Christian debate on persecution and toleration

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This article gives an overview about historical cases of persecution by Christians, also taking a look at cases of religious warfare and religious violence. Important Christian theologians had, during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, advocated religious persecution to various extends. However, Early modern Europe witnessed the turning point in the Christian debate on persecution and toleration. Nowadays all significant Christian denominations embrace religious toleration, and "look back on centuries of persecution with a mixture of revulsion and incomprehension."^[1]

Contents 1 Historical Overview 2 Christian advocacy of persecution 2.1 Persecution in the 4th and 5th century A.D. 2.2 The Augustinian consensus 2.2.1 The treatment of heretics 2.3 The Protestant theory of persecution 3 Christian advocacy of toleration 3.1 The English 'Call for Toleration' 3.2 Modern Christian policy 3.2.1 Anglicism 3.2.2 Roman Catholicism 4 Biblical Exegesis 4.1 Old Testament 4.2 New Testament 5 Late middle Ages 5.1 The Inquisition and the Crusades 5.2 Christians and Gnostic sects 6 Reformation and Counter-Reformation 6.1 Catholic countries 6.1.1 Spain 6.1.2 Goa Inquisition 6.1.3 Protestant Martyrs under Mary 6.1.4 Expulsion of the Salzburgers from Austria 6.1.5 Persecution of Huguenots by Catholics 6.1.6 Drowning of Protestants in Ireland 6.2 Protestant countries 6.2.1 Execution of Mennonites in the Netherlands 6.2.2 Persecution Jesuit in Great Britain 6.2.3 Massacres of Catholics in Ireland 6.3 Colonialism 7 18th-20th Century 8 See also 9 Literature 10 Notes

[edit] Historical Overview

Early Christianity was a minority Religion in the Roman Empire and the early Christians were themselves persecuted during that time. After Constantine I converted to Christianity, it became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. Already under the reign of Constantine I, Christian heretics had been persecuted; Beginning in the late 4th century A.D. also the ancient pagan religions were actively suppressed. In the view of many historians, the Constantinian shift turned Christianity from a persecuted into a persecuting religion. ^[2]

After the decline of the Roman Empire, the further Christianization of Europe was to a large extent peaceful.^[3] However, encounters between Christians and Pagans were sometimes confrontational, and some Christian kings (Charlemagne, Olaf I of Norway) were known for their violence against pagans.

In the late Middle Ages, the appearance of the Cathars and Bogomils in Europe laid the stage for the later witch-hunts. These (probably gnostic-influenced) sects were seen as heretics by the Catholic Church, and the Inquisition was established to counter them.

After the Protestant Reformation, the devastation caused by the partly religiously motivated wars (Thirty Years' War, English Civil War, French Wars of Religion) in Europe in the 17th century gave rise to the ideas of Religious toleration, Freedom of religion and Religious pluralism.

[edit] Christian advocacy of persecution

[edit] Persecution in the 4th and 5th century A.D.

Main article: Persecution of religion in ancient Rome

After he had adopted Christianity following the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine I issued the Edict of Milan in 313 (together with his co-emperor Licinius). Since 306 there had already had been several edicts that granted Christians religious toleration in parts of the Empire, but the Edict of Milan removed all obstacles to the Christian faith and made Empire officially neutral with regard to religious worship. Constantine's supported the church with his patronage; He had an extraordinary number of of large basilicas build for the Christian church, and endowed it with land and other wealth.^[4] In doing this, however, he required the Pagans "to foot the bill".^[4] According to Christian chroniclers it appeared necessary to Constantine "to teach his subjects to give up their rites (...) and to accustom them to despise their temples and the images contained therein,"^[5] which led to the closure of pagan temples due to a lack of support, their wealth flowing to the imperial treasure;^[6] Constantine I did not need to use force to implement this,^[4] although his subjects are said to simply have obeyed him out of fear. Only the chronicler Theophanes has added that temples "were annihilated", but this is considered "not true" by contemporary historians. ^[7] According to the historian Ramsay MacMullen Constantine desired to obliterate non-Christians but lacking the means he had to be content with robbing their temples towards the end of his reign.^[8]. He resorted to derogatory and contemptuous comments relating to the old religion; writing of the "obstinacy" of the pagans, of their "misguided rites and ceremonial", and of their "temples of lying" contrasted with "the splendours of the home of truth".^[9]

