorities ordered to tattoo a black mark on the shoulder of every male Christian and to pluck out the beards and inflict other humiliations on every Christian man. “When few Christians defected [to Islam] in response to these measures, the Khan then ordered that all Christian men be castrated and have one eye put out which caused many deaths in this era before antibiotics, but did lead to many conversions” to Islam.^[156][155]

The consideration which the Mongols bestowed on the Christians (particularly the Nestorians) singled them out for the hatred of the Muslims. In 1261, Muslims of Mosul pillaged and killed all those who did not convert to Islam. Several monks and community leaders and others from the common people recanted. The Kurds then descended from the mountains and attacked the Christians of the region, massacring many of them; they pillaged the convent of Mar Matai, only withdrawing after extorting a heavy ransom from the monks.^[157]

Late Middle Ages

Western Europe

Advocates of lay piety called for church reform and met with persecution from the Popes.^{[158]: 248–250} John Wycliffe (1320–1384) urged the church to give up ownership of property, which produced much of the church's wealth, and to once again embrace poverty and simplicity. He urged the church to stop being subservient to the state and its politics. He denied papal authority. John Wycliff died of a stroke, but his followers, called Lollards, were declared heretics.^[158]: 249 After the Oldcastle rebellion many were killed.^{[159]: 12, 13}

Jan Hus (1369–1415) accepted some of Wycliff's views and aligned with the Bohemian Reform movement which was also rooted in popular piety. In 1415, Hus was called to the Council of Constance where his ideas were condemned as heretical and he was handed over to the state and burned at the stake.^{[160]: 130, 135–139 [158]: 250}

The Fraticelli, who were also known as the "Little Brethren" or "Spiritual Franciscans", were dedicated followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. These Franciscans honored their vow of poverty and saw the wealth of the Church as a contributor to corruption and injustice when so many lived in poverty. They criticized the worldly behavior of many churchmen.

The leader of these brethren, Bernard Délicieux (c. 1260–1270 – 1320) was well known as he had spent much of his life battling the Dominican-run inquisitions. He confessed, after torture and threat of excommunication, to the charge of opposing the inquisitions, and was defrocked and sentenced to life in prison, in chains, in solitary confinement, and to receive nothing but bread and water. The judges attempted to ameliorate the harshness of this sentence due to his age and frailty, but Pope John XXII countermanded them and delivered the friar to Inquisitor Jean de Beaune. Délicieux died shortly thereafter in early 1320.^{[163]: 191, 196–198}

Mamluk Sultanate

when Sultan Baybars took Antioch from the Crusaders he wrote a letter to Christians boasting of the atrocities they would have seen his soldiers commit had they been there:^[164]

You would have seen your knights prostrate beneath the horses’ hooves, your houses stormed by pillagers and ransacked by looters, your wealth weighed by the quintal, your women sold four at a time and bought for a dinar of your own money! You would have seen the crosses in your churches smashed, the pages of the false Testaments scattered, the Patriarchs’ tombs overturned. You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate the Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars, bringing sudden death to the Patriarchs and slavery to the royal princes. You would have seen fire running through your palaces, your dead burned in this world before going down to the fires of the next, your palace lying unrecognizable, the Church of St. Paul and that of the Cathedral of St. Peter pulled down and destroyed; then you would have said, “Would that I were dust, and that no letter had ever brought me such tidings!”

Timurid Empire

The

Beginning in the late 17th century and for at least a century, Christianity was banned in China by the

The Muslim unit Kansu Braves which was serving in the Chinese army attacked Christians.^{[175][176][177]}

During the Northern Expedition, the Kuomintang incited anti-foreign, anti-Western sentiment. Portraits of Sun Yat-sen replaced the crucifix in several churches, KMT posters proclaimed that "Jesus Christ is dead. Why not worship something alive such as Nationalism?" Foreign missionaries were attacked and anti-foreign riots broke out.^[178] In 1926, Muslim General Bai Chongxi attempted to drive out foreigners in Guangxi, attacking American, European, and other foreigners and missionaries, and generally making the province unsafe for foreigners. Westerners fled from the province, and some Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents.^[179]

