View source for Persecution of Christians

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[[File:Kharput Greek-Orthodox refugees - C.D.Morris - National Geographic, Nov. 1925.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|[[Greeks|Greek]] [[Greek Orthodox Church|Christians]] in 1922, fleeing from their homes in [[Elazığ|Kharput]] and moving to [[Trebizond]]. In the 1910s and 1920s, the [[Armenian genocide|Armenian]], [[Greek genocide|Greek]], and [[Sayfo|Assyrian]] [[Genocides in history#Ottoman Empire/Turkey|genocides]] were perpetrated by the [[Ottoman Empire]] and its successor state, the [[History of the Republic of Turkey|Republic of Turkey]].{{refn|<ref name="Bulut 2024">{{cite magazine |last=Bulut |first=Uzay |date=30 August 2024 |title=Turkey: Ongoing Violations against Greek Christians |url=https://europeanconservative.com/articles/analysis/turkey-ongoing-violations-against-greek-christians/ |url-status=live |magazine=[[The European Conservative]] |location=Budapest, Brussels, Rome, Vienna |publisher=[[Center for European Renewal]] |issn=2590-2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240830090504/https://europeanconservative.com/articles/analysis/turkey-ongoing-violations-against-greek-christians/ |archive-date=30 August 2024 |access-date=30 August 2024}}{{void|comment|Farickator|avoid wikilinks to each listed publication location as being an annoying distraction}}</ref><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021">{{cite news |last1=Morris |first1=Benny |author1-link=Benny Morris |last2=Ze'evi |first2=Dror |author2-link=Dror Ze'evi |date=4 November 2021 |title=Then Came the Chance the Turks Have Been Waiting For: To Get Rid of Christians Once and for All |url=https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-then-came-the-chance-the-turks-have-been-waiting-for-to-get-rid-of-christians-1.10354739 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |work=[[Haaretz]] |location=[[Tel Aviv]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104172307/https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-then-came-the-chance-the-turks-have-been-waiting-for-to-get-rid-of-christians-1.10354739 |archive-date=4 November 2021 |access-date=5 November 2021}}</ref><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019">{{cite book |last1=Morris |first1=Benny |last2=Ze'evi |first2=Dror |author2-link=Dror Ze'evi |year=2019 |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924 |location=[[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |pages=3–5 |isbn=978-0-674-24008-7}}</ref><ref name="Gutman 2019">{{cite journal |author-last=Gutman |author-first=David |year=2019 |title=The thirty year genocide: Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924 |journal=[[Turkish Studies]] |location=[[London]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Routledge]] on behalf of the Global Research in International Affairs Center |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |doi=10.1080/14683849.2019.1644170 |eissn=1743-9663 |issn=1468-3849 |s2cid=201424062}}</ref><ref name="Bardakçı 2017">{{cite book |author1-last=Bardakçı |author1-first=Mehmet |author2-last=Freyberg-Inan |author2-first=Annette |author2-link=Annette Freyberg-Inan |author3-last=Giesel |author3-first=Christoph |author4-last=Leisse |author4-first=Olaf |year=2017 |chapter=The Ambivalent Situation of Turkey's Armenians: Between Collective Historical Trauma and Psychological Repression, Loyal Citizenship and Minority Status, Social Integration and Discrimination, Assimilation and Self-assertion |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=olQLDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 |title=Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom |location=[[London]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |pages=133−154 |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-27026-9_5 |isbn=978-1-137-27026-9 |lccn=2016961241}}</ref><ref name="Erol 2015">{{cite journal |author-last=Erol |author-first=Su |date=2015 |title=The Syriacs of Turkey: A Religious Community on the Path of Recognition |url=https://journals.openedition.org/assr/27027 |url-status=live |journal=[[Archives de sciences sociales des religions]] |location=[[Paris]], [[France]] |publisher=[[School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences|Éditions de l'EHESS]] |issue=171 |pages=59–80 |doi=10.4000/assr.27027 |isbn=9782713224706 |issn=1777-5825 |doi-access=free |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190626131739/https://journals.openedition.org/assr/27027 |archive-date=26 June 2019}}</ref><ref name="Smith 2015">{{cite journal |author-last=Smith |author-first=Roger W. |date=Spring 2015 |title=Introduction: The Ottoman Genocides of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks |journal=Genocide Studies International |location=[[Toronto]] |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=1–9 |doi=10.3138/GSI.9.1.01 |issn=2291-1855 |jstor=26986011 |s2cid=154145301}}</ref><ref name="Roshwald 2013">{{cite book |author-last=Roshwald |author-first=Aviel |author-link=Aviel Roshwald |year=2013 |chapter=Part II. The Emergence of Nationalism: Politics and Power – Nationalism in the Middle East, 1876–1945 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IlNoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA220 |editor-last=Breuilly |editor-first=John |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism |location=[[Oxford]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=220–241 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199209194.013.0011 |isbn=9780191750304}}</ref><ref name="Üngör 2008">{{cite journal |author-last=Üngör |author-first=Uğur Ümit |author-link=Uğur Ümit Üngör |date=June 2008 |title=Seeing like a nation-state: Young Turk social engineering in Eastern Turkey, 1913–50 |journal=[[Journal of Genocide Research]] |location=[[London]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Routledge]] |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=15–39 |doi=10.1080/14623520701850278 |issn=1469-9494 |oclc=260038904 |s2cid=71551858}}</ref><ref name="İçduygu 2008">{{cite journal |last1=İçduygu |first1=Ahmet |last2=Toktaş |first2=Şule |last3=Ali Soner |first3=B. |date=February 2008 |title=The politics of population in a nation-building process: Emigration of non-Muslims from Turkey |url=https://www.academia.edu/761694 |journal=[[Ethnic and Racial Studies]] |location=[[London]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Routledge]] |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=358–389 |doi=10.1080/01419870701491937 |issn=1466-4356 |oclc=40348219 |s2cid=143541451 |via=[[Academia.edu]] |access-date=August 2, 2020 |archive-date=March 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200325053206/https://www.academia.edu/761694/The_Politics_of_Population_in_a_Nation_Building_Process_Emigration_of_Non-Muslims_from_Turkey |url-status=live|hdl=11729/308 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>}}]]
{{Discrimination sidebar|expand-religious=yes}}

The [[religious persecution|persecution]] of [[Christians]] can be traced from the [[Christianity in the 1st century|first century]] of the [[Christian era]] to the [[Christianity in the 21st century|present day]]. [[Christian missionaries]] and [[converts to Christianity]] have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of being [[Martyrdom in Christianity|martyred for their faith]], ever since the emergence of Christianity.

[[Early Christians]] were persecuted at the hands of both [[Persecution of Christians by the Jews|Jews]], from [[Split of early Christianity and Judaism|whose religion Christianity arose]], and the [[Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire|Romans]] who controlled many of the [[History of early Christianity|early centers of Christianity]] in the [[Roman Empire]]. Since the emergence of [[Christian state]]s in [[Late Antiquity]], Christians have also been persecuted by other Christians due to differences in [[doctrine]] which have been declared [[Heresy in Christianity|heretical]]. [[Christianity in the 4th century|Early in the fourth century]], the empire's official persecutions were ended by the [[Edict of Serdica]] in 311 and the practice of Christianity legalized by the [[Edict of Milan]] in 312. By the year 380, Christians had begun to persecute each other. The [[schism]]s of [[late antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages]] – including the [[Rome–Constantinople schism of 1054|Rome–Constantinople schisms]] and the many [[Christological controversies]] – together with the later [[Reformation|Protestant Reformation]] provoked [[European wars of religion|severe conflicts]] between [[Christian denominations]]. During these conflicts, members of the various denominations frequently persecuted each other and engaged in [[Sectarian violence among Christians|sectarian violence]]. In the 20th century, [[Christianity in the 20th century|Christian populations]] were persecuted, sometimes, they were persecuted to the point of [[genocide]], by various states, including the [[Ottoman Empire]] and its successor state, the [[Republic of Turkey]],{{refn|<ref name="Bardakçı 2017"/><ref name="Erol 2015"/><ref name="Bulut 2024"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019"/><ref name="Gutman 2019"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Roshwald 2013"/><ref name="Üngör 2008"/><ref name="İçduygu 2008"/>}} which committed the [[Hamidian massacres]], the [[late Ottoman genocides]] (comprising the [[Armenian genocide|Armenian]], [[Greek genocide|Greek]], and [[Sayfo|Assyrian]] [[genocide]]s),{{refn|<ref name="Bardakçı 2017"/><ref name="Erol 2015"/><ref name="Bulut 2024"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019"/><ref name="Gutman 2019"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Roshwald 2013"/><ref name="Üngör 2008"/><ref name="İçduygu 2008"/>}} and the [[1915 genocide in Diyarbekir|Diyarbekir genocide]], and [[atheist states]] such as those of the [[Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc|former Eastern Bloc]].

The persecution of Christians has [[Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era|continued to occur during the 21st century]]. Christianity is the largest [[world religion]] and its adherents live across the globe. Approximately 10% of the world's Christians are members of minority groups which live in non-Christian-majority states.<ref>{{cite web |last1=PEW |title=Living as Majorities and Minorities |url=https://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-majorities-and-minorities/ |website=Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population |date=19 December 2011 |publisher=Pew Research Center Religion and Public Life |access-date=2 April 2021 |page=3 |quote=If all these Christians were in a single country, it would have the second-largest Christian population in the world, after the United States.}}</ref> The contemporary persecution of Christians includes the official state persecution mostly occurring in countries which are located in Africa and Asia because they have [[state religion]]s or because their governments and societies practice religious favoritism. Such favoritism is frequently accompanied by [[religious discrimination]] and [[religious persecution]].

According to the [[United States Commission on International Religious Freedom]]'s 2020 report, Christians in [[Christianity in Myanmar|Burma]], [[Christianity in China|China]], [[Christianity in Eritrea|Eritrea]], [[Christianity in India|India]], [[Christianity in Iran|Iran]], [[Christianity in Nigeria|Nigeria]], [[Persecution of Christians in North Korea|North Korea]], [[Christianity in Pakistan|Pakistan]], [[Christianity in Russia|Russia]], [[Christianity in Saudi Arabia|Saudi Arabia]], [[Christianity in Syria|Syria]], and [[Christianity in Vietnam|Vietnam]] are persecuted; these countries are labelled "countries of particular concern" by the [[United States Department of State]], because of their governments' engagement in, or toleration of, "severe violations of religious freedom".<ref name="USCIRF">{{cite web |title=Annual Report 2020 |url=https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/USCIRF%202020%20Annual%20Report_Final_42920.pdf |publisher=United States Commission on International Religious Freedom |pages=1, 11}}</ref>{{rp|2}} The same report recommends that [[Christianity in Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], [[Christianity in Algeria|Algeria]], [[Christianity in Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]], [[Christianity in Bahrain|Bahrain]], the [[Religion in the Central African Republic#Christianity|Central African Republic]], [[Christianity in Cuba|Cuba]], [[Christianity in Egypt|Egypt]], [[Christianity in Indonesia|Indonesia]], [[Christianity in Iraq|Iraq]], [[Christianity in Kazakhstan|Kazakhstan]], [[Christianity in Malaysia|Malaysia]], [[Christianity in Sudan|Sudan]], and [[Christianity in Turkey|Turkey]] constitute the US State Department's "special watchlist" of countries in which the government allows or engages in "severe violations of [[Freedom of religion|religious freedom]]".<ref name="USCIRF" />{{rp|2}}

Much of the persecution of Christians in recent times is perpetrated by [[non-state actors]] which are labelled "entities of particular concern" by the US State Department, including the [[Islamist]] groups [[Boko Haram]] in [[Christianity in Nigeria|Nigeria]], the [[Houthi movement]] in [[Christianity in Yemen|Yemen]], the [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province]] in [[Christianity in Pakistan|Pakistan]], [[Al-Shabaab (militant group)|al-Shabaab]] in [[Christianity in Somalia|Somalia]], the [[Taliban]] in [[Christianity in Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], the [[Islamic State]] as well as the [[United Wa State Army]] and participants in the [[Kachin conflict]] in [[Christianity in Myanmar|Myanmar]].<ref name="USCIRF" />{{rp|2}}

==Antiquity==
[[File:The Death of Stephen by Gustave Doré.jpg|thumb|Death of [[Saint Stephen]], "the Protomartyr", recounted in [[Acts 7|''Acts'' 7]], depicted in an engraving by [[Gustave Doré]] (published 1866)]]
[[File:Crucifixion of Saint Peter-Caravaggio (c.1600).jpg|alt=|thumb|[[Crucifixion of Saint Peter (Caravaggio)|''Crucifixion of Saint Peter'']] by [[Caravaggio]] (1600, [[Cerasi Chapel]])]]

===New Testament===
{{main|Persecution of Christians in the New Testament}}
[[Early Christianity]] began as a sect among [[Second Temple Judaism|Second Temple Jews]]. Inter-communal dissension began almost immediately.{{sfn|Wand|1990|p=13}}
According to the [[New Testament]] account, Saul of Tarsus prior to [[Conversion of Paul the Apostle|his conversion to Christianity]] persecuted early [[Judeo-Christian]]s. 
According to the ''[[Acts of the Apostles]]'', a year after the Roman [[crucifixion of Jesus]], [[Saint Stephen|Stephen]] was [[Stoning|stoned]] for what the Jews saw as transgressions of the [[Jewish law]].<ref name="Characteristics of the Early Church">{{Cite book|last=Burke|first=John J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWtbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA101 |title=Characteristics of the Early Church|date=1993|orig-date=1899 |publisher=M.H. Wiltzius |isbn=978-1-4086-5991-5|page=101}}</ref> And [[Paul of Tarsus|Saul]] (also known as ''Paul'') acquiesced, looking on and witnessing Steven's death.{{sfn|Wand|1990|p=13}} Later, Paul begins a listing of his own sufferings after conversion in 2 Corinthians 11:24 "Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned ..."<ref name="Kar Yong Lim">{{cite book |last1=Lim |first1=Kar Yong |title=The Sufferings of Christ Are Abundant In Us': A Narrative Dynamics Investigation of Paul's Sufferings in 2 Corinthians |date=2009 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=9780567635143 |pages=214–227}}</ref>

===Early Judeo-Christian===
In 41&nbsp;AD, [[Herod Agrippa]], who already possessed the territory of [[Herod Antipas]] and [[Philip the Tetrarch|Philip]] (his former colleagues in the [[Herodian Tetrarchy]]), obtained the title of ''King of the Jews'', and in a sense, re-formed the [[Herodian Kingdom of Judea|Kingdom of Judea]] of [[Herod the Great]] ({{Reign|37|4|era=BC}}). Herod Agrippa was reportedly responsible for the persecution in which [[James the Great]] lost his life, [[Saint Peter]] narrowly escaped and the rest of the [[Apostles in the New Testament|apostles]] took flight.{{sfn|Wand|1990|p=13}} After Agrippa's death in 44, the Roman procuratorship began (before 41 they were [[Prefects]] in Iudaea Province) and those leaders maintained a neutral peace, until the procurator [[Porcius Festus]] died in 62 and the high priest [[Ananus ben Ananus]] took advantage of the [[power vacuum]] to execute [[James the Just]], then leader of [[First Christian church|Jerusalem's Christians]].