During the course of his life he progressively became more Christian and turned away from any syncretic tendencies he appeared to favour at times and thus demonstrating, according to his biographers, that "The God of the Christians was indeed a jealous God who tolerated no other gods beside him. The Church could never acknowledge that she stood on the same plane with other religious bodies, she conquered for herself one domain after another".^[10]

After the 3-year-reign of Julian the Apostate (ruled 361 to 363), who revived the Roman state paganism for a short time, the later Christian Roman Emperors sanctioned "attacks on pagan worship".^[11] Towards the end of the 4th century Theodosius worked to establish Catholicism as the privileged religion in the Roman Empire."Theodosius was not the man to sympathise with the balancing policy of the Edict of Milan. He set himself steadfastly to the work of establishing Catholicism as the privileged religion of the state, of repressing dissident Christians (heretics) and of enacting explicit legal measures to abolish Paganism in all its phases."^[12]

Two hundred and fifty years after Constantine was converted and began the long campaign of official temple destruction and outlawing of non-Christian worship Justinian was still engaged in the war of dissent.^[13]

[edit] The Augustinian consensus

The transformation that happened in the 4th century lies at the heart of the debate between those Christian authors who advocated religious persecution and those who rejected it.^[11] Most of all, the advocates of persecution looked to the writings of Augustine of Hippo,^[11] the most influential of the Christian Church Fathers.^[14] Initially (in the 390s), he had been sceptical about the use of coercion in religious matters. However, he changed his mind after he had witnessed how the Donatists (a schismatic Christian sect) were "brought over to the Catholic unity by fear of imperial edicts." When Augustine had characterized himself in De utilitate credenti (392), he said he was cupidus veri, eager for truth.^[15] But in his 93. letter he described himself as quietis avidus, needing rest, and gave as reason the agitating Donatist.^[15] From a position that had trusted the power of philosophical argumentation, Augustine had moved to a position that emphasised the authority of the church.^[15] Augustine had become convinced of the effectiveness of mild forms of persecution and developed a defence of their use. His authority on this question was undisputed for over a millennium in Western Christianity.^[11] Within this Augustinian consensus there was only disagreement about the extend to which Christians should persecute heretics. Augustine advocated fines, imprisonment, banishment and moderate floggings, but, according to Henry Chadwick, "would have been horrified by the burning of heretics."^[16] In the late Antiquity those burnings appear very rare indeed, the only certain case being the execution of Priscillian and six of his followers in 383. Their persecutors were roundly condemned by bishops like Ambrose, Augstine's mentor.^[17]

[edit] The treatment of heretics

Further information: Christian heresy

With the adoption of Christianity by Constantine I (after Battle of Milvian Bridge, 312), heresy had become a political issue in the late Roman empire. Adherents of unconventional Christians beliefs not covered by the Nicene Creed like Novatianism and Gnosticism were banned from holding meetings,^[11] but the Roman emperor intervened especially the conflict between orthodox and Arian Christianity, which resulted in the burning of Arian books.^[11] Conflicts between Christianity and Arianism continued, playing a role in the warfare with the Germanic tribes.^{[citation needed]} The early Christian church supported assaults on the kingdoms of the Arian Vandals and Goths.^{[citation needed]}

In contrast to the late antiquity, the execution of heretics was much more easily approved in the late Middle Ages, after the Christianization of Europe was largely completed. The first known case is the burning of fourteen people at Orleans in 1022.^[17]In the following centuries groups like the Bogomils, Waldensians, Cathars and Lollards were persecuted throughout Europe. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) codified the theory and practise of persecution.^[17] In its third canon, the council declared: "Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, .. to take an oath that they will strive .. to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church."^[18]

Saint Thomas Aquinas summed up the standard medieval position, when he declared that that obstinate heretics deserved "not only to be separated from the Church, but also to be eliminated from the world by death" ^[19]

[edit] The Protestant theory of persecution

The Protestant Reformation changed the face of Western Christianity forever, but initially it did nothing to change the Christian endorsement of religious persecution. The Reformers "fully embraced" Augustine's advocacy of coercion in religious matters, and many regarded the death penalty for heresy as legitimate.^[17] Furthermore, by presenting a much more powerful threat to catholic unity than the heretic groups of the middle ages, the Reformation led to the intensification of persecution under catholic regimes.

