GET HEIRLOOM SEEDS & NON GMO SURVIVAL FOOD HERE:https://heavensharvest.com/ USE Code WAM to save 5%!GET FREEZE DRIED BEEF HERE:https://wambeef.com/ Use Code WAMBEEF to save 25%!10+ Year Shelf life & All Natural!GET TICKETS TO ANARCHAPULCO HERE:https://anarchapulco.com/ Save money by using code WAMGET YOUR WAV WATCH HERE:https://buy.wavwatch.com/WAM Use Code WAM to save $100 and purchase amazing healing frequency technology!BUY GOLD HERE:https://firstnationalbullion.com/schedule-consult/ GET YOUR APRICOT SEEDS at the life-saving Richardson Nutritional Center HERE:https://rncstore.com/r?id=bg8qc1 Josh Sigurdson reports on the alleged "military coup" happening in Tel Aviv, Israel as Benjamin Netanyahu faces massive protests following his firing of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in an attempt to save his incredibly bad reputation.Following the firing, thousands hit the streets and rows of military appeared to be walking off the job.This comes the same day that Netanyahu among other Israeli government officials like Ben Gvir and Smotrich praised Trump's win. Netanyahu called it "history's greatest comeback."Both sides of the American political paradigm bow to Israel but it should be mentioned that while 79% of Jewish people who voted in the election voted for Kamala Harris, Trump claimed his first order of business as President was to "crush anti-semitism." Whatever that means.Israeli settlers are acquiring huge numbers of high-caliber weapons to prepare for war in the West Bank.Israel has confirmed a ground raid in Syria this past July.Israel has killed over 50 children in Jabalia just 48 hours.52 nations have called for a weapons embargo on Israel as they attempt to go to war with Iran which is of course one of Russia and China's greatest allies.They're engineering war to force the world into chaos and compliance to a new technocratic system that will be deemed a "solution" to the problems they created in the first place.No government official is going to save you. Individuals must stand up. They're manipulating the public into supporting one side or the other instead of simply leaving the plantation. Stop sitting on your hands.Stay tuned for more from WAM!GET YOUR FREEDOM KELLY KETTLE KIT HERE:https://patriotprepared.com/shop/freedom-kettle/ Use Code WAM and enjoy many solutions for the outdoors in the face of the impending reset!HELP SUPPORT US AS WE DOCUMENT HISTORY HERE:https://gogetfunding.com/help-wam-cover-history/ PayPal: ancientwonderstelevision@gmail.comFIND OUR CoinTree page here:https://cointr.ee/joshsigurdson JOIN US on SubscribeStar here:https://www.subscribestar.com/world-alternative-media For subscriber only content!Pledge here! Just a dollar a month can help us alive!https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2652072&ty=h&u=2652072 BITCOIN ADDRESS:18d1WEnYYhBRgZVbeyLr6UfiJhrQygcgNUWorld Alternative Media2024

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Culture Tranquility in a City Without Peace Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.’s own rural manor house, opens again for the winter season. Credit: image via Shutterstock For the last few weeks, most people in Washington, D.C. have been feverishly counting down the days until the presidential election. Not me. As soon as the leaves began to turn, I was eagerly anticipating the opening of the winter season at Dumbarton Oaks Gardens. Now it has arrived. From November through March, the gates are thrown open to the public free of charge. And to my mind, these gardens are the most tranquil place in a city that does not value peace. Dumbarton Oaks is the sort of oddity you don’t expect to find in Washington. It is an urban mansion on 16 acres of land and is primarily a research institution, owned and administered by Harvard University and specializing in the eclectic combination of Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and Garden and Landscape Studies. To this end, the institution maintains an excellent library and runs a publishing imprint that puts out many otherwise rare books (including a six-volume bilingual edition of the Vulgate that is worth all $350 of its cover price). But the place is also a Georgetown neighborhood museum, devoted to displaying a collection of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art—as well as other odds and ends—amassed by its former owners, Robert and Mildred Bliss, who donated the house and its grounds to Harvard in 1940.  All those icons, tapestries, and old altarpieces grouped together in a low-lit Colonial Revival house give the museum an otherworldly quality. The glassy pavilion housing the Mayan art, designed by the architect Philip Johnson, achieves a similar effect simply through discongruity with the rest of the grounds, and, for that matter, the rest of Georgetown. The museum is “a very unusual oasis of civilization in our savage, modern city,” wrote the city planner Carl Feiss in the mid-1960s, as he surveyed the mid-rise developments and highways which then as today obscured much of the capital’s eccentric charm. But to enter Dumbarton Oaks is to leave all that for another place entirely. This effect is felt most strongly in the gardens. When the Blisses bought Dumbarton Oaks in 1920, Robert, a career diplomat who had been