According to the New Testament, Paul was imprisoned on several occasions by the Roman authorities, stoned by Jews and left for dead on one occasion, and was eventually taken to Rome as a prisoner. Peter and other early Christians were also imprisoned and prosecuted. The [[First Jewish Rebellion]] led to the [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|destruction of Jerusalem in 70&nbsp;AD]], the end of [[Second Temple Judaism]] (and the subsequent slow rise of [[Rabbinic Judaism]]).{{sfn|Wand|1990|p=13}}

Claudia Setzer asserts that, "Jews did not see Christians as clearly separate from their own community until at least the middle of the second century" but most scholars place the "parting of the ways" much earlier, with theological separation occurring immediately.<ref>{{cite book|last=Setzer |first=Claudia |title=Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics, 30–150 C.E. |publisher=Fortress |location=Minneapolis |year=1994}}</ref> Second Temple Judaism had allowed more than one way to be Jewish. After the fall of the Temple, one way led to rabbinic Judaism, while another way became Christianity; but Christianity was "molded around the conviction that the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, was not only the Messiah promised to the Jews, but God's son, offering access to God, and God's blessing to non-Jew as much as, and perhaps eventually more than, to Jews".<ref name="lieu 2003">{{cite journal|last=Lieu| first= Judith| title=The Synagogue and the Separation of the Christians|journal= Coniectanea Biblica| volume=New Testament series 39| year=2003|pages= 189–207|url=https://www.jcrelations.net/pt/article/the-synagogue-and-the-separation-of-the-christians.pdf}}</ref>{{rp|189}} While Messianic eschatology had deep roots in Judaism, and the idea of the suffering servant, known as Messiah Ephraim, had been an aspect since the time of Isaiah (7th century BCE), in the first century, this idea was seen as being usurped by the Christians. It was then suppressed, and did not make its way back into rabbinic teaching till the seventh century writings of Pesiqta Rabati.<ref name="Peter Schäfer">{{cite book |last1=Schäfer |first1=Peter |title=The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other |date=2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691160955 |page=18 |edition=illustrated, reprint}}</ref>

The traditional view of the separation of Judaism and Christianity has Jewish-Christians fleeing, ''en masse'', to Pella (shortly before the fall of the Temple in 70 AD) as a result of persecution.<ref name="Adolf von Harnack">{{cite book |last1=von Harnack |first1=Adolf |editor1-last=Moffatt |editor1-first=James |title=The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries |date=1908 |publisher=Williams and Norgate |pages=103–104 |edition=2}}</ref> Steven D. Katz says "there can be no doubt that the post-70 situation witnessed a change in the relations of Jews and Christians".<ref name="Steven T. Katz">{{cite journal |last1=Katz |first1=Steven T. |title=Issues in the Separation of Judaism and Christianity after 70 C.E.: A Reconsideration |journal=Journal of Biblical Literature |year=1984 |volume=103 |issue=1 |pages=43–44 |doi=10.2307/3260313 |jstor=3260313 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3260313|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Judaism sought to reconstitute itself after the disaster which included determining the proper response to Jewish Christianity. The exact shape of this is not directly known but is traditionally alleged to have taken four forms: the circulation of official anti-Christian pronouncements, the issuing of an official ban against Christians attending synagogue, a prohibition against reading heretical writings, and the spreading of the curse against heretics.<ref name="Steven T. Katz"/>

===Roman Empire===
{{Main|Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire|Religious persecution in the Roman Empire#Christianity}}

==== Neronian persecution ====
[[File:Siemiradzki Christian Dirce.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|''A Christian Dirce'', by [[Henryk Siemiradzki]] (1897, [[National Museum, Warsaw]]) A Christian woman is martyred under [[Nero]] in this re-enactment of the myth of [[Dirce]]]]
{{Main|Neronian persecution}}
The first documented case of imperially supervised persecution of Christians in the [[Roman Empire]] begins with [[Nero]] (54–68). In the ''Annals'', [[Tacitus]] states that Nero blamed Christians for the [[Great Fire of Rome]], and while it is generally believed to be authentic and reliable, some modern scholars have cast doubt on this view, largely because there is no further reference to Nero's blaming of Christians for the fire until the late 4th century.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Myth of the Neronian Persecution|last1=Shaw|first1=Brent|journal=The Journal of Roman Studies|volume=105|pages=73–100|doi=10.1017/S0075435815000982|date=14 August 2015|s2cid=162564651}}</ref><ref name="carrier">{{Cite journal|url=https://brill.com/abstract/journals/vc/68/3/article-p264_2.xml|title=The prospect of a Christian interpolation in Tacitus, Annals 15.44.|last1=Carrier|first1=Richard|journal=Vigiliae Christianae|volume=68|issue=3|pages=264–283|doi=10.1163/15700720-12341171|publisher=[[Brill Academic Publishers]]|date=2 July 2014|url-access=subscription}}</ref> [[Suetonius]] mentions punishments inflicted on Christians, defined as men following a new and malefic superstition, but does not specify the reasons for the punishment; he simply lists the fact together with other abuses put down by Nero.<ref name="carrier" />{{rp|269}} It is widely agreed on that the [[Number of the beast]] in the [[Book of Revelation]], adding up to 666, is derived from a [[gematria]] of the name of Nero Caesar, indicating that Nero was viewed as an exceptionally evil figure.<ref>Ben Witherington III, Revelation, Cambridge 2003, p177</ref> Several Christian sources report that [[Paul the Apostle]] and [[Saint Peter]] both died during the Neronian persecution.<ref>[[Tertullian]], ''Adversus Gnosticos Scorpiace'', Book 15, Chapters 2-5</ref><ref>[[Lactantius]], ''[[De mortibus persecutorum]]'', Book 2, Chapters 4-6</ref><ref>[[Sulpicius Severus]], ''Chronicorum'', Book 3, Chapter 29.</ref><ref>[[Orosius]], ''Historiarum'', Book 7, Chapters 7-10</ref>

==== From Nero to Decius ====
[[File:The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer GA&C.jpg|thumb|''The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer'' by [[Jean-Léon Gérôme]] (1863–1883, [[Walters Art Museum]]). A fanciful scene of ''[[damnatio ad bestias]]'' in ancient Rome's [[Circus Maximus]] beneath the [[Palatine Hill]].]]
In the first two centuries Christianity was a relatively small sect which was not a significant concern of the Emperor. [[Rodney Stark]] estimates there were fewer than 10,000 Christians in the year 100. Christianity grew to about 200,000 by the year 200, which works out to about 0.36% of the population of the empire, and then to almost 2&nbsp;million by 250, still making up less than 2% of the empire's overall population.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stark |first1=Rodney |title=The Rise of Christianity How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries |date=1997 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=9780060677015 |page=7}}</ref> According to [[Guy Laurie]], the Church was not in a struggle for its existence during its first centuries.<ref name=earlychristianity>{{cite book|first=Laurie|last=Guy|title=Introducing Early Christianity: A Topical Survey of Its Life, Beliefs Practices|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CqJ8A2CSb9EC&pg=PA50|date=28 October 2011|publisher=InterVarsity Press|isbn=978-0-8308-3942-1|page=50}}</ref> However, [[Bernard Green]] says that, although early persecutions of Christians were generally sporadic, local, and under the direction of regional governors, not emperors, Christians "were always subject to oppression and at risk of open persecution."<ref name="Bernard Green">{{cite book |last1=Green |first1=Bernard |title=Christianity in Ancient Rome The First Three Centuries |date=2010 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9780567032508 |page=120}}</ref> [[Trajan]]'s policy towards Christians was no different from the treatment of other sects; that is, they would only be punished if they refused to worship the emperor and the gods, but they were not to be sought out.{{sfn|González|2010|p=97}}

[[File:Ignatius of Antioch.jpg|thumb|Execution of [[Ignatius of Antioch]], reputed to have been killed in Rome under the emperor [[Trajan]], depicted in the ''[[Menologion of Basil II]]'', an illuminated manuscript prepared for the emperor [[Basil II]] in {{Circa|1000}}]]
[[James L. Papandrea]] says there are ten emperors generally accepted to have sponsored state-sanctioned persecution of Christians,<ref name="Papandrea">{{cite book |last1=Papandrea |first1=James L. |title=The Wedding of the Lamb A Historical Approach to the Book of Revelation |date=2011 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=9781498273428 |page=38}}</ref> though the first empire-wide government-sponsored persecution was not until Decius in 249.<ref name = Scarre170/> One early account of a mass killing is the [[persecution in Lyon]] in which Christians were purportedly mass-slaughtered by being thrown to wild beasts under the decree of Roman officials for reportedly refusing to renounce their faith according to [[Irenaeus]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.christianhistoryproject.org/to-the-decian-persecution/irenaeus/|title=IRENAEUS – The mass slaughter of Lyon's Christians|work=Christian History Project}}</ref><ref>Christopher Reyes (2010). ''In His Name''. California: AuthorHouse. p.33</ref> In the 3rd century, Emperor [[Severus Alexander]]'s household contained many Christians, but his successor, [[Maximinus Thrax]], hating this household, ordered that the leaders of the churches should be put to death.<ref name="Eusebius">{{cite web|last=Eusebius|title=Church History|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250106.htm|work=Book 6, Chapter 28|publisher=New Advent|access-date=25 April 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Papandrea|first=James L.|title=Reading the Early Church Fathers: From the Didache to Nicaea|date=23 January 2012|publisher=Paulist Press|isbn=978-0809147519}}</ref> According to Eusebius, this persecution sent [[Hippolytus of Rome]] and [[Pope Pontian]] into exile, but other evidence suggests that the persecutions were local to the provinces where they occurred rather than happening under the direction of the Emperor.<ref>{{cite book|author=Graeme Clark|chapter=Third-Century Christianity|title=Cambridge Ancient History|edition=2nd|volume=12: The Crisis of Empire, A.D. 193–337|editor1=Alan K. Bowman|editor2=Peter Garnsey|editor3=Averil Cameron|place=New York|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2005|page=623}}</ref>

According to two different Christian traditions, [[Simon bar Kokhba]], the leader of the [[Bar Kokhba revolt|third Jewish revolt against Rome]] (132–136 AD), who was proclaimed Messiah, persecuted the Christians: [[Justin Martyr]] claims that Christians were punished if they did not deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ, while Eusebius asserts that Bar Kokhba harassed them because they refused to join his revolt against the Romans.<ref>Justin, I ''Apology'' 31, 6; Eusebius, ''Chronicle'', seventeenth year of the Emperor Hadrian. See: Bourgel, Jonathan, ″The Jewish-Christians in the storm of the Bar Kokhba Revolt″, in: ''From One Identity to Another: The Mother Church of Jerusalem Between the Two Jewish Revolts Against Rome (66-135/6 EC)''. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, collection Judaïsme ancien et Christianisme primitif, (French), pp. 127–175.</ref>

=====Voluntary martyrdom=====
[[File:Martyrdom and persecution of Christians by the Romans. Woodc Wellcome V0033591.jpg|thumb|Woodcut illustration for the 1570 edition of [[John Foxe]]'s [[Foxe's Book of Martyrs|''Book of Martyrs'']] showing the "persecutions of the primitive Church under the heathen tyrants of Rome" and depicting the "sundry kinds of torments devised against the Christians"]]
Some early Christians sought out and welcomed martyrdom.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ide|first1=Arthur Frederick|url=https://archive.org/details/martyrdomofwomen0000idea|title=Martyrdom of Women: A Study of Death Psychology in the Early Christian Church to 301 CE|last2=Smith|first2=John Paul|publisher=Tangelwuld|year=1985|isbn=978-0-930383-49-7|location=Garland|page=[https://archive.org/details/martyrdomofwomen0000idea/page/21 21]|author-link2=John Paul Smith|url-access=registration}} apud {{cite book|last1=deMause|first1=Lloyd|title=The Emotional Life of Nations|publisher=Karnac|year=2002|isbn=1-892746-98-0|location=New York|chapter=Ch. 9. The Evolution of Psyche and Society. Part III.|quote=Both Christians and Jews "engaged in a contest and reflection about the new-fangled practice of martyrdom,"<sup>191</sup> even unto suicide...and Augustine spoke of "the mania for self-destruction" of early Christians.<sup>192</sup> But the Christians, following Tertullian's dicta that "martyrdom is required by God," forced their own martyrdom so they could die in an ecstatic trance: "Although their tortures were gruesome, the martyrs did not suffer, enjoying their analgesic state."<sup>195</sup><br />192. Arthur J. Droge and James D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Christians and Jews in Antiquity. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, p. 5.<br />193. Arthur F. Ide, Martyrdom of Women: A Study of Death Psychology in the Early Christian Church to 301 CE. Garland: Tangelwuld, 1985, p. 21.<br />194. Ibid., p. 136.<br />195. Ibid., pp. 146, 138.|author-link1=Lloyd deMause|chapter-url=http://primal-page.com/ps3.htm}}</ref><ref>Boyarin, Daniel. ''Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 40.</ref> According to Droge and Tabor, "in 185 the proconsul of Asia, Arrius Antoninus, was approached by a group of Christians demanding to be executed. The proconsul obliged some of them and then sent the rest away, saying that if they wanted to kill themselves there was plenty of rope available or cliffs they could jump off."<ref>{{cite book  |last1=Droge |first1=Arthur J. |url=https://archive.org/details/nobledeathsuicid00drog/page/136 |title=A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Christians and Jews in Antiquity |last2=Tabor |first2=James D. |date=November 1992 |publisher=HarperSanFrancisco |isbn=978-0-06-062095-0 |location=San Francisco |page=[https://archive.org/details/nobledeathsuicid00drog/page/136 136] |author-link2=James D. Tabor}} Misquoted as Groge and Tabor (1992:136) by C. Douzinas in {{cite book|last1=Closs Stephens|first1=Angharad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2cAF2OQ7RkC&pg=PA198|title=Terrorism and the Politics of Response|last2=Vaughan-Williams|first2=Nick|author3=Douzinas, C.|publisher=Routledge|year=2009|isbn=978-0-415-45506-0|location=Oxon and New York|page=198}}</ref> Such enthusiasm for death is found in the letters of [[Saint Ignatius of Antioch]], who was arrested and condemned as a criminal before writing his letters while on the way to execution. Ignatius casts his own martyrdom as a voluntary eucharistic sacrifice to be embraced.<ref name="Candida Moss"/>{{rp|55}}