From 1894 to 1938, many Uighur Muslims converted to Christianity. They were killed, tortured and jailed.^{[180][181][182]} Christian missionaries were expelled.^[183]

French Revolution

The Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution is a conventional description of a campaign, conducted by various

The program included the following policies:^{[184][185][186]: 1}

• the deportation of clergy and the condemnation of many of them to death,
• the closing, desecration and pillaging of churches, removal of the word "saint" from street names and other acts to banish Christian culture from the public sphere
• removal of statues, plates, and other iconography from places of worship
• destruction of crosses, bells and other external signs of worship
• the institution of revolutionary and civic cults, including the Cult of Reason and subsequently the Cult of the Supreme Being,
• the large-scale destruction of religious monuments,
• the outlawing of public and private worship and religious education,
• forced marriages of the clergy,
• forced abjuration of priesthood, and
• the enactment of a law on 21 October 1793 making all nonjuring priests and all persons who harbored them liable to death on sight.

The climax was reached with the celebration of the Goddess "Reason" in Notre-Dame de Paris, the Parisian cathedral, on 10 November.

Under threat of death, imprisonment, military conscription or loss of income, about 20,000 constitutional priests were forced to abdicate or hand over their letters of ordination and 6,000 – 9,000 were coerced to marry, many ceasing their ministerial duties.

The March 1793 conscription requiring Vendeans to fill their district's quota of 300,000 enraged the populace, who took up arms as "The Catholic Army", "Royal" being added later, and fought for "above all the reopening of their parish churches with their former priests."^[188]

With these massacres came formal orders for forced evacuation; also, a 'scorched earth' policy was initiated: farms were destroyed, crops and forests burned and villages razed. There were many reported atrocities and a campaign of mass killing universally targeted at residents of the Vendée regardless of combatant status, political affiliation, age or gender.^[189] By July 1796, the estimated Vendean dead numbered between 117,000 and 500,000, out of a population of around 800,000.^{[190][191][192]}

Japan

Many of the Christians in Japan continued for two centuries to maintain their religion as Kakure Kirishitan, or hidden Christians, without any priests or pastors. Some of those who were killed for their Faith are venerated as the Martyrs of Japan.

Christianity was later allowed during the Meiji era. The Meiji Constitution of 1890 introduced separation of church and state and permitted freedom of religion.

Kingdom of Mysore

Muslim

Soon after the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, Tipu gained control of Canara.^[196] He issued orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates,^[197] and deport them to Seringapatam, the capital of his empire, through the Jamalabad fort route.^[198] There were no priests among the captives. Together with Fr. Miranda, all the 21 arrested priests were issued orders of expulsion to Goa, fined Rs 2 lakhs, and threatened death by hanging if they ever returned.^{[citation needed]} Tipu ordered the destruction of 27 Catholic churches.

According to Thomas Munro, a Scottish soldier and the first collector of Canara, around 60,000 of them,^[199] nearly 92 percent of the entire Mangalorean Catholic community, were captured. 7,000 escaped. Observer Francis Buchanan reports that 70,000 were captured, from a population of 80,000, with 10,000 escaping. They were forced to climb nearly 4,000 feet (1,200 m) through the jungles of the Western Ghat mountain ranges. It was 210 miles (340 km) from Mangalore to Seringapatam, and the journey took six weeks. According to British Government records, 20,000  of them died on the march to Seringapatam. According to James Scurry, a British officer, who was held captive along with Mangalorean Catholics, 30,000 of them were forcibly converted to Islam. The young women and girls were forcibly made wives of the Muslims living there and later distributed and sold in prostitution.^[200] The young men who offered resistance were disfigured by cutting their noses, upper lips, and ears.^[201]

Tipu Sultan's invasion of the

Historian Warren Treadgold gives a summary on the historical background highlighting the cumulative effects of the relentless Turkish Muslim depredations against the Byzantine Empire in its Anatolian heartland by the late 14th century:^[204]

As the Turks raided and conquered, they enslaved many Christians, selling some in other Muslim regions and hindering the rest from practicing their faith. Conversions [to islam], Turkish migration, and Greek outmigration increasingly endangered the Greek minority in central Asia Minor. When the Turks overran Western Anatolia, they occupied the countryside first, driving the Greeks into the cities, or away to Europe, or the islands. By the time the Anatolian cities fell, the land around them was already largely Turkish [and Islamic].

In accordance with the traditional custom which was practiced at the time, Sultan Mehmed II allowed his troops and his entourage to engage in unbridled pillaging and looting in the city of Constantinople for three full days shortly after it was captured. Once the three days passed, he claimed its remaining contents for himself.^[132][205] However, at the end of the first day, he proclaimed that the looting should cease because he felt profound sadness when he toured the looted and enslaved city.^[206][132] Hagia Sophia was not exempted from the pillage and looting and specifically became its focal point as the invaders believed it to contain the greatest treasures and valuables of the city.^[207] Shortly after the defence of the Walls of Constantinople collapsed and the Ottoman troops entered the city victoriously, the pillagers and looters made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors before storming in.^[132]

Throughout the period of the

The women of Constantinople also suffered from rape at the hands of Ottoman forces.[210] According to Barbaro, "all through the day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the city". According to historian Philip Mansel, widespread persecution of the city's civilian inhabitants took place, resulting in thousands of murders and rapes, and 30,000 civilians being enslaved or forcibly deported.^{[211][212][213][214]} George Sphrantzes says that people of both genders were raped inside Hagia Sophia.^[215]

Since the time of the

Before the late 16th century, Albania's population remained overwhelmingly

The pressures which resulted from this campaign included particularly harsh economic conditions which were imposed on Albania's Christian population; while earlier taxes on the Christians were around 45 akçes a year, by the middle of the 17th century the rate had been multiplied by 27 to 780 akçes a year. Albanian elders often opted to save their clans and villages from hunger and economic ruin by advocating village-wide and region-wide conversions to Islam, with many individuals frequently continuing to practice Christianity in private.^[220]

A failed Catholic rebellion in 1596 and the Albanian population's support of Austro-Hungary during the

After the Orthodox Serbian population's subsequent flight from Kosovo, the pasha of Ipek (Peja/Pec) forced Albanian Catholic mountaineers to repopulate Kosovo by deporting them to Kosovo, and also forced them adopt Islam.[221]^[227] In the 17th and 18th centuries, South Albania also saw numerous instances of violence which was directed against those who remained Christian by local newly converted Muslims, ultimately resulting in many more conversions out of fear as well as flight to faraway lands by the Christian population.^{[229][230][223][231][232]}

Modern era (1815 to 1989)

Communist Albania

Religion in Albania was subordinated to the interests of Marxism during the rule of the country's communist party when all religions were suppressed. This policy was justified by the communist stance of state atheism from 1967 to 1991.^[233] The Agrarian Reform Law of August 1945 nationalized most of the property which belonged to religious institutions, including the estates of mosques, monasteries, religious orders, and dioceses. Many clergy and believers were tried and some of them were executed. All foreign Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns were expelled from Albania in 1946.^[234][235] The military seized Churches, cathedrals and mosques and converted them into basketball courts, movie theaters, dance halls, and the like; and members of the Clergy were stripped of their titles and imprisoned.^[236][237] Around 6,000 Albanians were disappeared and murdered by agents of the Communist government, and their bodies were never found or identified. Albanians continued to be imprisoned, tortured and killed for their religious practices well into 1991.^[238]

Religious communities or branches of them which had their headquarters outside the country, such as the