posted all over the world, had in mind the impossible dream of owning “a country house in the city.” To achieve it, he hired the landscape architect Beatrix Farrand (best known for her gardens on Mount Desert Island in Maine) to create the illusion of a country retreat. This is harder than it sounds. Most of the flora native to the D.C. area drop their leaves and decay in the fall. The bare branches of the trees and bushes lend winter in the city a certain beauty, but a severe one that constantly reminds you of your urban surroundings. The Blisses required something different. “The gardens were to be for spring and autumn enjoyment and in winter to have perennial green in abundance,” Mildred wrote of Farrand’s work. “A swimming pool, tennis court, and brook completed the illusion of country life, while clever planting bordering the lawn screened the street on the south side and left the birds undisturbed.”  The rest of the effect was achieved through terracing, winding paths, and reflecting pools that made the grounds seem much larger—and much more wild—than they actually were. The most brilliant of Farrand’s touches, however, had nothing to do with the grounds but with how she framed the sky. At almost all points within the gardens the heavens appear endless, broken only by trees, giving the illusion that Dumbarton Oaks is the only house for miles. “Never did Beatrix Farrand impose on the land an arbitrary concept,” Mildred wrote. “She ‘listened’ to the light and wind and grade of each area under study.”  Farrand probably did not know it, but in a small way she was recapturing what the land surrounding the mansion—and north of Georgetown generally—had looked like for much of the early nineteenth century. At that time, the area was rural, not even a suburb of the city. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that much of it was developed, and it would take many more decades—and the ascent of the United States as a global power—for it to become truly urban. “The country has a beautifully picturesque appearance, and I have nowhere seen finer scenery than is composed by the Potomac and the woods and hills above it,” wrote Francis James Jackson, the British Ambassador to the United States during the Madison administration, of his drives through Northwest D.C. in 1809. “Yet it has a wild desolate air from being so scantily and rudely cultivated, and from want of population. The natives trouble themselves little about it; their thoughts are chiefly of tobacco, flour, shingles, and the news of the day.” How little has changed from 1809 to now! Though the area in Northwest D.C. near Dumbarton Oaks is heavily populated, the interests of its inhabitants remain much the same—money, food, and gossip. Sometimes the weight of it all seems inescapable, especially in the frenzy leading up to a presidential election. What a blessing it is then that there is a retreat from that world, right within the city, where one can sit in the gardens of a rural fantasy, bathed in a pale winter light. The post Tranquility in a City Without Peace appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Funeral Bells in Venezuela The Maduro government is leaving opposition leaders dead in the streets. A few weeks ago, a local Venezuelan opposition leader, Edwin Alexander Santos Quiñonez, posted a video on his TikTok profile deploring the government for the degraded state of a local bridge. Last Wednesday, he was abducted. Two days later, he was found dead beside the dilapidated bridge he criticized earlier that month. The message to Venezuelans could hardly have been more clear. Santos, who was 36 years old when he died, had been involved in Venezuelan politics for many years. An activist against Chavismo in his youth, he helped found the political party Popular Will in 2009, one of the largest opposition parties in Venezuela. He served as the party’s regional coordinator for his home state of Apure, in the southeastern portion of the country, and was a member of the campaign leadership staff of the ill-fated presidential campaign of Edmundo González Urrutia and the chief opposition leader María Corina Machado in the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. That election ended in chaos, as opposition leadership claimed that their review of the receipts that national law requires all voting machines to print for review by poll-watchers showed an overwhelming victory for González Urrutia, while the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council declared Maduro the victor. In response, the Venezuelan government cracked down on public protests and demonstrations. Thousands of Venezuelans were arrested and hundreds more killed and wounded in incidents of violence, mostly perpetrated by Maduro-aligned paramilitaries known as “collectivos.” Some opposition politicians were jailed during the protests, others disappeared in what were likely state-ordered abductions. After being threatened with arrest and prosecution, González Urrutia fled the country (he now lives in exile in Spain), while Corina Machado has been forced into hiding, addressing Venezuelans only over social media. Santos managed to avoid being arrested, abducted, or killed during the immediate aftermath of the election, but his continued public criticism of the government made him a target. According to witnesses, on Wednesday, October 23, as he was driving on his motorcycle, he was seized and abducted by men driving a pickup truck. The next day, his wife released a video with Geraldo Rosales, one of the local priests of his hometown’s Catholic parish, where they reported his disappearance and requested that he be kept safe. “Some members of our community say that they took him away in a truck, presumably from SEBINE [Bolivarian National Intelligence Service]…. We want his life and political and human rights to be preserved. We want to know what has happened to him,” said Rosales.  