"Many martyr acts present martyrdom as a sharp choice that cut to the core of Christian identity – life or death, salvation or damnation, Christ or apostacy..."<ref name="Candida Moss">{{cite book |last1=Moss |first1=Candida R. |title=Ancient Christian Martyrdom Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions |date=2012 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=9780300154658}}</ref>{{rp|145}} Subsequently, the martyr literature has drawn distinctions between those who were enthusiastically pro-voluntary-martyrdom (the [[Montanism|Montanists]] and [[Donatism|Donatists]]), those who occupied a neutral, moderate position (the orthodox), and those who were anti-martyrdom (the [[Gnostic Christianity|Gnostics]]).<ref name="Candida Moss"/>{{rp|145}}

The category of voluntary martyr began to emerge only in the third century in the context of efforts to justify flight from persecution.<ref name="Moss journal">Moss, Candida R. "The Discourse of Voluntary Martyrdom: Ancient and Modern.” Church History, vol. 81, no. 3, 2012, pp. 531–551., www.jstor.org/stable/23252340. Retrieved 23 January 2021.</ref> The condemnation of voluntary martyrdom is used to justify Clement fleeing the Severan persecution in Alexandria in 202 AD, and the ''Martyrdom of Polycarp'' justifies Polycarp's flight on the same grounds. "Voluntary martyrdom is parsed as passionate foolishness" whereas "flight from persecution is patience" and the result a true martyrdom.<ref name="Candida Moss"/>{{rp|155}}

[[Daniel Boyarin]] rejects use of the term "voluntary martyrdom", saying, "if martyrdom is not voluntary, it is not martyrdom".<ref name="Daniel Boyarin">{{cite book |last1=Boyarin |first1=Daniel |title=Dying for God Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism |year=1999 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=9780804737043 |page=121}}</ref> [[G. E. M. de Ste. Croix]] adds a category of "quasi-voluntary martyrdom": "martyrs who were not directly responsible for their own arrest but who, after being arrested, behaved with" a stubborn refusal to obey or comply with authority.<ref name="Candida Moss"/>{{rp|153}} [[Candida Moss]] asserts that De Ste. Croix's judgment of what values are worth dying for is modern, and does not represent classical values. According to her there was no such concept as "quasi-volunteer martyrdom" in ancient times.<ref name="Candida Moss"/>{{rp|153}}

==== Decian persecution ====
{{Main|Decian persecution}}
In the reign of the emperor [[Decius]] ({{Reign|249|251}}), a decree was issued requiring that all residents of the empire should perform sacrifices, to be enforced by the issuing of each person with a ''[[libellus]]'' certifying that they had performed the necessary ritual.<ref name=":0" /> It is not known what motivated Decius's decree, or whether it was intended to target Christians, though it is possible the emperor was seeking divine favors in the forthcoming wars with the [[Carpi (people)|Carpi]] and the [[Goths]].<ref name=":0" /> Christians that refused to publicly offer sacrifices or burn incense to Roman gods were accused of impiety and punished by arrest, imprisonment, torture or execution.<ref name="Scarre170"/> According to Eusebius, bishops [[Alexander of Jerusalem]], [[Babylas of Antioch]], and [[Pope Fabian|Fabian of Rome]] were all imprisoned and killed.<ref name=":0" /> The patriarch [[Pope Dionysius of Alexandria|Dionysius of Alexandria]] escaped captivity, while the bishop [[Cyprian of Carthage]] fled his [[episcopal see]] to the countryside.<ref name=":0" /> The Christian church, despite no indication in the surviving texts that the edict targeted any specific group, never forgot the reign of Decius whom they labelled as that "fierce tyrant".<ref name="Scarre170">Scarre 1995, p. 170</ref> After Decius died, [[Trebonianus Gallus]] ({{Reign|251|253}}) succeeded him and continued the Decian persecution for the duration of his reign.<ref name=":0" />

==== Valerianic persecution ====
The accession of Trebonianus Gallus's successor [[Valerian (emperor)|Valerian]] ({{Reign|253|260}}) ended the Decian persecution.<ref name=":0" /> In 257 however, Valerian began to enforce public religion. Cyprian of Carthage was exiled and executed the following year, while [[Pope Sixtus II]] was also put to death.<ref name=":0" /> Dionysius of Alexandria was tried, urged to recognize "the natural gods" in the hope his congregation would imitate him, and exiled when he refused.<ref name=":0" />

Valerian was defeated by the Persians at the [[Battle of Edessa]] and himself taken prisoner in 260. According to Eusebius, Valerian's son, co-''augustus'', and successor [[Gallienus]] ({{Reign|253|268}}) allowed Christian communities to use again their cemeteries and made restitution of their confiscated buildings.<ref name=":0" /> Eusebius wrote that Gallienus allowed the Christians "freedom of action".<ref name=":0" />

== Late antiquity ==

=== Roman Empire ===
[[File:Barbara of Nicomedia (Menologion of Basil II).jpg|thumb|Execution of [[Saint Barbara]], reputed to have been killed under the emperor [[Diocletian]], depicted in the ''[[Menologion of Basil II]]'']]

====The Great Persecution====
{{Main|Diocletianic Persecution}}
{{See also|Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire}}
The Great Persecution, or Diocletianic Persecution, was begun by the senior ''[[Augustus (title)#Imperial honorific|augustus]]'' and [[Roman emperor]] [[Diocletian]] ({{Reign|284|305}}) on 23 February 303.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Nicholson|first=Oliver|title=Christians, persecution of|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-1035|work=The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity|year=2018|editor-last=Nicholson|editor-first=Oliver|edition=online|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-866277-8|access-date=2020-10-07}}</ref> In the eastern Roman empire, the official persecution lasted intermittently until 313, while in the [[Western Roman Empire]] the persecution went unenforced from 306.<ref name=":0" /> According to [[Lactantius]]'s ''De mortibus persecutorum'' ("on the deaths of the persecutors"), Diocletian's junior emperor, the ''[[Caesar (title)|caesar]]'' [[Galerius]] ({{Reign|293|311}}) pressured the ''augustus'' to begin persecuting Christians.<ref name=":0" /> [[Eusebius of Caesarea]]'s ''[[Church History (Eusebius)|Church History]]'' reports that [[imperial edict]]s were promulgated to destroy churches and confiscate scriptures, and to remove Christian occupants of government positions, while Christian priests were to be imprisoned and required to perform [[sacrifice in ancient Roman religion]].<ref name=":0" /> In the account of Eusebius, an unnamed Christian man (named by later hagiographers as {{interlanguage link|Euethius of Nicomedia|el|Εβένσιος της Νικομήδειας|es|Evecio de Nicomedia|it|Evezio|sw|Evesi wa Nikomedia}} and venerated on 27 February) tore down a public notice of an imperial edict while the emperors Diocletian and Galerius were in [[Nicomedia]] ([[İzmit]]), one of Diocletian's capitals; according to Lactantius, he was tortured and burned alive.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shaw|first=Brent D.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F8ZRPTgcjrcC|title=Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-521-19605-5|page=176}}</ref> According to Lactantius, the church at [[Nicomedia]] ([[İzmit]]) was destroyed, while the ''[[Optatan Appendix]]'' has an account from the [[praetorian prefecture of Africa]] involving the confiscation of written materials which led to the [[Donatist schism]].<ref name=":0" /> According to Eusebius's ''[[Martyrs of Palestine]]'' and Lactantius's ''De mortibus persecutorum'', a fourth edict in 304 demanded that everyone perform sacrifices, though in the western empire this was not enforced.<ref name=":0" />

An "unusually philosophical" dialogue is recorded in the trial proceedings of [[Phileas of Thmuis]], bishop of [[Thmuis]] in [[Egypt (Roman province)|Egypt]]'s [[Nile Delta]], which survive on Greek [[papyri]] from the 4th century among the [[Bodmer Papyri]] and the [[Chester Beatty Papyri]] of the [[Bodmer Library|Bodmer]] and [[Chester Beatty Library|Chester Beatty]] libraries and in manuscripts in [[Latin]], [[Ethiopic]], and [[Coptic language|Coptic]] languages from later centuries, a body of [[hagiography]] known as the ''[[Acts of Phileas]]''.<ref name=":0" /> Phileas was condemned at his fifth trial at [[Alexandria]] under {{interlanguage link|Clodius Culcianus|ru|Клодий Кульциан}}, the ''[[praefectus Aegypti]]'' on 4 February 305 (the 10th day of [[Meshir|''Mecheir'']]).

In the western empire, the Diocletianic Persecution ceased with the usurpation by two emperors' sons in 306: that of Constantine, who was [[Acclamatio|acclaimed]] ''augustus'' by the army after his father [[Constantius I]] ({{Reign|293|306}}) died, and that of [[Maxentius]] ({{Reign|306|312}}) who was elevated to ''augustus'' by the [[Roman Senate]] after the grudging retirement of his father [[Maximian]] ({{Reign|285|305}}) and his co-''augustus'' Diocletian in May 305.<ref name=":0" /> Of Maxentius, who controlled Italy with his now un-retired father, and Constantine, who controlled [[Roman Britain|Britain]], [[Roman Gaul|Gaul]], and [[Roman Iberia|Iberia]], neither was inclined to continue the persecution.<ref name=":0" /> In the eastern empire however, Galerius, now ''augustus'', continued Diocletian's policy.<ref name=":0" /> Eusebius's ''Church History'' and ''Martyrs of Palestine'' both give accounts of martyrdom and persecution of Christians, including Eusebius's own mentor [[Pamphilus of Caesarea]], with whom he was imprisoned during the persecution.<ref name=":0" />
[[File:Peter the Archbishop of Alexandria (Menologion of Basil II).jpg|thumb|The execution of the patriarch [[Peter I of Alexandria|Peter of Alexandria]] under the emperor [[Maximinus Daia]], depicted in the ''[[Menologion of Basil II]]'']]
[[File:Martyrs Silvanus the Bishop of Emesa, Luke the deacon, and Mocius (Mucius) the reader (Menologion of Basil II).jpg|thumb|The execution of the martyrs [[Luke the Deacon]], [[Mocius the Reader]], and {{interlanguage link|Silvanus, bishop of Emesa|fr|Sylvain (évêque d'Émèse)|it|Silvano di Emesa|sw|Silvano wa Homs}}, reputed to have been killed under the emperor [[Maximinus Daia]], depicted in the ''[[Menologion of Basil II]]'']]
When Galerius died in May 311, he is reported by Lactantius and Eusebius to have composed a deathbed edict – the [[Edict of Serdica]] – allowing the assembly of Christians in [[conventicles]] and explaining the motives for the prior persecution.<ref name=":0" /> Eusebius wrote that Easter was celebrated openly.<ref name=":0" /> By autumn however, Galerius's nephew, former ''caesar'', and co-''augustus'' [[Maximinus Daia]] ({{Reign|310|313}}) was enforcing Diocletian's persecution in his territories in [[Anatolia]] and the [[Diocese of the East]] in response to petitions from numerous cities and provinces, including [[Antioch]], [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]], [[Lycia]], and [[Pisidia]].<ref name=":0" /> Maximinus was also encouraged to act by an [[Oracle|oracular]] pronouncement made by a statue of Zeus ''Philios'' set up in Antioch by [[Theotecnus of Antioch]], who also organized an anti-Christian petition to be sent from the Antiochenes to Maximinus, requesting that the Christians there be expelled.<ref name=":0" /> Among the Christians known to have died in this phase of the persecution are the [[presbyter]] [[Lucian of Antioch]], the bishop [[Methodius of Olympus|Methodius]] of [[Olympus (Lycia)|Olympus in Lycia]], and [[Peter I of Alexandria|Peter]], the [[patriarch of Alexandria]]. Defeated in a civil war by the ''augustus'' [[Licinius]] ({{Reign|308|324}}), Maximinus died in 313, ending the systematic persecution of Christianity as a whole in the Roman Empire.<ref name=":0" /> Only one martyr is known by name from the reign of Licinius, who issued the [[Edict of Milan]] jointly with his ally, co-''augustus'', and brother-in-law Constantine, which had the effect of resuming the toleration of before the persecution and returning confiscated property to Christian owners.<ref name=":0" />

The ''[[New Catholic Encyclopedia]]'' states that "Ancient, medieval and early modern hagiographers were inclined to exaggerate the number of martyrs. Since the title of martyr is the highest title to which a Christian can aspire, this tendency is natural".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Howells |first1=Kristina |title=Making Sense of Bible Prophecy |date=2008 |publisher=Lulu |isbn=978-1409207832 |page=91}}</ref> Attempts at estimating the numbers involved are inevitably based on inadequate sources.<ref name="Frend">{{cite book |title=The Rise of Christianity |author=W. H. C. Frend |publisher=Fortress Press, Philadelphia |year=1984 |page=319 |isbn=978-0-8006-1931-2|author-link=W. H. C. Frend }}</ref>