The Assyrians were subjected to another series of persecutions during the

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Persecutions of the Catholic Church
Overview Historical persecution of Christians Catholic Church persecutions 1939–1958 Eradication of the Church under Stalinism Eastern Catholic persecutions Persecution of Christians in the modern era
Roman Empire Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire Diocletianic Persecution
Neo-Persian Empire Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem
Byzantine Empire Massacre of the Latins
Muslim world Muslim conquests Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques Armenian genocide Assyrian genocide Greek genocide Kosheh massacres
Saudi Arabia Christianity in Saudi Arabia
Sudan Christianity in Sudan
Egypt Maspero demonstrations
Islamic terrorism Genocide of Christians by the Islamic State
Japan Martyrs of Japan
European wars of religion Thirty Years' War Reformation
France Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution War in the Vendée Martyrs of Compiègne
Mexico Cristero War Iniquis afflictisque Acerba animi Saints José Sánchez del Río Anti-clericalism in Mexico Miguel Pro
Spain Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War Red Terror Dilectissima Nobis Martyrs of Turon Martyrs of Daimiel Bartolomé Blanco Innocencio of Mary Immaculate José María of Manila 233 Spanish Martyrs 498 Spanish Martyrs 522 Spanish Martyrs
Netherlands Titus Brandsma
Germany Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany Mit brennender Sorge Alfred Delp Alois Grimm Rupert Mayer Bernhard Lichtenberg Max Josef Metzger Karl Leisner Erich Klausener
China Martyr Saints of China Auguste Chapdelaine Persecution of Christians in China Ad Sinarum gentem Cupimus Imprimis Ad Apostolorum principis Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei Beda Chang Dominic Tang
Vietnam Vietnamese Martyrs Nguyễn Văn Thuận 1963 South Vietnamese coup, arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm )
Poland Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland Maksymilian Kolbe Polish anti-religious campaign 1945–1990 Stefan Wyszyński 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs Policies In Poloniae annalibus Gloriosam Reginam Invicti athletae Jerzy Popiełuszko
Eastern Europe József Mindszenty Eugene Bossilkov Severian Baranyk Josef Beran Drina Martyrs Zynoviy Kovalyk Aloysius Stepinac Meminisse iuvat Anni sacri Sára Salkaházi Walter Ciszek Pietro Leoni Theodore Romzha
India Violence against Christians in India 2008 attacks on Christians in southern Karnataka
El Salvador Four U.S. missionaries Ignacio Ellacuría Rutilio Grande Ignacio Martín-Baró Segundo Montes Óscar Romero 1989 murders of Jesuits
Nigeria Religious violence in Nigeria
Guatemala Stanley Rother
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v t e

Hitler and the Nazis received some support from certain Christian fundamentalist communities, mainly due to their common cause against the anti-religious Communists, as well as their mutual Judeophobia and antisemitism. Once in power, the Nazis moved to consolidate their power over the German churches and bring them in line with Nazi ideals. Some historians say that Hitler had a general covert plan, which some of them say existed even before the Nazis' rise to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich, which was to be accomplished through Nazi control and subversion of the churches and it would be completed after the war.^[243] The Third Reich founded its own version of Christianity which was called Positive Christianity, a Nazi version of Christianity which made major changes in the interpretation of the Bible by arguing that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but he was not a Jew, arguing that Jesus despised Jews and Judaism, and arguing that the Jews were the ones who were solely responsible for Jesus's death.^{[citation needed]}

Outside mainstream Christianity, the Jehovah's Witnesses were targets of Nazi Persecution, for their refusal to swear allegiance to the Nazi government. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s, Jehovah's Witnesses refused to renounce their political neutrality and as a result, they were imprisoned in concentration camps. The Nazi government gave detained Jehovah's Witnesses the option of release if they signed a document which indicated their renunciation of their faith, their submission to state authority, and their support of the German military.^[244] Historian Hans Hesse said, "Some five thousand Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps where they alone were 'voluntary prisoners', so termed because the moment they recanted their views, they could be freed. Some lost their lives in the camps, but few renounced their faith."^[245][246]

Ottoman Empire

During the modern era, relations between Muslims and Christians in the

On 17 October 1850 the Muslim majority began rioting against the Uniate Catholics – a minority that lived in the communities of Judayda, in the city of Aleppo.^[250]

During the

The abolition of jizya and emancipation of formerly dhimmi subjects was one of the most embittering stipulations the Ottoman Empire had to accept to end the Crimean War in 1856. Then, "for the first time since 1453, church bells were permitted to ring... in Constantinople," writes M. J. Akbar. "Many Muslims declared it a day of mourning." Indeed, because superior social standing was from the start one of the advantages of conversion to Islam, resentful Muslim mobs rioted and hounded Christians all over the empire. In 1860 up to 30,000 Christians were massacred in the Levant alone.^[255] Mark Twain recounts what took place in the levant:^[256]

Men, women and children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all through the Christian quarter... the stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the city, and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the 'infidel dogs.' The thirst for blood extended to the high lands of Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, and in a short time twenty-five thousand more Christians were massacred.

