| 313 CE | Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, which then became the dominant faith in all Roman territories. The Holy Land (Israel & Palestine), Egypt, and North Africa became strong, vibrant Christian communities. |
| 325 CE | First Church of Nativity was established in Bethlehem. Council of Nice (Nicea) met (discussed above) |
| 331 CE | Constantine moved the seat of the Roman Empire to Constantinople (Turkey today); which gave more power over the Holy Land to the Eastern Church; from then on, there were strained relations between the Pope’s Western Church out of Rome and the Eastern Church. |
| 614-628 CE | Sassanians (Persians) and 26,000 Jewish soldiers allied to take over the Holy Land; Sassanians wanted a harbor to the Mediterranean Sea and the Jewish wanted the Holy Land. Anywhere from 17,000-60,000 Christians were killed. The Eastern Roman Empire soon recaptured the Holy Land (some time between 628-638). |
| 638 CE | 6 years after the death of Mohammed, Arabian (Islamic) forces took over Jerusalem and Egypt, which began a 94-year-long Islamic westward advancement. |
| 700 CE | Islamic forces took over Northern Africa (Roman Africa). |
| 711 CE | Islamic forces occupied Spain. |
| 718 CE | Series of Christian crusader campaigns occurred in Spain and Portugal to recapture territory from Islamic forces. Oahspe mentions these early crusades as well and says that 7 were killed. |
| 732 CE | Christian victory of Charles Martel at Tours and Potier ended the 94-year Islamic advancement westward. Christians still had Constantinople, but were stripped of Syria, Palestine, and Northern Africa. |
| 732-1000 CE | Over these 3 centuries, the Roman Empire (Christianity) was able to recover somewhat, but did not reclaim the Holy Land. By 1000, most of Europe was converted to Christianity |
| 850-1050 CE | Between the Church of the West out of Rome and the Eastern Church, increasingly
Differences between the Christian Church of the West (Pope/Rome) and the Eastern Church Over the 2 centuries leading up to the schism of 1054, both Christian churches had to make adjustments to “convert the successive invading ethnic tribes of Europe” to Christianity and as a result, differences emerged in language, tradition, history, theology, and “religious sensibilities.” The Eastern Church saw itself as the “intellectual and cultural center of the world”, resented how the Church of the West in Rome had “juridical authority”, and would allow Rome to make decisions only about doctrines as a last result. For daily affairs, they did not accept leadership out of Rome. However, the Eastern Church had serious problems that the Church of the West did not experience; the Eastern Church let “schisms and heresies” and “thorny theological issues” divide them completely break down the unity of their church. strained relations. |
| 1054 CE | After 2 centuries of strained relations, there was a major break-up between the Pope’s Christian Church of the West (Rome) and the Eastern Church, called the
Final straw that resulted in “schism of 1054” Normans (half Viking/half French) in Southern Italy became a threat to the Pope’s Church of the West, so he organized an armed resistance, but did not get help from the Eastern Church as expected, so their resistance failed. The Eastern Church did not support the West for 2 reasons: (1) after years of strained relations, they disliked the Church of the West more so than the Normans and (2) they interpreted the Church of the West’s attack on the Normans as an attempt to steal jurisdiction of Southern Italy away from them. Even though the Church of the West lost to the Normans, they were allowed to establish western churches with a new Bishop. This angered the Eastern Church’s Patriarch of Constantinople, so he closed the western Latin-rite churches there and excommunicated the Pope. , which resulted in the Orthodox churches. |
| 1091-1291 CE | After the schism of 1054 totally divided the 2 Christian churches, the succeeding Pope(s) of the West tried to mend things by sending Christian crusader armies to help the Eastern Roman Empire defeat their Islamic enemies, but they were just used for their military, their crusader armies also exacerbated resentment towards them, and the division deepened and would not begin to improve until around 1095. |