==== Constantinian period ====
{{Main|Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire}}
{{See also|Religious policies of Constantine the Great}}
The Christian church marked the conversion of [[Constantine the Great]] as the final fulfillment of its heavenly victory over the "false gods".<ref name="Brown2">Brown, Peter. "Christianization and religious conflict". The Cambridge Ancient History 13 (1998): 337–425.</ref>{{rp|xxxii}} The Roman state had always seen itself as divinely directed, now it saw the first great age of persecution, in which the [[Devil in Christianity|Devil]] was considered to have used open violence to dissuade the growth of Christianity, at an end.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Shaw|first=Brent D.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F8ZRPTgcjrcC|title=Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-521-19605-5|pages=598–599}}</ref> The orthodox catholic<!-- do not capitalize either of these words, the meant as general terms, not labels connected with the present-day denominations --> Christians close to the Roman state represented imperial persecution as an historical phenomenon, rather than a contemporary one.<ref name=":2"/> According to MacMullan, the Christian histories are colored by this "triumphalism".<ref name="MacMullen1986p4">MacMullen, Ramsay (1997) ''Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries'', Yale University Press, p.4 quote: "non Christian writings came in for this same treatment, that is destruction in great bonfires at the center of the town square. Copyists were discouraged from replacing them by the threat of having their hands cut off</ref>{{rp|4}}

[[Peter Leithart]] says that, "[Constantine] did not punish pagans for being pagans, or Jews for being Jews, and did not adopt a policy of forced conversion".<ref name="Leithart2010">{{cite book |last1=Leithart |first1=Peter J. |title=Defending Constantine The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom |date=2010 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |isbn=9780830827220}}</ref>{{rp|61}} Pagans remained in important positions at his court.<ref name="Leithart2010"/>{{rp|302}} He outlawed the gladiatorial shows, destroyed some temples and plundered more, and used forceful rhetoric against non-Christians, but he never engaged in a purge.<ref name="Leithart2010"/>{{rp|302}} Maxentius' supporters were not slaughtered when Constantine took the capital; Licinius' family and court were not killed.<ref name="Leithart2010"/>{{rp|304}} However, followers of doctrines which were seen as heretical or causing [[schism]] were persecuted during the reign of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, and they would be persecuted again later in the 4th century.<ref name="Tilley1996">{{cite book|title=Donatist Martyr Stories The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa|date=1996|publisher=Liverpool University Press|isbn=9780853239314|editor1-last=Tilley|editor1-first=Maureen A.|pages=ix, xiv}}</ref> The consequence of Christian doctrinal disputes was generally mutual excommunication, but once Roman government became involved in ecclesiastical politics, rival factions could find themselves subject to "repression, expulsion, imprisonment or exile" carried out by the Roman army.<ref name="John F. Shean">{{cite book |last1=Shean |first1=John F. |title=Soldiering for God Christianity and the Roman Army |date=2010 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9789004187337}}</ref>{{rp|317}}

In 312, the Christian sect called [[Donatism|Donatists]] appealed to Constantine to solve a dispute. He convened a synod of bishops to hear the case, but the synod sided against them. The Donatists refused to accept the ruling, so a second gathering of 200 at Arles, in 314, was called, but they also ruled against them. The Donatists again refused to accept the ruling, and proceeded to act accordingly by establishing their own bishop, building their own churches, and refusing cooperation.<ref name="John F. Shean"/>{{rp|317}}<ref name="Tilley1996"/>{{rp|xv}} This was a defiance of imperial authority, and it produced the same response Rome had taken in the past against such refusals. For a Roman emperor, "religion could be tolerated only as long as it contributed to the stability of the state".<ref name="Earle E. Cairns">Cairns, Earle E. (1996). "Chapter 7:Christ or Caesar". Christianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church (Third ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. {{ISBN|978-0-310-20812-9}}.</ref>{{rp|87}} Constantine used the army in an effort to compel Donatist' obedience, burning churches and martyring some from 317 – 321.<ref name="Tilley1996"/>{{rp|ix; xv}} Constantine failed in reaching his goal and ultimately conceded defeat. The schism remained and Donatism continued.<ref name="John F. Shean"/>{{rp|318}} After Constantine, his youngest son [[Constans|Flavius Julius Constans]], initiated the [[Macarius (imperial legate)|Macarian campaign]] against the Donatists from 346 – 348 which only succeeded in renewing sectarian strife and creating more martyrs. Donatism continued.<ref name="Tilley1996"/>{{rp|xvii}}

The fourth century was dominated by its many conflicts defining orthodoxy versus heterodoxy and heresy. In the Eastern Roman empire, known as Byzantium, the [[Arian controversy]] began with its debate of Trinitarian formulas which lasted 56 years.<ref name="Olson">{{cite book|last=Olson|first=Roger E.|title=The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform|publisher=InterVarsity Press|location=Downer's Grove, In.|year=1999|page=172|isbn=978-0-8308-1505-0}}</ref>{{rp|141}} As it moved into the West, the center of the controversy was the "champion of orthodoxy", [[Athanasius of Alexandria|Athanasius]]. In 355 Constantius, who supported Arianism, ordered the suppression and exile of Athanasius, expelled the orthodox [[Pope Liberius]] from Rome, and exiled bishops who refused to assent to Athanasius's exile.<ref name=":4"/> In 355, [[Dionysius (bishop of Milan)|Dionysius]], bishop of [[Mediolanum]] ([[Milan]]) was expelled from his episcopal see and replaced by the Arian Christian [[Auxentius of Milan]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shaw|first=Brent D.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F8ZRPTgcjrcC|title=Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-521-19605-5|pages=460–466}}</ref> When Constantius returned to Rome in 357, he consented to allow the return of Liberius to the papacy; the Arian [[Pope Felix II]], who had replaced him, was then driven out along with his followers.<ref name=":4"/>

The last emperor of the [[Constantinian dynasty]], [[Julius Constantius|Constantine's half-brother]]'s son [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]] ({{Reign|361|363}}) opposed Christianity and sought to restore traditional religion, though he did not arrange a general or official persecution.<ref name=":0"/>

==== Valentinianic–Theodosian period ====
According to the ''[[Collectio Avellana]]'', on the death of Pope Liberius in 366, Damasus, assisted by hired gangs of "charioteers" and men "from the arena", broke into the [[Basilica Julia]] to violently prevent the election of [[Pope Ursicinus]].<ref name=":4"/> The battle lasted three days, "with great slaughter of the faithful" and a week later Damasus seized the [[Lateran Basilica]], had himself ordained as [[Pope Damasus I]], and compelled the ''[[praefectus urbi]]'' [[Viventius]] and the ''[[praefectus annonae]]'' to exile Ursicinus.<ref name=":4"/> Damasus then had seven Christian priests arrested and awaiting banishment, but they escaped and "gravediggers" and minor clergy joined another mob of hippodrome and amphitheatre men assembled by the pope to attack the [[Liberian Basilica]], where Ursacinus's loyalists had taken refuge.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Shaw|first=Brent D.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F8ZRPTgcjrcC|title=Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-521-19605-5|pages=458–460}}</ref> According to [[Ammianus Marcellinus]], on 26 October, the pope's mob killed 137 people in the church in just one day, and many more died subsequently.<ref name=":4" /> The Roman public frequently enjoined the emperor [[Valentinian the Great]] to remove Damasus from the throne of Saint Peter, calling him a murderer for having waged a "filthy war" against the Christians.<ref name=":4" />

In the 4th century, the [[Thervings|Terving]] king [[Athanaric]] in {{Circa|375}} ordered the [[Gothic persecution of Christians]].<ref>Peter Heather & John Matthews, ''Goths in the Fourth Century'', pp. 96ff</ref> Athanaric was perturbed by the spread of [[Gothic Christianity]] among his followers, and feared for the displacement of [[Gothic paganism]].

It was not until the later 4th century reigns of the ''augusti'' [[Gratian]] ({{Reign|367|383}}), [[Valentinian II]] ({{Reign|375|392}}), and [[Theodosius I]] ({{Reign|379|395}}) that Christianity would become the official religion of the empire with the joint promulgation of the [[Edict of Thessalonica]], establishing [[Nicene Christianity]] as the [[state religion]] and as the [[state church of the Roman Empire]] on 27 February 380. After this began state persecution of non-Nicene Christians, including [[Arianism|Arian]] and [[Nontrinitarianism|Nontrinitarian]] devotees.<ref name="MacMullen'sordinaryday">{{cite book|last1=MacMullen|first1=Ramsay|title=Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary|date=2019|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691655246}}</ref>{{rp|267}}

When [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] became coadjutor Bishop of Hippo in 395, both Donatist and Catholic parties had, for decades, existed side-by-side, with a double line of bishops for the same cities, all competing for the loyalty of the people.<ref name="Tilley1996"/>{{rp|xv}}{{efn|French archaeology has shown the north African landscape of this time period became "covered with a white robe of churches" with Catholics and Donatists building multiple churches with granaries to feed the poor as they competed for the loyalty of the people.<ref name="Brown1964">{{cite journal|last=Brown|first= P.|year=1964|title=St. Augustine's Attitude to Religious Coercion|journal=Journal of Roman Studies|volume= 54|issue=1–2| pages=107–116|doi=10.2307/298656|jstor= 298656|s2cid= 162757247}}</ref>}}{{rp|334}} Augustine was distressed by the ongoing schism, but he held the view that belief cannot be compelled, so he appealed to the Donatists using popular propaganda, debate, personal appeal, General Councils, appeals to the emperor and political pressure, but all attempts failed.<ref name="Frend1">{{cite book|last=Frend|first=W.H.C.|title=The Donatist Church|date=2020|publisher=Wipf and Stock|isbn=9781532697555|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QNbaDwAAQBAJ}}</ref>{{rp|242,254}} The Donatists fomented protests and street violence, accosted travelers, attacked random Catholics without warning, often doing serious and unprovoked bodily harm such as beating people with clubs, cutting off their hands and feet, and gouging out eyes while also inviting their own martyrdom.<ref name="Markus">R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St.Augustine (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 149–153</ref>{{rp|120–121}} By 408, Augustine supported the state's use of force against them.<ref name="Brown1964"/>{{rp|107–116}} Historian Frederick Russell says that Augustine did not believe this would "make the Donatists more virtuous" but he did believe it would make them "less vicious".<ref name="Russell2"/>{{rp|128}}

Augustine wrote that there had, in the past, been ten Christian persecutions, beginning with the Neronian persecution, and alleging persecutions by the emperors [[Domitian]], [[Trajan]], "Antoninus" ([[Marcus Aurelius]]), "Severus" ([[Septimius Severus]]), and [[Maximinus Thrax|Maximinus]] (''Thrax''), as well as Decian and Valerianic persecutions, and then another by [[Aurelian]] as well as by Diocletian and Maximian.<ref name=":2"/> These ten persecutions Augustine compared with the [[10 Plagues of Egypt]] in the ''[[Book of Exodus]]''.{{Refn|Augustine, ''Civitate dei'', XVIII.50: {{langx|la|Proinde ne illud quidem temere puto esse dicendum siue credendum, quod nonnullis uisum est uel uidetur, non-amplius ecclesiam passuram persecutiones usque ad tempus Antichristi, quam quot iam passa est, id est decem, ut undecima eademque nouissima sit ab Antichristo. Primam quippe computant a Nerone quae facta est, secundam a Domitiano, a Traiano tertiam, quartam ab Antonino, a Seuero quintam, sextam a Maximino, a Decio septimam, octauam a Valeriano, ab Aureliano nonam, decimam a Diocletiano et Maximiano. Plagas enim Aegyptiorum, quoniam decem fuerunt, antequam exire inde inciperet populus Dei, putant ad hunc intellectum esse referendas, ut nouissima Antichristi persecutio similis uideatur undecimae plagae, qua Aegyptii, dum hostiliter sequerentur Hebraeos, in mari Rubro populo Dei per siccum transeunte perierunt.}}|group=note}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pollmann|first=Karla|title=Mauritius und die Thebäische Legion: Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums: Freiburg, Saint-Maurice, Martigny, 17.-20. September 2003|publisher=Academic Press Fribourg|year=2005|isbn=3-7278-1527-2|editor-last=Wermelinger|editor-first=Otto|pages=227–254|trans-title=Mauritius and the Thebaic Legion: files of the international colloquium: Freiburg, Saint-Maurice, Martigny, 17–20 September 2003|chapter=Poetische Paraphrasen der Actio Acaunensium Martyrum des Eucherius von Lyon|oclc=62901044|editor-last2=Bruggisser|editor-first2=Philippe|editor-last3=Näf|editor-first3=Beat|editor-last4=Roessli|editor-first4=Jean-Michel}}</ref> Augustine did not see these early persecutions in the same light as that of fourth century heretics. In Augustine's view, when the purpose of persecution is to "lovingly correct and instruct", then it becomes discipline and is just.<ref name="Marcos">Marcos, Mar. "The Debate on Religious Coercion in Ancient Christianity." Chaos e Kosmos 14 (2013): 1–16.</ref>{{rp|2}} Augustine wrote that "coercion cannot transmit the truth to the heretic, but it can prepare them to hear and receive the truth".<ref name="Brown1964"/>{{rp|107–116}} He said the church would discipline its people out of a loving desire to heal them, and that, "once compelled to come in, heretics would gradually give their voluntary assent to the truth of Christian orthodoxy."<ref name="Russell2">{{cite book |last1=Russell |first1=Frederick H. |title=The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus. |date=1999 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=0-472-10997-9 |chapter=Persuading the Donatists: Augustine's Coercion by Words}}</ref>{{rp|115}} He opposed the severity of Rome and the execution of heretics.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Toleration, History of |encyclopedia=The Catholic Encyclopedia An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church|year=1912 |publisher=University of Michigan |editor-last=Herbermann|editor-first=Charles George|pages=761–772}}</ref>{{rp|768}}

It is his teaching on coercion that has literature on Augustine frequently referring to him as ''le prince et patriarche de persecuteurs'' (the prince and patriarch of persecutors).<ref name="Markus"/>{{rp|116}}<ref name="Brown1964"/>{{rp|107}} Russell says Augustine's theory of coercion "was not crafted from dogma, but in response to a unique historical situation" and is therefore context dependent, while others see it as inconsistent with his other teachings.<ref name="Russell2"/>{{rp|125}} His authority on the question of coercion was undisputed for over a millennium in [[Western Christianity]], and according to Brown "it provided the theological foundation for the justification of medieval persecution."<ref name="Brown1964" />{{rp|107–116}}