• Martin Luther had written against persecution in the 1520s, and had demonstrated genuine sympathy towards the Jews in his earlier writings, but after 1525 his position hardened and in 1543 he published On the Jews and their Lies, a "violent anti-semitic tract."^[20]
• John Calvin helped to secure the execution for heresy of Michael Servetus,^[21] although he unsuccessfully requested that he should be beheaded instead of being burned at the stake.

Effectively, however, the 16th century Protestant view was less extreme than the mediaeval Catholic position. In England, John Foxe, John Hales, Richard Perrinchief, Henry Thorndike and Jonas Proast all only saw mild forms of persecution against the English Dissenters as legitimate.^[22] But (with the probable exception of John Foxe), this was only a retraction in degree, not a full rejection of religious persecution. There is also the crucial distinction between dissent and heresy to consider. The Elizabethan bishop Thomas Bilson was of the opinion that men ought to be "corrected, not murdered", but he did not condemn the Christian Emperors for executing the Manichaens for "monstrous blasphemies".^[23]

The protestant Churches were more inclined towards ecclesiastical tolerance, although this might simply be the result of different political circumstances. The Lutheran theologian Georgius Calixtus advocated the ecumenical unity of the church. Another Lutheran theologian, Rupertus Meldenius, brought the understanding ecclesiastical tolerance under the phrase: in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas (in necessary things unity; in uncertain things freedom; in everything compassion) in 1626.^[24]

[edit] Christian advocacy of toleration

[edit] The English 'Call for Toleration'

Nevertheless, while the Christian theologians mentioned above advocated religious persecution to various extents, it also were Christians who started off the idea of religious toleration in the England of the 1640s. In 1644 the "Augustinian consensus concerning persecution was irreparably fractured."^[25] This year can be identified quite exactly, because 1644 saw the publication of John Milton's Areopagitica, William Walwyn's The Compassionate Samaritane, Henry Robinson's Liberty of Conscience and Roger William's The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. These authors were Puritans or had dissented from the Church of England, and their radical Protestantism led them to condemn religious persecution, which they saw as a popish corruption of primitive Christianity.^[26] Other non-Angelicans writers advocating toleration were the Richard Overton, John Wildman and John Goodwin, the Baptists Samuel Richardson and Thomas Collier and the Quakers Samuel Fisher and William Penn. Anglicans who argued against persecution were: John Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, James Harrington, Jeremy Taylor, Henry More, John Tillotson and Gilbert Burnet.^[27]

All of these considered themselves Christians or were actual churchmen. Only from the 1690s onwards a third group emerged that advocated religious toleration, but, unlike the radical Protestants and the Anglicans, also rejected biblical authority; this group is referred to by Coffey as the Deists, and prominently included Voltaire, Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Thomas Jefferson and the English-Irish philosopher John Toland.^[26]

Joseph II issued the Patent of Toleration in 1781.

[edit] Modern Christian policy

[edit] Anglicism

Following the debates that started in the 1640s the Church of England was the first Christian church to grand adherents of other Christian denominations freedom of worship, with the Act of Toleration 1689, which nevertheless still retained some forms of religious discrimination and did not include toleration for Catholics. At present, only individuals who are members of the Church of England at the time of the succession may become the British monarch.