The next day, Santos’s body was found with his motorcycle next to the bridge he had criticized on social media. Local authorities stated that his death was the result of “a traffic accident caused by crashing the motorcycle he was driving into a tree.” Douglas Rico, director of the Venezuelan Scientific and Criminal Investigations Corps, denounced those reporting that Santos’s death was the result of government action: “We reject all the fake news provided by various communications media that intend to manipulate and say that the National Government could be behind this lamentable event,” said Rico. “To that end, we have received instructions from the Ministry of Popular Power for Interior Relations, Justice and Peace to open an investigation into who is conducting this campaign of misinformation and lies.” The event is a notable escalation for the Maduro government, which in the past has preferred quieter and less dramatic methods of suppressing dissent—jailing opposition leaders or pressuring them into fleeing the country, rather than leaving their corpses on the street for the public to find. It is a signal of the confidence that the government has in its ability to maintain its control over Venezuelan civil society. Protest movements against Maduro have been ongoing for over a decade now, and domestic support for the government has cratered as the economy has fallen into ruin and the use of oppressive tactics by the state has increased. But despite the best efforts of opposition parties, there is no realistic path to a transfer of power. Maduro has kept tight control over the organs of government and the military, with a skillful deployment of both carrot and stick: positions of power and lucre for his supporters, and regular purges of those suspected to be his enemies. The death of Edwin Santos is just one more nail in the coffin of Venezuelan popular government. The post Funeral Bells in Venezuela appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Weltschmerz After Trump’s Triumph A German perspective: The left has a meltdown, and the right must find realistic answers. Credit: Lois GoBe In a strange historical coincidence, two huge political events in the U.S. and Germany have happened almost simultaneously. On the same day that Donald Trump’s victory was confirmed, the self-declared “progress coalition” government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Liberals collapsed.  November 6 brought political earthquakes on both sides of the Atlantic. Scholz fired his liberal finance minister, who had demanded a change in direction of economic policy to reverse the economic decline of the country, which is on a steep downward trajectory and struggling with a recession for the second consecutive year. The turmoil in Berlin is the culmination of three years of hapless political incompetence. Scholz has failed dismally. Never before in post-war Germany has a government been so unpopular. 85 percent of the population is dissatisfied with the so-called “traffic light coalition,” named after the three colors of the parties involved, the Social Democrats (red), the Greens, and the Liberals (yellow). There will be new elections next March—or perhaps even earlier. The likely winner and next German chancellor will be Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats. But it is as of yet unclear who will be his coalition partner—the Social Democrats or the Greens? I doubt that Merz will bring about a fundamental reversal of the policies that have caused Germany’s decline. His party was responsible for the disastrous open-door refugee policy in the time of Chancellor Angela Merkel, allowing more than two million migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, to enter the country uncontrolled. Merz has stated that the enormously costly “energy transition” policies are irreversible. The only radical challenger to the ideological foundations of the establishment worldview in Germany, in left-wing, liberal or fake-conservative shades, is the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD). The progressive left and also the Christian democratic mainstream is haunted by the specter of recent years’ rise of AfD, which has been riding high in polls—even becoming the strongest party in some East German regional parliaments—and demanding fundamental change, primarily in immigration policy. The AfD was the only party in Berlin to welcome Trump’s victory unequivocally. Merz’s CDU party showed serious reservations. Donald Trump’s return to the White House sends shockwaves through Europe. His election landslide has triggered deep anxiety among the progressive elites, who profess to be worried about the ascent of “fascism” in America. One prominent climate activist, Germany’s Greta Thunberg, posted just one word, “Weltschmerz,” meaning melancholy or despair, on X. The editor-in-chief of Die Zeit, the largest weekly in Germany, called Trump’s election “a nightmare”. Most German journalists loathe Trump no less than, and perhaps even more than, their mainstream colleagues in America’s progressive media. The coverage of the U.S. election campaign in Germany’s media was so distorted and one-sided that a massive three-quarter majority of people in my country were convinced that Kamala Harris would of course win. “I don’t understand it,” one prominent columnist of Der Spiegel magazine wrote about the decision of educated, well-informed Americans to vote for Trump. For years, his magazine loved to print bizarre caricatures of Trump on its cover, as a mad gorilla destroying the Statue of Liberty or an orange meteorite racing toward earth and threatening total destruction. The Berlin “traffic light” government was unprepared for Trump’s return to power. Too bad—now reality comes to bite back. Trump’s landslide victory is a shock. But it is a salutary shock. It forces the European and the German political class in particular to abandon some of their illusions and to become more grown up and self-reliant in matters of economic and security policy. Trump’s brutal and unpitying way of formulating American national interests is refreshing. It tears away the veil of fake morality, hypermorality and ideological kitsch that otherwise obscures our perception of realities and actual global power issues. The construct of a progressive “values-based foreign policy” in the moronic form that the German “traffic light” government and Annalena Baerbock, our Green minister of foreign affairs, have dreamt up is falling apart. This hopelessly naïve foreign policy, which oscillates between pacifism and bellicosity but lacks basic knowledge of power politics, is now breaking down when confronted with an American president who ruthlessly puts his country first. Priorities are changing. The signs are pointing to a return of hard realpolitik. This certainly does not mean the end of the West or the Western alliance. Rather, it implies a return to the basic political core of nation-states based on and pursuing national interests. In spite of many fears in Europe, it is not clear that the U.S. under Trump will throw Ukraine down Putin’s throat. Nevertheless, there will and must be a new start in relations between Washington and Moscow, which could facilitate peace negotiations. That would be welcome. Why did Trump prevail over Harris? During the campaign, many German media have painted a completely overblown and quasi-religious picture of the vice president as a possible world “savior”, even a “Redeemer” (as Süddeutsche Zeitung, a leading national paper close to Social Democrats and Greens, would have it). The cultural gulf between our progressive elites, who dream of a German Lalaland saving world climate and, on the other hand, the rather conservative American citizenry is massive. It was too large to bridge. Our media completely failed to understand and anticipate the American voter’s motives—worries about the economy, inflation and mass migration. America is not prepared to sacrifice its status as the world’s number one power to dreams of a world climate government, a world democracy. Actually, this has always been the case—but Trump now gives an even starker reminder of this truth. What we learn, again, from the election outcome: ordinary working Americans are fed up with throwing their tax money out the window for wokeness, left-wing identity politics, DEI ideology, climate delusions, and rampant social spending. They will not sacrifice their security and identity to a suicidal open-borders migration policy. Above all, they want to get back to a successful economic policy that benefits America and the American middle class. Trump’s protectionist ideas and the introduction of new tariffs will hurt Germany’s export manufacturing sector. The automobile industry is clearly worried, among others. As a German, I hope that the tariffs will be modest and the damage limited. Yet we have to acknowledge that the present dire situation, the economic malaise of Germany’s traditional industries, is not due to American policy but completely homemade: Too-high energy costs due to Green energy transition policies, a high level of taxes and labor costs, and excessive bureaucracy and red tape have contributed to a steady loss of competitiveness. This now threatens the core of the German economic model. Germany was an economic powerhouse in the 19th century and rose again from the ashes of the Second World War, but for some time we have been losing out and falling behind. We lack the level of innovation that some U.S. regions generate. The fact that Trump has Elon Musk, the most successful entrepreneur and innovator of our times, at his side also stands for a visionary departure: America literally wants to reach for the stars again. The U.S. will not allow itself to be displaced from the global top rank in terms of technology, nor allow China to overtake it in terms of innovative ability and economic power. Musk sends rockets to