==== Heraclian period ====
[[Callinicus I of Constantinople|Callinicus I]], initially a priest and ''skeuophylax'' in the {{interlanguage link|Church of the Theotokos of Blachernae|ka|მოსკოვის ვლაქერნის ღვთისმშობლის ხატის ეკლესია|ru|Церковь Влахернской иконы Божией Матери в Кузьминках}}, became patriarch of Constantinople in 693 or 694.<ref name=":15">{{cite web |editor1-last=Kazhdan |editor1-first=Alexander P. |editor1-link=Alexander Kazhdan |editor2-last=Talbot |editor2-first=Alice-Mary |editor2-link=Alice-Mary Talbot |year=1998 |title=Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database |url=https://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/resources/hagiography/hagiointro.pdf |website=doaks.org |location=Dumbarton Oaks |publisher=[[Harvard University]] |access-date=11 April 2022}}</ref>{{rp|58–59}} Having refused to consent to the demolition of a chapel in the [[Great Palace of Constantinople|Great Palace]], the ''Theotokos ton Metropolitou'', and having possibly been involved in the deposition and exile of [[Justinian II]] ({{Reign|685|695|705|711}}), an allegation denied by the ''Synaxarion of Constantinople'', he was himself exiled to Rome on the return of Justinian to power in 705.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|58–59}} The emperor had Callinicus [[immured]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|58–59}} He is said to have survived forty days when the wall was opened to check his condition, though he died four days later.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|58–59}}

===Sassanian Empire===

Violent persecutions of Christians began in earnest in the long reign of [[Shapur II]] ({{Reign|309|379}}).<ref name=":3">{{Citation|last=Skjærvø|first=Oktor|title=Christians, persecution of, Persian Empire|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-1036|work=The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity|year=2018|editor-last=Nicholson|editor-first=Oliver|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-866277-8|access-date=2020-10-07}}</ref> A persecution of Christians at [[Kirkuk]] is recorded in Shapur's first decade, though most persecution happened after 341.<ref name=":3" /> At war with the Roman emperor [[Constantius II]] ({{Reign|337|361}}), Shapur imposed a tax to cover the war expenditure, and [[Shemon Bar Sabbae]], the [[Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon]], refused to collect it.<ref name=":3" /> Often citing collaboration with the Romans, the Persians began persecuting and executing Christians.<ref name=":3" /> ''Passio'' narratives describe the fate of some Christians venerated as martyrs; they are of varying historical reliability, some being contemporary records by eyewitnesses, others were reliant on popular tradition at some remove from the events.<ref name=":3" /> An appendix to the ''Syriac Martyrology of 411'' lists the Christian [[Martyrs of Persia under Shapur II|martyrs of Persia]], but other accounts of martyrs' trials contain important historical details on the workings of the Sassanian Empire's historical geography and judicial and administrative practices.<ref name=":3" /> Some were translated into [[Sogdian language|Sogdian]] and discovered at [[Turpan]].<ref name=":3" />

Under [[Yazdegerd I]] ({{Reign|399|420}}) there were occasional persecutions, including an instance of persecution in reprisal for the burning of a Zoroastrian [[fire temple]] by a Christian priest, and further persecutions occurred in the reign of [[Bahram V]] ({{Reign|420|438}}).<ref name=":3" /> Under [[Yazdegerd II]] ({{Reign|438|457}}) an instance of persecution in 446 is recorded in the Syriac martyrology ''[[Acts of Ādur-hormizd and of Anāhīd]]''.<ref name=":3" /> Some individual martyrdoms are recorded from the reign of [[Khosrow I]] ({{Reign|531|579}}), but there were likely no mass persecutions.<ref name=":3" /> While according to a peace treaty of 562 between Khosrow and his Roman counterpart [[Justinian I]] ({{Reign|527|565}}), Persia's Christians were granted the freedom of religion; [[proselytism]] was, however, a capital crime.<ref name=":3" /> By this time the [[Church of the East]] and its head, the [[Catholicose of the East]], were integrated into the administration of the empire and mass persecution was rare.<ref name=":3" />

The Sassanian policy shifted from tolerance of other religions under [[Shapur I]] to intolerance under [[Bahram I]] and apparently a return to the policy of Shapur until the reign of [[Shapur II]]. The persecution at that time was initiated by [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]]'s conversion to Christianity which followed that of Armenian king [[Tiridates III of Armenia|Tiridates]] in about 301. The Christians were thus viewed with suspicions of secretly being partisans of the Roman Empire. This did not change until the fifth century when the [[Church of the East]] broke off from the [[State church of the Roman Empire|Church of the West]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MNSyT_PuYVMC&pg=474|title=The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193–337|publisher=Cambridge University Press|editor1=Bowman, Alan|editor2=Peter Garnsey|editor3=Averil Cameron|year=2005|page=474|isbn=9780521301992}}</ref> Zoroastrian elites continued viewing the Christians with enmity and distrust throughout the fifth century with threat of persecution remaining significant, especially during war against the Romans.<ref name="Qardagh" />

Zoroastrian high priest [[Kartir]], refers in his inscription dated about 280 on the [[Ka'ba-ye Zartosht]] monument in the [[Naqsh-e Rostam]] necropolis near [[Zangiabad, Fars]], to persecution (''zatan'' – "to beat, kill") of Christians ("Nazareans ''n'zl'y'' and Christians ''klstyd'n''"). Kartir took Christianity as a serious opponent. The use of the double expression may be indicative of the Greek-speaking Christians deported by [[Shapur I]] from [[Antioch]] and other cities during his war against the Romans.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7IHmyKcPtYC&pg=PA929|title=The Cambridge History of Iran: Seleucid Parthian|publisher=Cambridge University Press|author=Ehsan Yarshater|year=1983|page=929|author-link=Ehsan Yarshater|isbn=9780521246934}}</ref> [[Constantine The Great|Constantine]]'s efforts to protect the Persian Christians made them a target of accusations of disloyalty to Sasanians. With the resumption of Roman-Sasanian conflict under [[Constantius II]], the Christian position became untenable. Zoroastrian priests targeted clergy and ascetics of local Christians to eliminate the leaders of the church. A [[Syriac language|Syriac]] manuscript in [[Edessa]] in 411 documents dozens executed in various parts of western Sasanian Empire.<ref name=Qardagh>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H2UoQttQcy0C&pg=PA111|title=The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq|publisher= University of California Press|author=Joel Thomas Walker|year=2006|page=111|isbn=9780520932197}}</ref>

In 341, [[Shapur II]] ordered the persecution of all Christians.<ref>Sebastian P. Brock, ''Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy'', (Ashgate, 2006), 72.</ref><ref>D. T. Potts, ''The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State'', (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 422.</ref> In response to their subversive attitude and support of Romans, Shapur II doubled the tax on Christians. [[Shemon Bar Sabbae]] informed him that he could not pay the taxes demanded from him and his community. He was martyred and a forty-year-long period of persecution of Christians began. The [[Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon]] gave up choosing bishops since it would result in death. The local ''[[mobads]]'' – Zoroastrian clerics – with the help of [[satraps]] organized slaughters of Christians in [[Adiabene]], [[Beth Garmai|Beth Garmae]], [[Khuzistan]] and many other provinces.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Kti6Bz5At0C&pg=PA24|title=History of the Jews in Babylonia|publisher= Brill|author=Jacob Neusner|year=1997|pages=24, 25|author-link=Jacob Neusner|isbn=9004021469}}</ref>

[[Yazdegerd I]] showed tolerance towards Jews and Christians for much of his rule. He allowed Christians to practice their religion freely, demolished monasteries and churches were rebuilt and missionaries were allowed to operate freely. He reversed his policies during the later part of his reign however, suppressing missionary activities.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B5BHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA280|title=The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia|publisher=ABC-CLIO|author=Mehrdad Kia|year=2016|page=280|isbn=9781610693912}}</ref> [[Bahram V]] continued and intensified their persecution, resulting in many of them fleeing to the [[eastern Roman empire]]. Bahram demanded their return, beginning the [[Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422]]. The war ended with an agreement of freedom of religion for Christians in Iran with that of Mazdaism in Rome. Meanwhile, Christians suffered destruction of churches, renounced the faith, had their private property confiscated and many were expelled.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zrM3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA43|title=A History of the Jews in Babylonia, Part V: Later Sasanian Times|publisher= Brill|author=Jacob Neusner|year=1965|page=44|author-link=Jacob Neusner}}</ref>

[[Yazdegerd II]] had ordered all his subjects to embrace [[Mazdeism]] in an attempt to unite his empire ideologically. The [[Caucasus]] rebelled to defend Christianity which had become integrated in their local culture, with Armenian aristocrats turning to the Romans for help. The rebels were however defeated in a [[Battle of Avarayr|battle]] on the [[Avarayr Plain]]. [[Yeghishe]] in his ''The History of Vardan and the Armenian War'', pays a tribute to the battles waged to defend Christianity.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eeq-DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|title=Armenia Christiana: Armenian Religious Identity and the Churches of Constantinople and Rome (4th–15th Century)|publisher=[[Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego|Wydawnictwo UJ]]|author= Krzysztof Stopka|year=2016|page=61|isbn=9788323395553}}</ref> Another revolt was waged from 481 to 483 which was suppressed. However, the Armenians succeeded in gaining freedom of religion among other improvements.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mri93AaexX8C&pg=PA58|title=The History of Iran|publisher=ABC-CLIO|author=Elton L. Daniel|year=2012|page=59|author-link=Elton L. Daniel|isbn=9780313375095}}</ref>

Accounts of executions for apostasy of Zoroastrians who converted to Christianity during Sasanian rule proliferated from the fifth to early seventh century, and continued to be produced even after collapse of Sasanians. The punishment of apostates increased under [[Yazdegerd I]] and continued under successive kings. It was normative for apostates who were brought to the notice of authorities to be executed, although the prosecution of apostasy depended on political circumstances and Zoroastrian jurisprudence. Per Richard E. Payne, the executions were meant to create a mutually recognised boundary between interactions of the people of the two religions and preventing one religion challenging another's viability. Although the violence on Christians was selective and especially carried out on elites, it served to keep Christian communities in a subordinate and yet viable position in relation to Zoroastrianism. Christians were allowed to build religious buildings and serve in the government as long as they did not expand their institutions and population at the expense of Zoroastrianism.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rtjsCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA55|title=A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity|publisher=University of California Press|author=Richard E. Payne|year=2015|pages=49, 55–56|isbn=9780520961531}}</ref>

[[Khosrow I]] was generally regarded as tolerant of Christians and interested in the philosophical and theological disputes during his reign. [[Sebeos]] claimed he had converted to Christianity on his deathbed. [[John of Ephesus]] describes an Armenian revolt where he claims that Khusrow had attempted to impose Zoroastrianism in Armenia. The account, however, is very similar to the one of Armenian revolt of 451. In addition, Sebeos does not mention any religious persecution in his account of the revolt of 571.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OkX8g2hRnVsC&pg=PA40|title=History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East|publisher=Oxford University Press|author=Philip Wood|year=2013|pages=39–40|isbn=9780199915408}}</ref> A story about [[Hormizd IV]]'s tolerance is preserved by the historian [[al-Tabari]]. Upon being asked why he tolerated Christians, he replied, "Just as our royal throne cannot stand upon its front legs without its two back ones, our kingdom cannot stand or endure firmly if we cause the Christians and adherents of other faiths, who differ in belief from ourselves, to become hostile to us."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=snwkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA112|title=The Legend of Mar Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq|publisher= University of California Press|author=Joel Thomas Walker|year=2006|page=112|isbn=9780520245785}}</ref>

====During the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628====
{{Main|Sasanian conquest and occupation of Jerusalem}}

Several months after the Persian conquest in AD 614, a riot occurred in Jerusalem, and the Jewish governor of Jerusalem Nehemiah was killed by a band of young Christians along with his "council of the righteous" while he was making plans for the building of the [[Third Temple]]. At this time the Christians had allied themselves with the [[Byzantine Empire|Eastern Roman Empire]]. Shortly afterward, the events escalated into a full-scale Christian rebellion, resulting in a battle against the Jews and Christians who were living in Jerusalem. In the battle's aftermath, many Jews were killed and the survivors fled to Caesarea, which was still being held by the Persian army.