Between 1894 and 1896 a series of ethno-religiously motivated Anti-Christian

In the aftermath of the Sheikh Said rebellion, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East were subjected to harassment by Turkish authorities, on the grounds that some Assyrians allegedly collaborated with the rebelling Kurds.^[283] Consequently, mass deportations took place and Assyrian Patriarch Mar Ignatius Elias III was expelled from the Mor Hananyo Monastery which was turned into a Turkish barrack. The patriarchal seat was then temporarily transferred to Homs.

Soviet Union

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks undertook a massive program to remove the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the government, outlawed antisemitism in society, and promoted atheism. Tens of thousands of churches were destroyed or they were converted to buildings which were used for other purposes, and many members of the clergy were murdered, publicly executed and imprisoned for what the government termed "anti-government activities". An extensive educational and propaganda campaign was launched to convince people, especially children and youths, to abandon their religious beliefs. This persecution resulted in the intentional murder of 500,000 Orthodox followers by the government of the Soviet Union during the 20th century.^[285] In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.^[286]

The state established atheism as the only scientific truth.^{[287][288][289][290]} Soviet authorities forbade the criticism of atheism and agnosticism until 1936 or of the state's anti-religious policies; such criticism could lead to forced retirement.^{[291][292][293]} Militant atheism became central to the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a high priority policy of all Soviet leaders.^[294] Christopher Marsh, a professor at the Baylor University writes that "Tracing the social nature of religion from Schleiermacher and Feurbach to Marx, Engles, and Lenin...the idea of religion as a social product evolved to the point of policies aimed at the forced conversion of believers to atheism."^[295]

Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to

After Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church in order to intensify the Soviet population's patriotic support of the war effort. By 1957, about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced about 12,000 churches to close. By 1985, fewer than 7,000 churches remained active.^[286]

In the Soviet Union, in addition to the methodical closure and destruction of churches, the charitable and social work which was formerly done by ecclesiastical authorities was taken over by the state. As with all private property, Church owned property was confiscated and converted to public use by the state. The few places of worship which were left to the Church were legally viewed as state property which the government permitted the church to use. After the advent of state funded universal education, the Church was not permitted to carry on educational, instructional activity for children. For adults, only training for church-related occupations was allowed. With the exception of sermons which could be delivered during the celebration of the divine liturgy, it could not instruct the faithful nor could it evangelize the youth. Catechism classes, religious schools, study groups, Sunday schools and religious publications were all declared illegal and banned. This caused many religious tracts to be circulated as illegal literature or

Klaus Wetzel, an internationally recognized expert on religious persecution, states that this discrepancy in numbers is due to the contradiction between the definition used by Gordon-Conwell defining Christian martyrdom in the widest possible sense, and the more sociological and political definition Wetzel and Open Doors and others such as The International Institute for Religious Freedom use, which is: 'those who are killed, who would not have been killed, if they had not been Christians.'[337]

Numbers are affected by several important factors, for example, population distribution is a factor. The United States submits an annual report on religious freedom and persecution to the Congress which recognizes restrictions on religious freedom, ranging from low to very high, in three-quarters of the world's countries including the United States. In approximatrly one quarter of the world's countries, there are high and very high restrictions and oppression, and some of those countries, such as China and India, Indonesia and Pakistan are among those with the highest populations.^[338] About three-quarters of the world's population live in the most oppressive countries in the world.^[337]

Numbers of martyrs are especially difficult to accurately identify, because religious persecution often occurs in conjunction with wider conflicts. This fact complicates the identification of acts of persecution because they may be politically rather than religiously motivated.

The Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte[344] – the International Society for Human Rights – in Frankfurt, Germany, is a non-governmental organization with 30,000 members from 38 countries who monitor human rights. In September 2009, then chairman Martin Lessenthin,^[345] issued a report estimating that 80% of acts of religious persecution around the world were aimed at Christians at that time.^[346][347]

W. J. Blumenfeld says that Christianity enjoys dominant group privilege in the US and some other Western societies.^[348] Christianity is, numerically, the largest religion in the U.S. according to PEW, with 43% of Americans identifying themselves as Protestants and one in five (20%) of Americans identifying themselves as Catholics.^[349] It remains the largest religion in the world.^[350] Roughly two-thirds of the world's countries have Christian majorities.^[351] Due to the large number of Christian majority countries, differing groups of Christians are harassed and persecuted in Christian countries such as Eritrea^[352] and Mexico^[353] more often than in most Muslim countries, though not in greater numbers.^[351]

According to PEW, the Middle East and North Africa have experienced the highest rates of restrictions on non-favorite religions for the last decade, being higher than any other region, each year, from 2007 to 2017.^[354] But it's the gap between this region and other regions where government favoritism is concerned that is particularly large: "the average country in this region scores nearly twice as high on measures of government favoritism of one religion as the average country in any other region".^[354]

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan independent federal agency which was created by the United States Congress in 1998, published a study of the predominantly Muslim countries which are located in the Middle Eastern/North African region. It concludes that, of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, "28 percent live in ten countries that declare themselves to be Islamic states. In addition, there are 12 predominantly Muslim countries that have chosen to declare that Islam is the official state religion ... Taken together, the 22 states that declare that Islam is the official religion account for 58 percent – or just over 600 million – of the 1 billion Muslims living in 44 predominantly Muslim countries.^[355]: 6

"Several countries with constitutions establishing Islam as the state religion either do not contain guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief, or they contain guarantees that, on their face, do not compare favorably with all aspects of international [human rights] standards."

In its annual report, the USCIRF lists 14 "Countries of Particular Concern" with regard to religious rights and it also lists 15 additional countries which it has recommended be placed on the U.S. Department of State's Special Watch List (SWL), a lesser category than the CPC designation.[5] Of these 29 countries, 17 of them are predominantly Muslim countries, mostly located in the Middle East and North Africa, representing less than half of the 44 predominantly Muslim countries in the world, the rest of which are either secular or have not declared any state religion. Of the remaining countries, two of them have populations which are almost equally Christian and Muslim, both of them have official state versions of Christianity and Islam, four other countries are predominantly Christian countries where adherents of non-official or non-favored varieties of Christianity and adherents of other religions are persecuted, one country is predominantly Buddhist, and one country is predominantly Hindu. Eight of these countries are either current or former communist states such as China, Cuba, Russia and Vietnam. Twenty four of the USCIRF's twenty nine countries are also included on Open Doors Worldwide Watch list because they are especially dangerous for Christians.^[357]

Eleven predominantly Muslim countries are ruled by governments which proclaim that their states are secular. "These countries account for nearly 140 million Muslims, or 13.5 percent of the 1 billion Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries. The 11 remaining predominantly Muslim countries have not made any constitutional declaration concerning the Islamic or secular nature of the state, and have not made Islam the official state religion. This group of countries, which includes Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, accounts for over 250 million Muslims".^[355]: 6 This demonstrates that the majority of the world's Muslim population live in countries that either proclaim the state to be secular, or that make no pronouncements concerning Islam as the official state religion.^[355]: 2

See also

• Anti-Christian sentiment
• Criticism of Christianity
• Category:Critics of Christianity
  • Anti-Catholicism
  • Anti-Mormonism
  • Anti-Protestantism
  • Persecution of Eastern Orthodox Christians
  • Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
  • Sectarian violence among Christians
• Christian martyrs
• Christian persecution complex
• Persecution of Hindus
• Persecution of traditional African religions
• Sign of contradiction

Notes