space and he constructs shiny Cybertrucks, while Germany’s idiotic progressives marvel at the idea of cumbersome cargo bikes replacing cars. You hardly find Musk’s rousing optimism and irrepressible will to succeed in Germany. Instead, the owner of Tesla and X is vilified. The magazine Der Spiegel recently put out a story on Musk titled “Public Enemy Number Two” and absurdly accused him of destroying democracy. Elon Musk is hated by the European left-wing elites because he liberated Twitter/X and has restored a healthy balance of power on a platform that was previously dominated by left-wingers. He stands for maximal freedom of opinion and democratic debate. This is a vision of horror for the establishment guardians, who strive to control the discourse in this country and censor unwelcome opinions. What they dislike they dismiss as disinformation. Trump’s victory is a breakthrough in the cultural battle against the left-wing cancel culture. What makes Trump’s victory all the more painful for Europeans and Germans is the fact that he exposes our own weaknesses and illusions in matters of security policy. The former president was quite right to lambast Germany’s totally inadequate armed forces and free-riding on American security guarantees. For three decades, including the 16 years of the Merkel government, Germany has severely underfunded its military. We continually missed the NATO target of two percent of GDP.  Senator J.D. Vance, the vice president–elect, was right when he said in a Financial Times op-ed piece this February, “Europe must stand on its own two feet on defense.” At the moment, Germany’s Bundeswehr is a limping, one-legged soldier. “The Bundeswehr can barely scrape together a single combat-ready brigade,” Vance wrote, demanding greater efforts to overcome that weakness. He has also made clear that point at the Munich Security Conference this spring. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has struggled to scratch together enough resources to move one single brigade to the Baltics. In late February 2022, after Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine, Scholz announced a Zeitenwende, a historical change of tide. In reality, little action has followed his words. The promised €100 billion in debt-financed extra money for the Bundeswehr has failed to produce any real, significant change. Germany is still way behind the two percent NATO spending target. Trump will once again present us with the bill that Germany’s governments, from Schröder to Merkel (and to Scholz, Merkel’s onetime Finance Minister), believed they could evade. After the fall of the communist Soviet empire, the Germans hoped to enjoy a “peace dividend” forever at the expense of national defense, staying in the shadow of NATO and under the shield of US nuclear weapons almost for free. Now is the time for revenge. Trump will force us at last to invest much more in our own armed forces. This is the precondition if we want to be more independent and sovereign. The president-elect and his coming administration will mock us for our previous moral arrogance. Germany’s posture is often an empty, hollow attitude: telling the world how to behave morally but failing to back our own security needs with adequate military muscle. The unfortunate German tendency to lecture the world—on climate, LGBTQ, the right way to deal with past sins, and the need to overcome the nation-state in a new globalist setting—this tendency will thankfully have to end. Under Trump, we’ll stand alone in the rain.  Scholz’s government is extremely unpopular. Only 15 percent of German citizens support his Social Democratic party, and the Greens have also fallen back. Germany’s economic crisis, the migration crisis, high energy prices, super-progressive wokeness, and the rest have caused the population to turn away from the “progress coalition”. After three years, this fractious and ideologically incoherent coalition has at last collapsed. The Christian Democrats have become a little bit more conservative under Merz, who wants to give the impression that he reversed some of Merkel’s biggest mistakes, especially her open-border policy during the migration crisis. But what really worries the Berlin establishment is the rise of the right-wing AfD, because they present a radical alternative to the progressive dreams. Trump’s “America First” policies might provide an ideological boost for right-wing parties or right-wing governments in Europe. They will also make our situation harder. We have to get a grip on our countries, our nations. But the writing on the wall points to a trend to the right, to a renewal or policies that value more dynamic, free economies, and national freedom—all this a welcome change. The post Weltschmerz After Trump’s Triumph appeared first on The American Conservative.

President Biden on Thursday called on Americans to lay to rest questions about the integrity of elections, calling the system fair after President-elect Trump decidedly won the 2024 race. “I hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electorate system. It is honest, it is fair and it is transparent. And it can be trusted, win or lose,” Biden said in remarks from the Rose Garden. The president also committed to a peaceful transition of power ahead of...

