Cloud

 Jesus' teachings and his ardent supporters, who were handed over to the Roman soldiers with a kiss on Jesus’ cheek by Judas, would soon disappear like a flame of straw after his death. The army of the poor, the outcast that he gathered in Judea, with their only saviors disappearance - as they left him alone even in the smallest obstacle during Jesus’ lifetime – would abandon his teachings; not only because of the Roman Empire’s oppression, but also to avoid the judgy gazes of the Pharisees. The Pharisees, who had always stated that his beliefs were an unacceptable interpretation of the Old Testament, who wanted him to be humiliated with the questions they asked, thought that with the death of Jesus, all the problems would disappear and the teachings of Jesus would vanish. However, there was something wrong with their own prophecies. Regardless of how much pressure and persecution they suffered, the 13 disciples that Jesus had brought up were determined to spread the word of God (Judas was not a traitor, he was faithful to the word of Jesus. Faithful enough to pave Jesus’ way to his own crucifixion by his own request...). Resurrecting and meeting with his disciples 3 days after the day of the crucifixion, Jesus asked all the students who witnessed this miracle to spread what they learned and saw wherever they go without discriminating anybody, and returned to the Lord.

The angel asked Jesus there: “What did you do while you were on the earth?”

He replied:  “I trained students and that was enough”

These 13 students, whom he had trained, separated their roads by not sticking around any longer in the city where Jesus was crucified and these disciples were scattered all over world. Approximately 300 years would pass from Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor who did not want the death of Jesus, to Constantine I, the first Roman emperor to accept Christianity, and within 300 years, Christianity would become an emperor's religion.

The spiritual experience of Constantine was effective in his convergence with Christianity. Seeing a cross sign in his dream and the words "You will defeat the enemy with this sign" and commenting on his dream, Constantine drew the letters ‘chi’ and ‘rho’, the initials of the word Jesus, on the shields of his soldiers and went to war against Maxentius. The winner of the war was Constantine. After this incident, Constantine decided to create an union among the Christians. The beliefs of Arius were the focus of interest among the followers of Jesus Christ. His ideas denied the immortality of him, seperating him from the God. Constantine, on the other hand, had accepted a belief which says that God and Jesus Christ were homo-ousios (of the same essence). Thus, the beliefs of Arius had to be exiled just like himself from the Roman Empire. According to some historical recordings, it is said that Constantine himself had never been a Christian, but was baptised on his deathbed. Other historical recordings show that he followed Pagan values although he was considering himself as a Christian. Nevertheless, Christianity, as the official religion of the Roman Empire, was accepted by Theodosius, not by Constantin.

During Theodosius’ reign, pagan values had lost their values drastically. There had been several incidents that caused this change. First of all, Theodosius closed all the pagan temples and their rituals. This helped the church to maintain its power in the empire by the funds from the government. Secondly, Theodosius emphasized the importance of Constantinopolis’ prelate by putting him as the 2nd after the Rome’s prelate in the ranking of their importance. In addition, Theodosius was against Arianism. He kicked the Arian prelate out of Constantinopolis and gave the city’s churches to the Nicaeans.

To sum up, Christianity had long been under oppression by the powerful – The Roman Empire, until Constantine saw a dream – a dream where he saw the future of his empire next to the Christianity. Soon after, the church in Constantinople would be equal to that of Rome by the help of Theosidous, and Christianity would be regarded as the official religion of the empire.
 

---