[edit] Roman Catholicism

On the seventh of December 1965 The Catholic Church as part of the Vatican II council issued the decree "Dignitatis Humanae" that dealt with the rights of the person and communities to social and civil liberty in religious matters. It states: "2. The Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. Freedom of this kind means that all men should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups and every human power so that, within due limits, nobody is forced to act against his convictions in religious matters in private or public, alone or in associations with others. The Vatican Council further declares that the right of religious freedom is based on the very word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom must be given such recognition in the constitutional order of society as will make it a civic right...but if it [the civil authority] presumes to control or restrict religious activity it must be said to have exceeded the limits of its power...Therefore, provided the just requirements of public order are not violated, these groups [i.e religious communities] have a right to immunity so that they may organize their own lives according to their religious principles...From this it follows that it is wrong for a public authority to compel its citizens by force or fear or any other means to profess or repudiate any religion or to prevent anyone from joining or leaving a religious body. There is even more serious transgression of God's will and of the sacred rights of the individual person and the family of nations when force is applied to wipe out or repress religion either throughout the whole world or in a single region or in a particular community".^[28]

On 12th of March 2000 Pope John Paul II prayed for forgiveness because "Christians have often denied the Gospel; yielding to a mentality of power, they have violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions" ^[29]

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the present Pope Benedict XVI) wrote "The quality of exemplarity which the honest admission of past faults can exert on attitudes within the Church and civil society should also be noted, for it gives rise to a renewed obedience to the Truth and to respect for the dignity and the rights of others, most especially, of the very weak. In this sense, the numerous requests for forgiveness formulated by John Paul II constitute an example that draws attention to something good and stimulates the imitation of it, recalling individuals and groups of people to an honest and fruitful examination of conscience with a view to reconciliation"^[30]

[edit] Biblical Exegesis

Christian theology derives its sources from the teachings and actions of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament and several other sources depending on the Christian denomination. This makes the Bible, especially the canonical Gospels, the primary source in order to classify persecution by Christians as either religiously motivated persecution or ethnic persecution. Some churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, give weight to oral tradition.

The Old Testament has been the main source for Christian theologians advocating religious persecution. An example of this would be John Jewel. In defending the demand for religious uniformity by Elizabeth I of England, he declared: "Queen Elizabeth doth as did Moses, Josua, David, Salomon, Josias, Jesophat, ..." ^[31]

[edit] Old Testament

• In the Old Testament, God commands that the temples, idols, and sacred groves of the pagan non-believers be destroyed, and that those that follow other gods in the territory of God's people should be killed. According to mainstream Christianity, this, however, contrasts with the teaching of Jesus which regards love towards God and other people as the supreme law. I John 4 : 7 and 8 "Love is from God, (..) and who don't love don't know God, for God is love" Romans 13 : 9 and 10 " [All God's] Commandments are summed up in this one : Love the other as yourself (...) Love doesn't cause harm to the others; so to love the others fulfill all the Law of God"

• Leviticus 20:27 ("A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them.") and Exodus 22:18 ("You shall not permit a sorceress to live.") have been interpreted by some Christians as directing people to kill those who supposedly use magic. However the translation is debated and one interpretation is that it doesn't refer to the practices used by various occult groups modernly thought of as "Witchcraft", such as found in the Wiccan Faith, but rather curses intended to harm, or indeed only with necromancy (Peake's Commentary) - the Hebrew people coexisted with Pagans who not only believed in many gods, but often practiced "sorcery."^{[citation needed]} Also see Christian views on witchcraft.

• Leviticus 20:13 ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.") has been used to legitimise persecution of homosexuals, although this law is considered by many Christians to contradict essential teachings of Jesus.

[edit] New Testament

• According to the canonical Gospel of Matthew (in the Antithesis of the Law), Gospel of Luke (Luke 10:27) and the Gospel of Mark (Mark 12:31), Jesus commanded to love one's neighbour as one's self and love God more than anyone, and called this the summary of the Mosaic Law. He further taught his followers to love their enemies. Representing persecution as an act of love is considered irreconcilable to these teachings by many. However, some have interpreted "neighbour" to only include Christians. Others believe that anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is doomed to spend eternity in Hell; therefore, doing anything possible to save them from that fate (by forcing them to convert to Christianity by any means necessary) is an act of love.