President Joe Biden appeared almost happy in the first speech he's given since the devastating loss for Vice President Kamala Harris in the election. Biden spoke for about 10 minutes from the White House on Thursday and tried to encourage supporters to keep fighting despite their discouraging failure to defeat President-elect Donald Trump. "In a democracy, the will of the people always prevails," said Biden. Biden claimed to have given the U.S. the "strongest economy in the world" and...

President Biden referred to Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat by Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election as a "setback" Thursday morning, in his first speech to the nation following the election. "Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable," President Biden said. "A defeat does not mean we are defeated." He urged Americans to embrace unity, and said he accepted the results of the election.

by William Upton, The National Pulse: President-elect Donald J. Trump has dramatically improved his margins of support across all demographic groups in the American electorate, propelling him to a historic 2024 election victory. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris—his Democratic Party rival—failed to improve amongst a single voter demographic from Joe Biden’s margins in 2020. Among non-college-educated white […]

  It is impossible to separate Christianity from the Roman context in which it developed and spread. Some of the influences the Roman Empire had on Christianity were negative, though it also strengthened the fledgling religion. In other ways, Christianity was well served by the vastness of the empire and the infrastructure it had in place. The effect of the Roman Empire on Christianity is recognizable to this day. From the Christian creeds to Papal titles, the fingerprints of the Roman Empire can be seen in Christianity.   The Roman Empire and Christian Origins The Confession of Saint Longinus, by James Tissot, between 1886 and 1894. Source: Brooklyn Museum   Jesus Christ lived and ministered less than a century after the death of Julius Caesar. At the time the Roman Empire stretched from the Middle East to Spain throughout Southern Europe and from Egypt to Mauritania in North Africa. A vast empire indeed. It was the Roman judicial power that allowed Jesus to be crucified at the hands of Roman soldiers, who also guarded the tomb where Jesus was resurrected. These two events are central to the Christian faith.   The Roman Empire was generally tolerant of other faiths, as long as they did not impede on emperor worship, a practice common throughout the Roman Empire. To people from polytheistic faiths, this posed no problem. To Christians, however, emperor worship was diametrically opposed to their monotheistic views. Christians, therefore, found themselves at odds with the Romans.   Saint Paul, on occasion, called on Rome when persecuted because of his faith. He could do so because he was a Roman citizen. This gave him the opportunity to minister in the capital of the empire before its rulers and the elites. As a Roman citizen, he could also freely traverse the Roman Empire on his missionary journeys which may have seen him travel as far West as Spain. Well-established Roman infrastructure in terms of road networks and merchant shipping would have made traveling to remote parts of the empire much easier. In this way, the gospel message was indirectly served by the Empire.   Marble bust of Roman Emperor Diocletian, 17th century, on display at Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, France. Source: Wikimedia Commons   However, before long, the Roman persecution began, declaring Christianity illegal and utilizing a variety of tactics to force pagan converts to revert back to traditional Roman religion. Nero, for instance, led a persecution in which many early Christians were martyred. He executed both Paul and Peter and conducted indiscriminate slaughter of Roman Christians. They were scapegoated and blamed for the fire that destroyed much of Rome in 64 CE. Persecutions also continued sporadically on a local level, throughout the reign of Domitian 81-96 CE.   Later there emerged a series of empire-wide persecutions beginning with Emperor Decius, in 250 CE. Among other things, Christians were ordered to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution only ended when the empire itself faced the prospect of collapse.   The next and worst persecution of all was under Diocletian. During his reign, Christian churches were destroyed, Christian scriptures were burnt, clergy were imprisoned, and many were forced into performing pagan sacrificial rites. Christians were banned from holding state office positions and some who previously had were sent into exile.   The persecution had a similar effect to the Reformation persecutions many centuries later. It galvanized the faith of Christians and served as a witness to those who observed the faith of Christians being punished or executed.   Refining the Faith Emperor Constantine IX, mosaic in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul Turkey. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Persecution was a significant force in strengthening the Catholic Church. It became apparent to early Christians that their faith was worth dying for and many Christians were called upon to defend their faith.   Initially, there was much diversity in Christian beliefs, as the apostles and missionaries spread Christianity throughout the world. However, the prospect of martyrdom forced Christians to solidify their beliefs. If Christians were going to die for their faith, it was essential to know exactly what they believed. It was under persecution that the early Christian creeds began to take shape because it was important that unity be maintained.   