The Judeo-Persian reaction was ruthless – Persian Sasanian general Xorheam assembled Judeo-Persian troops and went and encamped around Jerusalem and besieged it for 19 days.<ref name="abrahamson">{{cite web|author1=Abrahamson|last2=Katz|date=2004|display-authors=etal|title=The Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 compared with Islamic conquest of 638|url=http://www.alsadiqin.org/history/The%20Persian%20conquest%20of%20Jerusalem%20in%20614CE%20compared%20with%20Islamic%20conquest%20of%20638CE.pdf|website=alsadiqin.org}}</ref> Eventually, digging beneath the foundations of the Jerusalem, they destroyed the wall and on the 19th day of the siege, the Judeo-Persian forces took Jerusalem.<ref name="abrahamson" />

According to the account of the Armenian ecclesiastic and historian [[Sebeos]], the siege resulted in a total Christian death toll of 17,000, the earliest and thus most commonly accepted figure.<ref name="james">{{cite book|author=R. W. Thomson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JRibSFLMER8C|title=The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos|publisher=Liverpool University Press|others=Historical commentary by James Howard-Johnston. Assistance from Tim Greenwood|year=1999|isbn=9780853235644}}</ref>{{rp| 207}} Per Strategius, following the conquest between 4,518 to 66,509 Christians were massacred by Jews at the [[Mamilla Pool]].<ref name="bibleinterp.com">{{Cite web|title=The Persian Conquest of Jerusalem (614 CE) ––An Archaeological Assessment|url=https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/pers357904|author= Gideon Avi | publisher= University of Arizona | date=2010 | work= The Bible and Interpretation}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Idinopulos |first=Thomas A. |date=1991 |title=Jerusalem blessed, Jerusalem cursed: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy City from David's time to our own |publisher=[[I.R. Dee]] |location=Chicago |page=[https://archive.org/details/jerusalemblessed0000idin/page/152/mode/2up 152]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-link=Elliott Horowitz |last=Horowitz |first=Elliott S. |date=2006 |title=Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence |page=[https://archive.org/details/recklessritespur0000horo/page/228/mode/2up 229]}}</ref> Israeli archaeologist [[Ronny Reich]] estimates a death toll of 60,000 people before the Persian authorities put an end to the killing.<ref name=JP2006>{{cite web |url=https://www.jpost.com/local-israel/in-jerusalem/massacre-at-mamilla |title=Massacre at Mamilla |work=Jerusalem Post|date=2 March 2006 }}</ref>  In 1989, a mass burial grave at [[Mamilla]] cave was discovered in by Israeli archeologist Ronny Reich, near the site where Strategius recorded the massacre took place. The human remains were in poor condition containing a minimum of 526 individuals.<ref>{{cite web|title=Human Skeletal Remains from the Mamilla cave, Jerusalem|url=http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_Item_eng.asp?sec_id=17&sub_subj_id=179|access-date=8 January 2014|first1=Yossi|last1=Nagar|publisher=Israel Antiquities Authority}}</ref>

The eyewitness account of Strategius of St. Sabas narrates: "Jews ransomed the Christians from the hands of the Persian soldiers for good money, and slaughtered them with great joy at Mamilla Pool, and it ran with blood."<ref name=JP2006/> The ''Sulha al-Quds'', the treaty of Jerusalem's capitulation to Muslim forces in 638, can only be understood in the context of the massacre at Mamilla. In it, the Christian Patriarch [[Sophronius of Jerusalem]] required that the Arab ruler [[Umar]] protect the people of Jerusalem from the Jews.<ref name=JP2006/> From the many excavations carried out in the [[Galilee]], it is clear that all churches had been destroyed during the period between the Persian invasion and the [[Siege of Jerusalem (636–637)|Arab conquest in 637]]. The church at [[Shavei Tzion|Shave Ziyyon]] was destroyed and burnt in 614. Similar fate befell churches at [[Evron, Israel|Evron]], [[Nahariya]], 'Arabe and monastery of [[Shlomi, Israel|Shelomi]]. The monastery at [[Kursi, Sea of Galilee|Kursi]] was damaged in the invasion.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mordechai Aviam|author-link=:he:מרדכי אביעם|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7YTC-52zoooC&pg=PA239|title=Jews, Pagans and Christians in the Galilee: 25 Years of Archaeological Excavations and Surveys : Hellenistic to Byzantine Periods|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2004|isbn=9781580461719|page=239}}</ref>

===Pre-Islamic Arabia===
{{See also|Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia|Christian community of Najran}}

In AD 516, tribal unrest broke out in Yemen and several tribal elites fought for power. One of those elites was Joseph [[Dhu Nuwas]] or "Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar", a Jewish king of the [[Himyarite Kingdom]] who is mentioned in ancient south Arabian inscriptions. [[Syriac language|Syriac]] and [[Byzantine Greek]] sources claim that he fought his war because Christians in Yemen refused to renounce Christianity. In 2009, a documentary that aired on the [[BBC]] defended the claim that the villagers had been offered the choice between conversion to Judaism or death and 20,000 Christians were then massacred by stating that "The production team spoke to many historians over a period of 18 months, among them [[Nigel Groom]], who was our consultant, and Professor [[Abdulrahman al-Ansary|Abdul Rahman Al-Ansary]], a former professor of archaeology at the [[King Saud University]] in Riyadh."<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/historians-back-bbc-over-jewish-massacre-claim|title= Historians back BBC over Jewish massacre claim|work= The Jewish Chronicle|access-date= 30 March 2015|archive-date= 5 April 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170405125952/https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/historians-back-bbc-over-jewish-massacre-claim|url-status= dead}}</ref> 

Inscriptions documented by Yousef himself show the great pride that he expressed after killing more than 22,000 Christians in Zafar and [[Najran]].<ref>{{interlanguage link|Jacques Ryckmans|ar|جاك ريكمانس}}, La persécution des chrétiens himyarites au sixième siècle Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Inst. in het Nabije Oosten, 1956 pp. 1–24</ref> Historian [[Glen Bowersock]] described this [[massacre]] as a "savage [[pogrom]] that the Jewish king of the Arabs launched against the Christians in the city of Najran. The king himself reported in excruciating detail to his Arab and Persian allies about the massacres that he had inflicted on all Christians who refused to convert to Judaism."<ref>Bowesock, Glen (2013). The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 4. {{ISBN|978-0199739325}}.</ref>

== Early Middle Ages ==

=== Viking invasion of Europe ===
Viking invasions of European Anglo-Saxon land resulted in massacres and atrocities made by pagan Vikings against Christians.<ref name=":10" /><ref name=":17">Blair, Peter Hunter (2003). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed.). Cambridge and New York City: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-53777-3. page 55</ref> 

According to the ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle|Anglo-Saxon Chronicles]]'', Viking raiders struck England in 793 and [[Sack of Lindisfarne|raided Lindisfarne]], the monastery that held [[Saint Cuthbert]]'s relics, killing the monks and capturing the valuables. The raid marked the beginning of the "Viking Age of Invasion".{{sfn|Hall|2010|p=13}}

In 793, when the monastery at [[Lindisfarne]], an island off England's eastern coast, was sacked by a Viking raiding party on 8 June and Christian priests and monks were killed and massacred by Viking invaders.<ref name=":10">[[Julian D. Richards|Richards, Julian D]]. (1991). Viking Age England. London: B. T. Batsford and English Heritage. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-7134-6520-4. </ref><blockquote>''Lo, it is nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have inhabited this most lovely land, and never before has such a terror appeared as we have now suffered from a [[pagan]] race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold the church of St Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments.''

Archbishop [[Alcuin of York]] on the sacking of Lindisfarne and massacre of Christians by Viking polytheist pagans.<ref name=":10" /></blockquote>

==== Christians of Scotland killed by Vikings ====
The following year, pagan Vikings sacked the nearby [[Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey]].<ref name=":17" /> In 795, they once again attacked, this time raiding [[Iona Abbey]] off Scotland's west coast.<ref name=":17" /> This [[Christians|Christian]] [[monastery]] was attacked again in 802 and 806, when 68 [[Christians|Christian people]] living there were killed. After this devastation, the monastic community at Iona abandoned the site and fled to [[Kells, County Meath |Kells]] in Ireland.<ref>[[Viking activity in the British Isles#Gra98|Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998]]. p. 24.</ref>

=== Caliphates ===

==== Rashidun Caliphate ====
Since they are considered "[[People of the Book]]" in the [[Islam|Islamic religion]], Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to the status of ''[[dhimmi]]'' (along with Jews, [[Samaritans]], [[Gnostics]], [[Mandeans]], and [[Zoroastrians]]), which was inferior{{tone inline|date=April 2025}} to the status of Muslims.<ref name="Stillman 1998">{{cite book |last=Stillman |first=Norman A. |author-link=Norman Stillman |year=1998 |orig-date=1979 |title=The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book |chapter=Under the New Order |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bFN2ismyhEYC&pg=PA22 |location=[[Philadelphia]] |publisher=[[Jewish Publication Society]] |pages=22–28 |isbn=978-0-8276-0198-7}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{cite book |last=Runciman |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Runciman |year=1987 |orig-year=1951 |chapter=The Reign of Antichrist |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uDj9sNezWzEC&pg=PA20 |title=[[A History of the Crusades|A History of the Crusades, Volume 1: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem]] |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=20–37 |isbn=978-0-521-34770-9}}</ref> Christians and other religious minorities thus faced [[religious discrimination]] and [[Religious persecution|persecution]] in that they were banned from [[Proselytism|proselytising]] (for Christians, it was forbidden to [[Evangelism|evangelize or spread Christianity]]) in the [[Early Muslim conquests|lands invaded by the Arab Muslims]] on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs.<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Under the [[Sharia|Islamic law]] (''sharīʿa''), Non-Muslims were obligated to pay the ''[[jizya]]'' and ''[[kharaj]]'' taxes,<ref name="Stillman 1998"/><ref name=":5"/> together with periodic heavy [[ransom]] levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships [[Forced conversion#Islam|forced many Christians to convert to Islam]].<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would [[History of slavery in the Muslim world|sell them as slaves]] to Muslim households where they [[Forced conversion#Islam|were forced to convert to Islam]].<ref name="Stillman 1998"/>

According to the tradition of the [[Syriac Orthodox Church]], the [[Muslim conquest of the Levant]] was a relief for Christians oppressed by the Western Roman Empire.<ref name=":5"/> [[Michael the Syrian]], [[patriarch of Antioch]], wrote later that the Christian God had "raised from the south the [[children of Ishmael]] to deliver us by them from the hands of the Romans".<ref name=":5"/> Various Christian communities in the regions of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], [[Syria (region)|Syria]], Lebanon, and [[Armenia (region)|Armenia]] resented either the governance of the Western Roman Empire or that of the Byzantine Empire, and therefore preferred to live under more favourable economic and political conditions as ''dhimmi'' under the Muslim rulers.<ref name=":5"/> However, modern historians also recognize that the Christian populations living in the [[Early Muslim conquests|lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies]] between the 7th and 10th centuries AD suffered [[religious persecution]], [[religious violence]], and [[Martyrdom in Christianity|martyrdom]] multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers;<ref name=":5"/><ref name="Sahner 2020">{{cite book |last=Sahner |first=Christian C. |year=2020 |orig-year=2018 |title=Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World |chapter=Introduction: Christian Martyrs under Islam |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZqzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]] and [[Woodstock, Oxfordshire]] |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |pages=1–28 |isbn=978-0-691-17910-0 |lccn=2017956010}}</ref><ref name="Fierro 2008">{{cite journal |author-last=Fierro |author-first=Maribel |author-link=Maribel Fierro |date=January 2008 |title=Decapitation of Christians and Muslims in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula: Narratives, Images, Contemporary Perceptions |journal=[[Comparative Literature Studies]] |volume=45 |issue=2: ''Al-Andalus and Its Legacies'' |location=[[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania |publisher=[[Penn State University Press]] |pages=137–164 |doi=10.2307/complitstudies.45.2.0137 |issn=1528-4212 |jstor=25659647 |s2cid=161217907|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Trombley 1996">{{cite journal |author-last=Trombley |author-first=Frank R. |date=Winter 1996 |title=''The Martyrs of Córdoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion'' (review) |journal=[[Journal of Early Christian Studies]] |volume=4 |issue=4 |location=[[Baltimore]], Maryland |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |pages=581–582 |doi=10.1353/earl.1996.0079 |issn=1086-3184 |s2cid=170001371 }}</ref> many [[Capital punishment in Islam |were executed under the Islamic death penalty]] for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, [[Apostasy in Islam|repudiation of the Islamic religion]] and subsequent [[Conversion to Christianity|reconversion to Christianity]], and [[Islam and blasphemy|blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs]].<ref name="Sahner 2020"/><ref name="Fierro 2008"/><ref name="Trombley 1996"/>

When [[Amr ibn al-As]] conquered Tripoli in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their ''jizya''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ByLG-2hZX-MC|title=Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System|pages=142–43|isbn=9780300024470 |last1=Pipes |first1=Daniel |author-link1=Daniel Pipes |year=1981 |publisher=Daniel Pipes }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QNsCPOnTfhoC|title=The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In|page=206|isbn=9780306815850 |last1=Kennedy |first1=Hugh |year=2007 |publisher=Da Capo Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_MwoDsz2VeEC|title=The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain: Known as the Futuh|date=January 2010 |page=170|publisher=Cosimo |isbn=9781616404352 }}</ref>

Around the year 666 C.E., [[Uqba ibn Nafi]] “conquered the southern Tunisian cities... slaughtering all the Christians living there."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVqlswEACAAJ |title=Barbarians, Marauders, And Infidels |date=26 May 2004 |page=144|publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9780813391533 }}</ref> Muslim sources report him waging countless raids, often ending with the complete ransacking and mass enslavement of cities.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6NUOAAAAQAAJ |title=Ibn Abd-el-Hakem's History of the conquest of Spain, ed. [with text and] tr. by J.H. Jones |year=1858 |page=205}}</ref><ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_the_Conquest_of_Egypt_Nor/_MwoDsz2VeEC?hl=en</ref>
{{Blockquote|Archaeological evidence from North Africa in the region of Cyrenaica points to the destruction of churches along the route the Islamic conquerors followed in the late seventh century, and the remarkable artistic treasures buried along the routes leading to the North of Spain by fleeing Visigoths and Hispano-Romans during the early eighth century consist largely of religious and dynastic paraphernalia that the Christian inhabitants obviously wanted to protect from Muslim looting and desecration.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJNgCwAAQBAJ |title=The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise |date=9 February 2016 |page=12|publisher=Open Road Media |isbn=9781504034692 }}</ref>}}

==== Umayyad Caliphate ====
[[File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo 009.jpg|thumb|upright=1.24|[[Saint Roderick|Roderick]] is venerated as one of the [[Martyrs of Córdoba]]]]

According to the [[Hanafi|Ḥanafī]] school of [[Sharia|Islamic law]] (''sharīʿa''), the testimony of a Non-Muslim (such as a Christian or a Jew) was not considered valid against the testimony of a Muslim in legal or civil matters. Historically, in [[Islamic culture]] and traditional Islamic law, [[Sex segregation and Islam|Muslim women have been forbidden from marrying Christian or Jewish men]], whereas Muslim men have been permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Elmali-Karakaya |author-first=Ayse |year=2020 |chapter=Being Married to a Non-Muslim Husband: Religious Identity in Muslim Women's Interfaith Marriages |editor1-last=Hood |editor1-first=Ralph W. |editor2-last=Cheruvallil-Contractor |editor2-first=Sariya |title=Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: A Diversity of Paradigms |volume=31 |pages=388–410 |location=[[Leiden]] and [[Boston]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |doi=10.1163/9789004443969_020 |isbn=978-90-04-44348-8 |s2cid=234539750 |issn=1046-8064}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Leeman |first=A. B. |date=Spring 2009 |title=Interfaith Marriage in Islam: An Examination of the Legal Theory Behind the Traditional and Reformist Positions |url=https://ilj.law.indiana.edu/articles/84/84_2_Leeman.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[Indiana Law Journal]] |location=Bloomington, Indiana |publisher=[[Indiana University Maurer School of Law]] |volume=84 |issue=2 |pages=743–772 |issn=0019-6665 |s2cid=52224503 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123062516/https://ilj.law.indiana.edu/articles/84/84_2_Leeman.pdf |archive-date=23 November 2018 |access-date=25 August 2021}}</ref> (''see'': [[Interfaith marriage in Islam]]). Christians under Islamic rule had the right to convert to Islam or any other religion, while conversely a ''[[murtad]]'', or an [[Apostasy in Islam|apostate from Islam]], faced severe penalties or even ''[[hadd]]'', which could include the [[Capital punishment in Islam |death penalty]].<ref name="Sahner 2020"/><ref name="Fierro 2008"/><ref name="Trombley 1996"/>

