How did Constantine convince the Romans to become christian?

Answer 1

A:The Roman emperor was traditionally the head of the pagan religion, required to perform certain pagan rites annually. Instead, Constantine saw himself as the head of the Christian Church. He completely controlled the bishops and chose every bishop when a vacancy arose. His dominance over them was embodied in the statement "my will must be considered binding". Concerned at divisions in the Christian Church, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea and ensured that its agenda passed.

He granted state patronage to the Church, provided substantial stipends to its clergy and exempted them from taxes, and embarked on a campaign of building magnificent churches across the empire. The new city of Constantinople was to be a Christian city, devoid of the usual pagan temples. Along with Constantine's personal extravagance, this required the imposition of swingeing taxes on the middle classes, as the landed classes were favoured. Lactantius, a Christian who usually supported Constantine, said that as the fatal time for taxation approached, all the towns were seen in tears and grief. The scourge and the rack were used against those whose extreme poverty could not support this unjust tax. Mothers sold their children, and fathers prostituted their daughters to pay the tax.

In addition to the state patronage and support Constantine provided for the Christian Church, he began the long persecution of the pagan temples. Across the empire many were demolished on various pretexts, to make way for Christian churches. He sent Christians into the temples to plunder them for the state treasury and allowed the Church to enrich itself from some of the plunder. The temples were being weakened as the churches prospered.

Another Answer

Constantine the Great even commissioned the construction of several grand cathedrals.

Answer 2

He didn't. Constantine was not on a conversion mission. All he did was make Christianity legal along with all the other religions of the time. It is true that Constantine was favorable to the Christians but politics played a part there. It was Theodosius who made Christianity mandatory for all in the year 380.

Answer 3

He did not persecute them in the Roman Empire. He favoured them: would try not to hire pagans, gave them the sabbath off, gives a large sum of money to churches, reinstated churches lost in the great purge.

Answer 4

Constantine attributed his conversion to Christianity to the vision he saw in the sky, presumably of stars (or other stellar objects) that formed the shape of a cross or something cross-like. This happened just before the battle of the Milvian Bridge, in 312.

Beyond reporting what he claimed, it is only speculation. However, Constantine's actions after his victory at Milvian Bridge, over the usurper Maxentius, leads us to think that Constantine believed that his safety as emperor, and the safety of the empire as a whole, depended upon the Christian god, known to us simply as God.

If we seek for the underlying reasons for his conversion, it is notable that his father, Caesar and then Emperor Constantius I, was a very reluctant persecutor, despite the pressure that would have been put on him by his colleagues in the Tetrarchy (two (equal) emperors and two (subordinate) caesars) during the so-called Great Persecution. It is possible that Constantius' wife (and Constantine's mother), Helena, was already a Christian when she married Constantius.

It is also notable that Constantine received much of his education in Nicomedia, in the province of Bithynia in Anatolia (modern Turkey), and Christianity was already very strong in that region. Here Christianity is likely to have been given a high status as a form of philosophy.

In addition, Constantine could not have helped noticing that almost all of the more recent persecutors, one after another, abandoned the persecution of the Church. If he perceived that the persecutors had all failed, it is likely that Constantine considered that they had all been wrong.

For more information, see the related questions below:

• "Was Constantine's conversion to Christianity real?"
• "Why was Constantine's conversion to Christianity so important?"

Additional Comments:

Though mainstream history notes Constantine as the first 'Christian' Roman Emperor, it appears more likely that he converted for alterior motives. Being challenged with the keeping of his new empire united, Constantine surely recognized the value of religion in this unification process he was engaged in. IMO, this was one of Constantine's primary motivations in accepting and sanctioning the 'Christian' religion - which at this time it looked and behaved nothing like the teachings of Christ or the Apostles (corollary to Muhammed in 7th Century perhaps).

Here was a Roman Emeror who worshipped the sun god 'Sol Invictus' and was baptized into the Christian faith upon his deathbed. During his reign as Emperor of Rome, he had his eldest son killed and his wife murdered. Also, during his reign, he was vehemently anti-Semetic, referring to them in one of his edicts as 'the detestable Jewish crowd' and 'the customs of these most wicked men' (Sunday becomes new day of worship to differentiate from the Jewish tradition). However, these Jewish people are of the same line of Christ's human ancestry and that of the Apostles. These customs noted were rooted in the Scripture and practiced by Jesus and the Apostles as well. Now does this sound like a converted man showing signs of his new faith?

Solidifying his power was the main impetus for his religious 'conversion.' He quickly convened the Council of Nicaea to stem the 'new danger' arising in his Empire which was splitting his base of support into bitter and warring camps.

Answer 5

He saw a flaming cross in the sky before he went into battle with the words underneath it saying "in this sign you will conquer" he won the battle then became christian

Answer 6

There is no proof that Constantine ever converted to Christianity.