• According to the Christian Gospels, Jesus commanded people to withstand evil with good. Most Christians consider persecution to be an evil act.^{[citation needed]}

• According to the Christian Gospels, Jesus forbade to hate (cf. Luke 14:26, Revelation 2:6). Persecution implies hate.^{[original research?]} According to the canonical gospels and Acts of the apostles Paul of Tarsus, as well as Jesus himself, considered the commandment to love the supreme law.

• According to the Christian Gospels, Jesus did not fight back when he was harassed, arrested, and crucified, nor did his disciples, except Saint Peter, who was rebuked by Jesus.

• In the canonical Gospels, the Acts and the Letters, there is no description of any case of religiously condoned physical violence by Christians against non-Christians which could be used as a precedent for Christian persecution of other groups, apart from Jesus overturning the tables at Herod's Temple, (John 2:13-17, Matthew 25:31–46).

• Christian persecutors considered the persecution of others as "necessary" in order to "protect the souls" of Christians against damnation by heretic teachings. See also: Inquisition. The Peace churches believe that Jesus rejected violence. For instance Paul of Tarsus ordered heretics to be admonished in the church or to be expelled from the church, not to be persecuted. See First Corinthians, chapter 5.

• Matthew,27:25

St Matthew's Gospel (Matthew 27:25) quotes a Jewish mob crying, shortly before the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children;" this quotation is taken by some to refer to all Jews. This belief has been cited by many Anti-semites as justification for their animosity towards the Jews. Christian anti-Semites blame Jews in general for the death of Jesus (whom Christians believe to be God made man). This view held sway in many parts of Christian Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Similarly Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger (aka Jacob Sprenger) in the Malleus Maleficarum (1486): And again, the Jews sin more greatly than the Pagans; for they received the prophecy of the Christian Faith in the Old Law, which they corrupt through badly interpreting it, which is not the case with the Pagans. Therefore their infidelity is a greater sin than that of the Gentiles, who never received the Faith of the Gospel. With the general rejection of anti-Semitism following the The Holocaust, this interpretation is held by only a scarce minority of contemporary Christians. This excuse for antisemitism also ignores the fact that Jesus himself was a Jew, as were the early church leaders.

[edit] Late middle Ages

"Not until 1022, when fourteen people were burned at Orleans, do we come across another case of executions in western Europe [after the one of the heretic Priscillian and his followers], though this may simply be due to the lack of sources for the earlier period.^[32]

[edit] The Inquisition and the Crusades

Main article: Inquisition

In fully Christian Europe there were a number of persecutions directed against Jews and Christian heretics. There were massacres of Muslims and Jews when Jerusalem was taken by Crusaders in 1099.

Jews were also persecuted in Visigothic Spain and later elsewhere in Europe, especially after the emergence of the blood libel. Jews were eventually expelled from England by King Edward I. In Spain after the Reconquista, Jews were forced to either convert or be exiled. Many were killed. Although the Spanish had agreed to allow Muslims the freedom of religion in 1492, this was often ignored. In 1501, Muslims were offered the choice of conversion or exile. In 1556, Arab or Muslim dress was forbidden, and in 1566 Arabic language as a whole was prohibited in Spain.^[33]

In the case of the Martyrs of Córdoba (9th century), a group of Christians, led by Eulogius, publicly attacked Islam wishing to dissuade their fellows from the allure of Islam. (Note: This rather constitutes persecution of Christians!)

Some neo-Pagans believe that persecutions of witches were attacks on surviving Pagans, but this view is not widely accepted (see Burning times).

Muscovy and Imperial Russia government forcibly baptized Muslim Volga Tatars and pagan Chuvash, Mordva and Mari after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate and Astrakhan Khanate in the 1550s. Mosques were prohibited. This persecution ended only during the reign of Catherine II of Russia.