In general, Christians subject to Islamic rule were allowed to practice their religion with some notable limitations stemming from the apocryphal ''[[Pact of Umar]]''. This treaty, supposedly enacted in 717 AD, forbade Christians from publicly displaying the cross on church buildings, from summoning congregants to prayer with a bell, from re-building or repairing churches and monasteries after they had been destroyed or damaged, and imposed other restrictions relating to occupations, clothing, and weapons.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Pact of Umar |work=Christian History |url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2002/issue74/jul26.html |access-date= 24 March 2015}}</ref> The Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many [[Berber Christians]] in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, who slowly converted to Islam.<ref>''The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam'' C. J. Speel, II Church History, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec. 1960), pp. 379–397</ref>

In [[Umayyad Caliphate|Umayyad]] [[al-Andalus]] (the [[Iberian Peninsula]]), the [[Maliki|Mālikī]] school of Islamic law was the most prevalent.<ref name="Fierro 2008"/> The martyrdoms of forty-eight Christian martyrs that took place in the [[Emirate of Córdoba]] between 850 and 859 AD<ref name="Graves 1964">{{cite journal |author-last=Graves |author-first=Coburn V. |date=November 1964 |title=''The Martyrs of Cordoba, 850–859. A Study of the Sources'' (review) |journal=[[The Hispanic American Historical Review]] |volume=44 |issue=4 |location=Durham, North Carolina |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] on behalf of the [[Conference on Latin American History]] |page=644 |doi=10.1215/00182168-44.4.644 |doi-access=free |issn=1527-1900 |s2cid=227325750}}</ref> are recorded in the [[Hagiography|hagiographical treatise]] written by the Iberian Christian and Latinist scholar [[Eulogius of Córdoba]].<ref name="Sahner 2020"/><ref name="Fierro 2008"/><ref name="Trombley 1996"/> The [[Martyrs of Córdoba]] were executed under the rule of [[Abd al-Rahman II]] and [[Muhammad I of Córdoba|Muhammad I]], and Eulogius' hagiography describes in detail the executions of the martyrs for capital violations of Islamic law, including [[Apostasy in Islam|apostasy]] and [[Islam and blasphemy|blasphemy]].<ref name="Sahner 2020"/><ref name="Fierro 2008"/><ref name="Trombley 1996"/>

After the Arab conquests, a number of Christian Arab tribes suffered enslavement and forced conversion.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=usPvoAEACAAJ|title=Le'Expansion Nestorienne en Asie|pages=106–13|isbn=9781611438321 |last1=Naudeighth |first1=François |author-link1=:fr:François Naud |date=13 November 2013 |publisher=Gorgias Press, LLC }}</ref> In the early eighth century under the Umayyads, 63 out of a group of 70 Christian pilgrims from [[Iconium]] were captured, tortured, and executed under the orders of the Arab Governor of Ceaserea for refusing to convert to Islam (seven were forcibly converted to Islam under torture). Soon afterwards, sixty more Christian pilgrims from [[Amorium]] were crucified in Jerusalem.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tSM4AAAAIAAJ|title=A History of Palestine, 634-1099|page=473|isbn=9780521599849 |last1=Gil |first1=Moshe |date=27 February 1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

==== Almoravid Caliphate ====
The Almohads wreaked enormous destruction on the Christian population of Iberia. Tens of thousands of the native Christians in Iberia (Hispania) were deported from their ancestral lands to Africa by the Almoravids and Almohads. They suspected that the Christians could pose as a [[fifth column]] that could potentially help their coreligionists in the north of Iberia. Many Christians died en route to north Africa during these expulsions.<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/23311983.2017.1334374 | title=The Christian presence in North Africa under Almoravids Rule (1040–1147 CE): Coexistence or eradication? | year=2017 | last1=Ladjal | first1=Tarek | journal=Cogent Arts & Humanities | volume=4 | s2cid=159473596 | doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="auto1">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uJwjngEACAAJ | isbn=9781610170956 | title=The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain | year=2016 | publisher=ISI Books }}</ref> 
Christians under the Almoravids suffered persecutions and mass expulsions to Africa. In 1099 the Almoravids sacked the great church of the city of Granada. In 1101 Christians fled from the city of Valencia to the Catholic kingdoms. In 1106 the Almoravids deported Christians from Malaga to Africa. In 1126, after a failed Christian rebellion in Granada, the Almoravids expelled the city's entire Christian population to Africa. And in 1138, Ibn Tashufin forcibly took many thousands of Christians with him to Africa.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WhAXAAAAIAAJ | isbn=9788475060859 | title=Historia de los mozárabes de España: Bajo el gobierno de los virreyes (Años 711 a 756) | year=1983 | publisher=Ediciones Turner }}</ref>

The oppressed Mozarabs sent emissaries to the king of Aragon, Alphonso 1st le Batailleur (1104–1134), asking him to come to their rescue and deliver them from the Almoravids. Following the raid the king of Aragon launched in Andalusia in 1125–26 in responding to the pleas of Grenada's Mozarabs, the latter were deported en masse to Morocco in the fall of 1126.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2cvzDQAAQBAJ |author=Reinhart Dozy | isbn=9781315304694 | title=Spanish Islam: A History of the Moslems in Spain | date=12 January 2017 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref> Another wave of expulsions to Africa took place 11 years later and as a result very very few Christians were left in Andalusia. Whatever was left of the Christian Catholic population in Granada was exterminated in the aftermath of a revolt against the Almohads in 1164. The Caliph [[Abu Yaqub Yusuf]] boasted that he had left no church or synagogue standing in al-Andalus.<ref name="auto1"/>

Muslim clerics in Al Andalus viewed Christians and Jews as unclean and dirty and feared that too much contact with them would contaminate Muslims. In Seville the faqih Ibn Abdun issued these regulations segregating people of the two faiths:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gl29wwEACAAJ|title=Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Volume 2|pages=158–65|isbn=978-0-19-505088-2 |last1=Lewis |first1=Bernard |year=1987 |publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref>
{{blockquote|A Muslim must not massage a Jew or a Christian nor throw away his refuse nor clean his latrines. The Jew and the Christian are better fitted for such trades, since they are the trades of those who are vile. A Muslim should not attend to the animal of a Jew or of a Christian, nor serve him as a muleteer [neither Catholics nor Jews could ride horses; only Muslims could], nor hold his stirrup. If any Muslim is known to do this, he should be denounced.… No … [unconverted] Jew or Christian must be allowed to dress in the costume of people of position, of a jurist, or of a worthy man [this provision echoes the Pact of Umar]. They must on the contrary be abhorred and shunned and should not be greeted with the formula, “Peace be with you,” for the devil has gained mastery over them and has made them forget the name of God. They are the devil's party, “and indeed the devil's party are the losers” (Qur’an 57:22). They must have a distinguishing sign by which they are recognized to their shame [emphasis added]. }}

==== Abbasid Caliphate ====
The [[Abbasid Caliphate]] was less tolerant of Christianity than had been the [[Umayyad Caliphate |Umayyad caliphs]].<ref name=":5" /> Nonetheless, Christian officials continued to be employed in the government, and the Christians of the [[Church of the East]] were often tasked with the translation of [[Ancient Greek philosophy]] and [[Greek mathematics]].<ref name=":5" /> The writings of [[al-Jahiz]] attacked Christians for being too prosperous, and indicates they were able to ignore even those restrictions placed on them by the state.<ref name=":5" /> In the late 9th century, the [[Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem|patriarch of Jerusalem]], [[Theodosius of Jerusalem (died 879)|Theodosius]], wrote to his colleague the [[patriarch of Constantinople]] [[Ignatios of Constantinople|Ignatios]] that "they are just and do us no wrong nor show us any violence".<ref name=":5" />

[[Elias of Heliopolis]], having moved to Damascus from Heliopolis ([[Ba'albek]]), was accused of apostasy from Christianity after attending a party held by a Muslim Arab, and was forced to flee Damascus for his hometown, returning eight years later, where he was recognized and imprisoned by the "''[[eparch]]''", probably the jurist [[al-Layth ibn Sa'd]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|34}} After refusing to convert to Islam under torture, he was brought before the Damascene ''emir'' and relative of the caliph [[al-Mahdi]] ({{Reign|775|785}}), [[Muhammad ibn-Ibrahim]], who promised good treatment if Elias would convert.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|34}} On his repeated refusal, Elias was tortured and beheaded and his body burnt, cut up, and thrown into the river Chrysorrhoes (the [[Barada]]) in 779 AD.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|34}}

[[File:Michael, Abbot in Sebastia (Armenia) and 36 fathers with him.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Raid on the Monastery of Zobe and the death of ''hegumenos'' Michael and his 36 brothers, depicted in the ''[[Menologion of Basil II]]''.]]
According to the ''Synaxarion of Constantinople'', the ''hegumenos'' [[Michael of Zobe]] and thirty-six of his monks at the Monastery of Zobe near Sebasteia ([[Sivas]]) were killed by a raid on the community.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|70}} The perpetrator was the "''emir'' of the [[Hagarenes]]", "Alim", probably [[Ali ibn Sulayman ibn Ali al-Hashimi|Ali ibn-Sulayman]], an Abbasid governor who raided Roman territory in 785 AD.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|70}} Bacchus the Younger was beheaded in Jerusalem in 786–787 AD. Bacchus was Palestinian, whose family, having been Christian, had been converted to Islam by their father.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|29–30}} Bacchus however, remained crypto-Christian and undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, upon which he was baptized and entered the monastery of [[Mar Saba]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|29–30}} Reunion with his family prompted their reconversion to Christianity and Bacchus's trial and execution for apostasy under the governing ''emir'' [[Harthama ibn A'yan]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|29–30}}

After the 838 [[Sack of Amorium]], the hometown of the emperor [[Theophilos (emperor)|Theophilos]] ({{Reign|829|842}}) and his [[Amorian dynasty]], the caliph [[al-Mu'tasim]] ({{Reign|833|842}}) took more than forty Roman prisoners.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41–42}} These were taken to the capital, [[Samarra]], where after seven years of theological debates and repeated refusals to convert to Islam, they were put to death in March 845 under the caliph [[al-Wathiq]] ({{Reign|842|847}}).<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41–42}} Within a generation they were venerated as the [[42 Martyrs of Amorium]]. According to their hagiographer Euodius, probably writing within a generation of the events, the defeat at Amorium was to be blamed on Theophilos and his iconoclasm.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41–42}} According to some later hagiographies, including one by one of several Middle Byzantine writers known as Michael the Synkellos, among the forty-two were Kallistos, the [[Dux|''doux'']] of the [[Koloneia (theme)|Koloneian ''thema'']], and the heroic martyr Theodore Karteros.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41–42}}

During the [[Arab–Byzantine wars#Early Abbasids|10th-century phase]] of the [[Arab–Byzantine wars]], the victories of the Romans over the Arabs resulted in mob attacks on Christians, who were believed to sympathize with the Roman state.<ref name=":5" /> According to [[Bar Hebraeus]], the ''[[Catholicos|catholicus]]'' of the Church of the East, [[Abraham III (Nestorian patriarch)|Abraham III]] ({{Reign|906|937}}), wrote to the [[grand vizier]] that "we Nestorians are the friends of the Arabs and pray for their victories".<ref name=":5" /> The attitude of the Nestorians "who have no other king but the Arabs", he contrasted with the Greek Orthodox Church, whose emperors he said "had never cease to make war against the Arabs.<ref name=":5" /> Between 923 and 924, several Orthodox churches were destroyed in mob violence in [[Ramla]], [[Ascalon]], [[Caesarea Maritima]], and [[Damascus]].<ref name=":5" /> In each instance, according to the Arab [[Melkite]] Christian chronicler [[Eutychius of Alexandria]], the caliph [[al-Muqtadir]] ({{Reign|908|932}}) contributed to the rebuilding of ecclesiastical property.<ref name=":5" />

During the late 700s in the Abbasid Empire, Muslims destroyed two churches and a monastery near Bethlehem and slaughtered its monks. In 796, Muslims burned another twenty monks to death. In the years 809 and 813 AD, multiple monasteries, convents, and churches were attacked in and around Jerusalem; both male and female Christians were gang raped and massacred. In 929, on Palm Sunday, another wave of atrocities broke out; churches were destroyed and Christians slaughtered. [[al-Maqrizi]] records that in the year 936, “the Muslims in Jerusalem made a rising and burnt down the Church of the Resurrection [the Holy Sepulchre] which they plundered, and destroyed all they could of it".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ybXUAAAAMAAJ|title=A Short History of the Copts and Their Church|page=86|last1=Maqrīzī |first1=Aḥmad ibn ʻalī |year=1873 }}</ref>

According to the ''Synaxarion of Constantinople'', [[Dounale-Stephen]], having journeyed to Jerusalem, continued his pilgrimage to Egypt, where he was arrested by the local ''emir'' and, refusing to relinquish his beliefs, died in jail {{Circa|950}}.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|33–34}}