The Apostles’ Creed was based on the teachings of the apostles in the New Testament, and it lists the precise Christian beliefs. The need for statements of faith later gave rise to many councils where the church could develop creeds defining the core Christian beliefs. These creeds served to separate authentic Christian beliefs from those of cults and heresies. They were fundamental to the development of orthodoxy and unity within the Christian faith.   From Acceptance to State Religion The chi rho letters, photo by Jebulon, 4th century CE. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity (though some scholars doubt whether his conversion was true). He supposedly did this after seeing a vision just before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 CE. In this vision, he saw a cross in the sky with the words “IN THIS SIGN CONQUER.” After he became emperor, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which accepted Christianity along with all other religions. In 330 CE, Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to its new seat in the East, Byzantium (later named Constantinople and today known as Istanbul, located in Turkey).   The decision to call the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, was a result of Constantine’s desire to have a unified Christian faith to help support his authority, not a result of Constantine’s own conversion. Nevertheless, it helped establish consensus on some aspects of the Christian faith. Only with the reign of Theodosius I from 379-395 CE did Christianity become the official state religion.   Vision of the Cross, by Raphael, 1520, the Vatican. Source: WGA   This change did not come without compromise. Christians had faced internal pressures to change certain aspects of their religion to fit better with Roman culture for more than a century before becoming the official state religion. Accommodations made included the introduction of a hierarchical leadership structure, a shift in the religion’s focus from symbolic acts to ritual acts, and a reinterpretation of the “love feast” (agape) into the “Eucharist” as the central ritual act of Christianity.   With the favor of various emperors and a new freedom from persecution, Christian leaders could quickly adapt Christianity to contemporary Roman cultural norms while capitalizing on the religion’s newfound ability to openly compete with alternative faiths. Staunch opponents of the Roman Catholic Church go as far as to call these compromises “baptized paganism,” claiming pagan feasts, statues, and rituals were reassigned “Christian” names and significance. They allege that these pagan themes thus entered Christianity.   From State to Church Council of Nicaea 325, fresco in Salone Sistino, Vatican, 1560. Source: Incompleteness   Most scholars agree that Papal dominance in Rome happened gradually. According to the Donation of Constantine, a document many scholars believe to be a forgery from the 8th century, the emperor gave charge of Rome to the papacy in the 4th century CE. Whether this claim is true or not, it is evident that the papacy rose in prominence and power after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.   Many writers and historians have attested to this fact:   “Out of the ruins of the Roman Empire there gradually arose a new order of state whose central point was the Papal See.” The Church and Churches, p. 42, 43. “And if a man considers the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.”  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 436. “While this Christian Church, little by little, was emerging from the general dissolution of the Roman Empire, there also emerged gradually at its head a new figure, the Pope.” Coulton, Medieval Panorama, p. 20.   Saint Peter, depicted as the first pope, Catalan, before 1348. Source: The MET, New York   Since the popes claim lineage from Peter, who was martyred in Rome, it follows that they would prefer their seat to be located in that city, where the Vatican is to this day (although there have been times of turmoil in and outside of the Roman Catholic hierarchy when the pope resided Viterbo, Orvieto, Perugia, and Avignon).   The transition from the Imperial Roman Empire to Papal State is evident from the transfer of certain titles the Roman Emperor had, which were given to the pope — such as “Pontifex Maximus,” from which the term Pontiff arose. Pontifex Maximus means “greatest pontiff,” the title of the head of the College of Priests in the ancient Roman religion. Today, it is the title of the pope.   Roman Empire & Christianity: Conclusion St Peter’s Cathedral, Vatican City, note PONT.MAX written on the façade, short for Pontifex Maximus. Source: Pixabay   It would be impossible to comprehensively address the origins of Christianity without taking note of the influence the Roman Empire had on it. Some influences were negative, such as the persecution of Christians, though even these had a positive result. Having some Christians martyred for their faith, galvanized the faith of others, and caused Christianity to work toward establishing confessions of faith. These creeds helped differentiate between orthodoxy, heresy, and cult.   The Roman Empire provided the environment in which Christianity could move from persecution to recognition as the official State religion. Its vast empire and infrastructure also facilitated the quick spread of the Christian faith. Several scholars and historians see a continuation of the Roman Empire in the Roman Catholic Church, claiming the latter is a later, yet very different iteration of the former.