[edit] Christians and Gnostic sects

The attempts to suppress the neo-Manichean Cathar (or "Albigensian") faith took the form of the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) – a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the ascetic religion practiced by the Cathars of Languedoc, which the Roman Catholic hierarchy considered heretical. It is historically significant for a number of reasons: the violence inflicted was extreme even by medieval standards; the church offered legally sanctioned dominion over conquered lands to northern French nobles and the King of France, acting as essentially Catholic mercenaries, who then nearly doubled the size of France, acquiring regions which at the time had closer cultural and language ties to Catalonia. This led to the creation of the Medieval Inquisition which was charged to suppress heresies.

The Waldensians, a group which can be considered a precursor to Protestant and Evangelical Christianity was likewise persecuted by the Inquisition.

Individuals whose views were considered deviant could be convicted and executed, as happened with Jerome of Prague, John Badby, and Jan Hus.

[edit] Reformation and Counter-Reformation

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article entitled Religious persecution and warfare in early modern Europe. (Discuss)

After the Protestant Reformation (which began in 1517), western Christianity became divided into Catholicism and Protestantism. The divide between the two denominations was deep. Protestants commonly alleged that the catholic Pope was the Antichrist. Conflict between Christian factions reached its height in France with the French Wars of Religion and the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

Outbreaks against Catholics also occurred in Protestant countries, leading to endemic conflicts in some areas, such as Ireland, where the British government imported Protestants and expelled Catholic landowners following a long period of conflict over control of the island.

[edit] Catholic countries

[edit] Spain

After a "few dozen" protestants had been executed in Spain in the 1550s, Protestantism failed to gain a foothold there^[34] and the conflict between the Christian denominations did not become a large issue within the country. Nevertheless, the Spanish Inquisition continued its work until the 19th century.

[edit] Goa Inquisition

Main article: Goa Inquisition

During the period of Colonial Conquest, Portugal also established the Inquisition in the part of India, that was part of Portuguese Empire. The Goa Inquisition discriminated Hindus who were living in the area, and persecuted Hindus, Muslim and Jews who had converted to Catholicism, but were being suspected of continuing their old faith in secret.

[edit] Protestant Martyrs under Mary

Many Protestant Christians were burnt at the stake or otherwise killed in the reign of Queen Mary I of England, including Thomas Cranmer and two bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, the Oxford Martyrs.^[35]

[edit] Expulsion of the Salzburgers from Austria

On October 31, 1731, the Catholic ruler of Salzburg, Austria, Archbishop Leopold von Firmian, issued an edict expelling as many as 20,000 Lutherans from his principality. Many Lutherans, given only eight days to leave their homes, froze to death as they wandered throughout the winter seeking shelter. The wealthier ones who were allowed three months to dispose of their property fared better. Some of these Salzburgers reached London, from whence they sailed to the Province of Georgia. Others found new homes in the Netherlands and East Prussia.

[edit] Persecution of Huguenots by Catholics

The slaughter of Huguenots (French Protestants) by Catholics at Sens, Burgundy, in 1562 occurred at the beginning of more than thirty years of religious strife between French Protestants and Catholics. These wars produced numerous atrocities. The worst was the notorious St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris on August 24, 1572. Thousands of Huguenots were butchered by Roman Catholic mobs. Although an accommodation between the two sides was sealed in 1598 by the Edict of Nantes, religious privileges of Huguenots eroded during the seventeenth century and were extinguished in 1685 by the revocation of the edict. Perhaps as many as 400,000 French Protestants emigrated to various parts of the world, including the British North American colonies. Persecution was resumed under Louis XV, 1724-1764, gradually subsiding in the decades leading up to the triumph of laïcité in France.

[edit] Drowning of Protestants in Ireland

Approximately one hundred Protestants from Loughgall Parish, County Armagh, were executed by mobs at the bridge over the River Bann near Portadown, Ulster. This atrocity occurred at the beginning of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Having held the Protestants as prisoners and tortured them, the Catholics drove them to the bridge, where they were stripped naked and forced into the water below at swordpoint. Survivors of the plunge were shot.

