The Catacombs And Christian Persecutions

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

started burying their dead underground. That is how the
catacombs were founded. Many of them began and developed around family
tombs whose owners, newly converted Christians, did not reserve them to the
members of the family, but opened them to their fellow people, showing the
faith.

As time went on and room started to run out in the catacombs, these areas
grew larger by gifts or by the purchase of new properties, sometimes by the
Church itself. Saint Callixtus was a very typical case that the Church
took up directly as well as the organization and administration of the
cemetery, assuming a community character.

With the edict of Milan, announced by the emperors Constantine and Licinius
in February 313, the Christians were no longer persecuted. They were free
to profess their faith, to have places of worship and to build churches
both inside and outside the city, and to buy plots of land, without fear of
seizure. Although the Christians had their freedom to worship any ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

CITE THIS PAGE: