CHRISTIANITY

CHRISTIANITY

The birth of Jesus began with an erratic 2000-year history of miracles and charity, but also of strife and persecution: the story of the faith in Christ to which nearly 2 billion people in the world today confess.

The news makes the Roman Senator Tiro sit up and take notice. The commander of the imperial bodyguard should be a Christian? Tiro's wife Sulpicia shakes her head: "One of those horrible people who meet in secret gatherings and disobey our gods, is not that a religion for freedmen and slaves, not for noble people?" Tiro agrees, "Yes, because Christians preach that every human being is the same, slaves are stupid enough to believe such assaults."

Thus, about 1900 years ago, rich Romans talked about a new religion called Christianity. At that time she was still considered a sect. From about 20,000 to 30,000 faithful, the Christian community of Rome counted towards the end of the first century. But soon the small followership should become the largest religious community in the world.

FROM MULTI-GOD BELIEF TO ONLY ONE GOD

Tiro and Sulpicia must have felt this new religion weird. Like most humans, they believed in several gods: Jupiter, the Lord of Heaven, the god of war Mars or the goddess of love Venus. But now men came from Judea, now Israel and Palestine, preaching the faith of one God only.

The Christian missionaries especially inspired the poor Romans with the life story of a man named Jesus Christ.

He had traveled through Judea and Galilee and had prophesied to the people the speedy coming of the kingdom of heaven. Many saw in him the long-awaited "Messiah", the Son of God made man.

In Jerusalem, the preacher was later arrested and crucified for blasphemy and sedition. Two days after the execution his followers found the grave of their idol abandoned. In a flash, the rumor spread that Jesus had risen from the dead.

EASTER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FESTIVAL OF CHRİSTİANS

Nobody knows what happened in Jerusalem at the time. But one thing is certain: this Sunday was the birth of Christianity. Since then, there is the belief that Jesus is risen to show people that there is an eternal life. Even today, Christians around the world celebrate this miracle with Easter - the oldest and most important feast of the Christian Church.

The resurrection encourages the followers of Jesus to spread their faith in the Roman Empire. The message of Jesus goes from mouth to mouth and changes in the process. Some facts fall away, others are added.

When, about 70 years after Christ's birth, the account of his life and ministry in the Gospel of Mark is written for the first time, truth and legend mix. The text is not a factual report. He describes the life of the Savior as a model according to which his followers can conform.

CHRISTIANITY BECOMES STATE RELIGION 380 YEARS AFTER CHRIST

The Gospel of Mark, along with the three other Gospels, 21 Apostolic Epistles, and many other stories, is part of the New Testament - the Bible, the main foundation of Christianity. For almost 250 years, Christians were a thorn in the side of the Roman emperors.

MISSIONARY IN ALL PARTS OF EUROPE

They are arrested, thrown to the lions in cruel circus games, or die at imperial garden festivals as living torches. The triumph of the new religion does not prevent that.

In the year 380, Christianity became the Roman state religion. In the following centuries, missionaries preach in all parts of Europe; Monasteries arise; The Catholic Church is growing into a rich and powerful institution, headed by the elected Pope.

And from around the sixth century on, Western Europe even counts the years after the birth of Jesus Christ. Because of sheer luxury and power, some church leaders, however, forget their own religious roots.

1517: THE BIRTH OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS

           

To live in poverty or to share the property with others, as Jesus preached, does not occur to them. On the contrary. They even drive their notorious indulgence trade - they sell documents, which are awarded to a sinner, for example, the murder of his parents. For four ducats the act is forgotten.

Behind the magnificent church facade it begins to bubble. More and more criticism is loud. The German monk Martin Luther demands 1517 in his writings to renew the church, to reform. Luther says that no one can sell the grace of God because only God himself forgives the sinner. Luther wants to dissolve the monasteries and denies the church leadership the right to see themselves as mediators between God and men.

It comes to a dispute and finally to the division of the Church into Catholics on the one hand and Reformed or Protestant on the other. Already 500 years earlier, Rome had banished Orthodox Christians from their church. The followers of the Orthodox churches live mainly in Greece, Russia, the Black Sea and the Balkans.

THERE ARE NOW MORE THAN 1200 CHRISTIAN GROUPS IN THE USA

The two divisions were only the beginning. To date, the nearly two billion Christians in the world have taken countless faiths. The three main currents of Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy are the strongest, but in the US alone, there are now 1200 different Christian groups, some of whom have some very strange rituals.

For example, members of a community in the state of Alabama are convinced they protect their firm beliefs from the venom of the rattlesnake. It supposedly in the past decades, 40 believers have died of the snakebites! If that's not enough, you can choose between 3,000 Christian sects in the US - a variety of faith that would have been unimaginable for Tiro and Sulpicia.