[edit] Protestant countries

[edit] Execution of Mennonites in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, David van der Leyen and Levina Ghyselins, described variously as Dutch Anabaptists or Mennonites, were executed by Catholic authorities in Ghent in 1554. Strangled and burned, van der Leyen was finally dispatched with an iron fork. Thieleman J. van Braght's Martyrs Mirror is considered by modern Mennonites as second only in importance to the Bible in perpetuating their faith.

[edit] Persecution Jesuit in Great Britain

Jesuits like John Ogilvie (and seminary priests) were under constant surveillance and threat from the Protestant governments of England and Scotland. Ogilvie was sentenced to death by a Glasgow court and hanged on March 10, 1615.

Brian Cansfield, a Jesuit priest, was seized while at prayer by English Protestant authorities in Yorkshire. Cansfield was beaten and imprisoned under harsh conditions. He died on August 3, 1643, from the effects of his ordeal. Another Jesuit priest, Ralph Corbington, was hanged by the English government in London, September 17, 1644, for professing his faith.

[edit] Massacres of Catholics in Ireland

Thousands of Catholic residents were massacred by Oliver Cromwell's Protestant troops at Drogheda, Wexford, and Waterford, during the Irish campaign of autumn and winter 1649. All of the survivors of Drogheda and many from other places were sold as slaves to the West Indies. In 1652, all Catholic-owned estates east of the River Shannon were confiscated, and their residents were evicted en-masse amid plague and famine that killed an even greater number. Approximately 600,000 people, nearly half the Irish population, died during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.^[36] The penal laws of 1690 caused still more destitution and emigration.

[edit] Colonialism

European colonization and imperialism was also fueled by Christian evangelism and sometimes by persecution of "pagan" communities. Spanish conquests in central and South America were accompanied by attempts to suppress native religions.

[edit] 18th-20th Century

By the 18th century, persecutions of unsanctioned beliefs had been reduced in most Europeans countries to religious discrimination, in the form of legal restrictions on those who did not accept the official faith. This often included being barred from higher education, or from participation in the national legislature. In colonized nations, attempts to convert native peoples to Christianity became more encouraging and less forceful. In British India during the Victorian era, Christian converts were given preferential treatment for governmental appointments.

At the present time, most countries in which Christianity is the religion of the majority of the people, are either secular states or they embrace the separation of Church and State in another way. (A list of countries in which Christianity still is the state religion can be found at the article on State religion.) Although accusations of religious persecution or discrimination have been voiced against states in which Christianity is the majority religion, these would not fall under the category of religious persecution by Christians, as those states are not Christian (at least according to their constitution).

Some recent political conflicts are sometimes considered as religious persecution. Among these, there is the case of the Hue Vesak shootings in Vietnam on May 8, 1963 and the ethnic cleansing in the Kosovo between 1992 and 1999. ^[37]

[edit] See also

Blood libel against Jews Boxer Rebellion Caucasian War Marrano Expulsion of Moriscos Colonialism European colonization of the Americas Criticisms of Christianity Iconoclasm Arianism Saxon Wars Sack of Magdeburg St. Bartholomew's Day massacre Missions Indian boarding school Missionaries in India

Persecution of Ancient Greek religion History of the Jews in Spain Taiping Rebellion Witch-hunt Salem witch trials Germanic Christianity Christianization of Scandinavia Baptism of Poland Christianization of Kievan Rus' Pagan reaction in Poland Constantine I and Christianity Crusades First Crusade Northern Crusades Albigensian Crusade Anti-Hussite Crusade Christian terrorism

Persecution of Muslims Persecution of Atheists Christianization Conquistador Santería Spanish Inquisition Portuguese Inquisition Goa Inquisition Medieval Inquisition Waldensians Lollardy Catharism Ku Klux Klan New Christian Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 Religious discrimination against Neopagans

[edit] Literature

• John Coffey (2000), Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689, Studies in Modern History, Pearson Education
• Ramsay MacMullen, "Christianizing The Roman Empire A.D.100-400, Yale University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-300-03642-6
• Ramsay MacMullen, "Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eight Centuries", Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-300-07148-5

[edit] Notes

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