When Abd Allah ibn Tahir went to besiege Kaisum, the fortress of Nasr: "There had been great oppression in the whole country because the inhabitants [christian dhimmis] were forced to bring provisions to the camp; and in every place it was a time of famine and a dearth of all sorts of things." In order to rotect themselves from their attackers cannons, Nasr ibn Shabath and his Arab troops used a stratagem that had already been tried at the siege of Balis (using Christian women and children as human shields): they forced Christian women and their children to mount the walls so that they were exposed as targets for the Persians. Nasr used the same tactics at the second siege of Kaisum.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8foPEAAAQBAJ|title=The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, C. 750–850|page=169|isbn=9780691219950 |last1=Wood |first1=Philip |date=20 April 2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>

=== Byzantine Empire ===
George Limnaiotes, a monk on Mount Olympus known only from the ''[[Synaxarion of Constantinople]]'' and other [[synaxaria]], was supposed to have been 95 years old when he was tortured for his [[iconodulism]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|43}} In the reign of [[Leo III the Isaurian]] ({{Reign|717|741}}), he was mutilated by [[rhinotomy]] and his head burnt.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|43}}

[[Germanus I of Constantinople]], a son of the ''[[patrikios]]'' Justinian, a courtier of the emperor [[Heraclius]] ({{Reign|610|641}}), having been castrated and enrolled in the cathedral clergy of [[Hagia Sophia]] when his father was executed in 669, was later bishop of [[Cyzicus]] and then patriarch of Constantinople from 715.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|45–46}} In 730, in the reign of Leo III ({{Reign|717|741}}), Germanus was deposed and banished, dying in exile at Plantanion ([[Akçaabat]]).<ref name=":15" />{{rp|45–46}} Leo III also exiled the monk John the Psichaites, an iconodule, to [[Chersonesus|Cherson]], where he remained until after the emperor's death.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|57}}

According only to the ''Synaxarion of Constantinople'', the clerics [[Hypatios and Andrew]] from the [[Thracesian Theme|Thracesian ''thema'']] were, during the persecution of Leo III, brought to the capital, jailed and tortured.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|49}} The ''Synaxarion'' claims that they had the embers of burnt [[icons]] applied to their heads, subjected to other torments, and then dragged though the Byzantine streets to their public execution in the area of the city's [[Seven hills of Istanbul#VIIth|VIIth Hill]], the so-called {{Langx|grc-x-medieval|ξηρόλοφος|lit=dry hill|translit=Xērólophos}} near the [[Forum of Arcadius]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|49}}

[[Andrew of Crete (martyr)|Andrew of Crete]] was beaten and imprisoned in Constantinople after having debated with the iconoclast emperor [[Constantine V]] ({{Reign|741|775}}), possibly in 767 or 768, and then abused by the Byzantines as he was dragged through the city, dying of blood loss when a fisherman cut off his foot in the [[Forum of the Ox]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|19}} The church of [[Saint Andrew in Krisei]] was named after him, though his existence is doubted by scholars.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|19}}

Having defeated and killed the emperor [[Nikephoros I]] ({{Reign|802|811}}) at the [[Battle of Pliska]] in 811, the [[First Bulgarian Empire]]'s ''[[Khan (title)|khan]]'', [[Krum]], also put to death a number of Roman soldiers who refused to renounce Christianity, though these martyrdoms, known only from the ''Synaxarion of Constantinople'', may be entierely legendary.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|66–67}} In 813 the Bulgarians invaded the ''thema'' of [[Thrace (theme)|Thrace]], led by Krum, and the city of Adrianople ([[Edirne]]) was captured.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|66}} Krum's successor [[Dukum]] died shortly after Krum himself, being succeeded by [[Ditzevg]], who killed Manuel the archbishop of Adrianople in January 815.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|66}} According to the ''Synaxarion of Constantinople'' and the ''[[Menologion of Basil II]]'', Ditzevg's own successor [[Omurtag of Bulgaria|Omurtag]] killed some 380 Christians later that month.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|66}} The victims included the archbishop of [[Develtos]], [[George, archbishop of Develtos|George]], and the bishop of Thracian Nicaea, Leo, as well as two ''[[Strategos|strategoi]]'' called John and Leo. Collectively these are known as the [[Martyrs of Adrianople]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|66}}

The Byzantine monk Makarios, of the [[Pelekete monastery]] in Bithynia, having already refused an enviable position at court offered by the iconoclast emperor [[Leo IV the Khazar]] ({{Reign|775|780}}) in return for the repudiation of his iconodulism, was expelled from the monastery by [[Leo V the Armenian]] ({{Reign|813|820}}), who also imprisoned and exiled him.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|65}} The patriarch [[Nikephoros I of Constantinople]] dissented from the iconoclast [[Council of Constantinople (815)|Council of Constantinople]] of 815 and was exiled by Leo V as a result.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|74–75}} He died in exile in 828.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|74–75}}

In spring 816, the Constantinopolitan monk [[Athanasios of Paulopetrion]] was tortured and exiled for his [[iconophilism]] by the emperor Leo V.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|28}} In 815, during the reign of Leo V, having been appointed ''hegoumenos'' of the Kathara Monastery in Bithynia by the emperor Nikephoros I, John of Kathara was exiled and imprisoned first in Pentadactylon, a stronghold in [[Phrygia]], and then in the fortress of Kriotauros in the [[Bucellarian Theme|Bucellarian ''thema'']].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|55–56}} In the reign of Michael II he was recalled, but exiled again under Theophilos, being banished to Aphousia ([[Avşa]]) where he died, probably in 835.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|55–56}}

Eustratios of Agauros,<ref>[https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2016/01/saint-eustratios-wonderworker.html Profile of Eustratios of Agauros], johnsanidopoulos.com. Accessed 8 November 2024.</ref> a monk and ''[[hegumenos]]'' of the Agauros Monastery at the foot of Mount Trichalikos, near [[Prusa (Bithynia)|Prusa]]'s [[Mysian Olympus|Mount Olympus]] in Bithynia, was forced into exile by the persecutions of Leo V and [[Theophilos (emperor)|Theophilos]] ({{Reign|829|842}}).<ref name=":15" />{{rp|37–38}} Leo V and Theophilos also persecuted and exiled [[Hilarion of Dalmatos]], the son of [[Peter the Cappadocian]], who had been made ''hegumenos'' of the Dalmatos Monastery by the patriarch Nikephoros I.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|48–49}} Hilarion was allowed to return to his post only in the regency of [[Theodora (wife of Theophilos)|Theodora]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|48–49}} The same emperors also persecuted [[Michael Synkellos]], an Arab monk of the [[Mar Saba]] monastery in Palestine who, as the ''[[syncellus]]'' of the patriarch of Jerusalem, had travelled to Constantinople on behalf of the patriarch [[Thomas I of Jerusalem|Thomas I]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|70–71}} On the Triumph of Orthodoxy, Michael declined the ecumenical patriarchate and became instead the ''hegumenos'' of the [[Chora Monastery]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|70–71}}

According to [[Theophanes Continuatus|Theophanes ''Continuatus'']], the Armenian monk and iconographer of [[Khazar]] origin [[Lazarus Zographos]] refused to cease painting icons in the second official iconoclast period.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|61–62}} Theophilos had him tortured and his hands burned with heated irons, though he was released at the intercession of the empress Theodora and hidden at the Monastery of John the Baptist ''tou Phoberou'', where he was able to paint an image of the patron saint.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|61–62}} After the death of Theophilos, and the Triumph of Orthodoxy, Lazarus re-painted the representation of Christ on the [[Chalke Gate]] of the [[Great Palace of Constantinople]].<ref name=":15" />{{rp|61–62}}

[[Symeon Stylites of Lesbos]] was persecuted for his iconodulism in the second period of official iconoclasm. He was imprisoned and exiled, returning to Lesbos only after the vernation of icons was restored in 842.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|32–33}} The bishop [[George of Mytilene]], who may have been Symeon's brother, was exiled from Constantinople in 815 on account of his iconophilia. He spent the last six years of his life in exile on an island, probably one of the [[Princes' Islands]], dying in 820 or 821.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|42–43}} George's relics were taken to [[Mytilene]] to be venerated after the restoration of iconodulism to orthodoxy under the patriarch [[Methodios I of Constantinople|Methodios I]], during which the hagiography of George was written.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|42–43}}
[[File:Martyrdom of Euthymius of Sardeis.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Miniature depicting the execution of the patriarch [[Euthymius of Sardis]] under the Byzantine Emperor [[Michael II]], from an [[illuminated manuscript]] of the ''[[Madrid Skylitzes]]'' (12th century).]]
The bishop [[Euthymius of Sardis]] was the victim of several iconoclast Christian persecutions. Euthymius had previously been exiled to [[Pantelleria]] by the emperor [[Nikephoros I]] ({{Reign|802|811}}), recalled in 806, led the iconodule resistance against [[Leo V the Armenian|Leo V]] ({{Reign|813|820}}), and exiled again to [[Thasos]] in 814.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|38}} After his recall to Constantinople in the reign of [[Michael II]] ({{Reign|820|829}}), he was again imprisoned and exiled to Saint Andrew's Island, off Cape Akritas ([[Tuzla, Istanbul|Tuzla]], Istanbul).<ref name=":15" />{{rp|38}} According to the hagiography of by the patriarch [[Methodios I of Constantinople]], who claimed to have shared Euthymius's exile and been present at his death, [[Theoktistos]] and two other imperial officials personally whipped Euthymius to death on account of his [[iconodulism]]; Theoktistos was active in the persecution of iconodules under the iconoclast emperors, but later championed the iconodule cause.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|38; 68–69}}<ref name=":16">{{Cite book|last=Prieto Dominguez|first=Oscar|url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429060984|title=The Emperor in the Byzantine World: Papers from the Forty-Seventh Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies|publisher=Routledge|year=2019|isbn=978-0-429-06098-4|editor-last=Tougher|editor-first=Shaun|location=London|pages=216–234|chapter=The iconoclast saint: Emperor Theophilos in Byzantine hagiography|doi=10.4324/9780429060984|hdl=10366/155274 |s2cid=194332235}}</ref>{{rp|218}} Theoktistos was later venerated as a saint in the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], listed in the ''[[Synaxarion of Constantinople]]''.<ref name=":16" />{{rp|217–218}} The last of the iconoclast emperors, [[Theophilos (emperor)|Theophilos]] ({{Reign|829|842}}), was posthumously rehabilitated by the iconodule Orthodox Church on the intervention of his wife [[Theodora (wife of Theophilos)|Theodora]], who claimed he had had a deathbed conversion to iconodulism in the presence of Theoktistos and had given 60 [[Byzantine pound]]s of gold to each of his victims in his will.<ref name=":16" />{{rp|219}} The rehabilitation of the iconoclast emperor was a precondition of his widow for convoking the [[Council of Constantinople (843)|Council of Constantinople]] in March 843, at which the veneration of [[icons]] was restored to orthodoxy and which became celebrated as the [[Triumph of Orthodoxy]].<ref name=":16" />{{rp|219}}

Evaristos, a relative of [[Theoktistos Bryennios]] and a monk of the [[Monastery of Stoudios]], was exiled to the Thracian Chersonese ([[Gallipoli peninsula]]) for his support of his ''hegumenos'' Nicholas and his patron the patriarch [[Ignatios of Constantinople]] when the latter was deposed by [[Photios I of Constantinople|Photios I]] in 858.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41; 72–73}} Both Nicholas and Evaristos went into exile.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41; 72–73}} Only after many years was Evaristos allowed to return to Constantinople to found a monastery of his own.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|41; 72–73}} The ''hegumenos'' Nicholas, who had accompanied Evaristos to the Chersonese, was restored to his post at the Stoudios Monastery.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|72–73}} A partisan of Ignatios of Constantinople and a refugee from the [[Muslim conquest of Sicily]], the monk [[Joseph the Hymnographer]] was banished to Cherson from Constantinople on the elevation of Ignatios's rival Photios in 858. Only after the end of Photios's patriarchate was Joseph allowed to return to the capital and become the cathedral ''[[skeuophylax]]'' of Hagia Sophia.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|57–58}}

Euthymius, a monk, [[Byzantine Senate|senator]], and ''[[synkellos]]'' favored by [[Leo VI the Wise|Leo VI]] ({{Reign|870|912}}), was first made a ''[[hegumenos]]'' and then in 907 [[patriarch of Constantinople]] by the emperor. When Leo VI died and [[Nicholas Mystikos]] was recalled to the patriarchal throne, Euthymius was exiled.<ref name=":15" />{{rp|38–40}}

== <span id="High Middle Ages (1000 - 1200 CE)"></span> High Middle Ages (1000–1200) ==
{{See also|History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance}}

=== Fatimid Caliphate ===
{{See also|Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre}}
The caliph [[al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah]] ({{Reign|996|1021}}) engaged in a persecution of Christians.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Runciman|first=Steven|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uDj9sNezWzEC|title=A History of the Crusades: Volume 1|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-521-34770-9|page=51|orig-year=1951}}</ref> Al-Hakim was "half-insane", and had perpetrated the only general persecution of Christians by Muslims until the Crusades.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Baldwin|first=Marshall W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RfO1J6hjcdgC|title=A History of the Crusades, Volume 1: the First Hundred Years|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=1969|isbn=978-0-299-04834-1|editor-last=Setton|editor-first=Kenneth Meyer|edition=2nd|page=159|orig-year=1955}}</ref> Al-Hakim's mother was a Christian, and he had been raised mainly by Christians, and even through the persecution al-Hakim employed Christian ministers in his government.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Runciman|first=Steven|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uDj9sNezWzEC|title=A History of the Crusades: Volume 1|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-521-34770-9|pages=35–36|orig-year=1951}}</ref> Between 1004 and 1014, the caliph produced legislation to confiscate ecclesiastical property and burn crosses; later, he ordered that small mosques be built atop church roofs, and later still decreed that churches were to be burned.<ref name=":7" /> The caliph's Jewish and Muslim subjects were subjected to similarly arbitrary treatment.<ref name=":7" /> As part of al-Hakim's persecution, thirty thousand churches were reportedly destroyed, and in 1009 the caliph ordered the demolition of the [[Church of the Holy Sepulchre]] in Jerusalem, on the pretext that the annual [[Holy Fire]] miracle on Easter was a fake.<ref name=":7" /> The persecution of al-Hakim and the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre prompted [[Pope Sergius IV]] to issue a call for soldiers to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land, while European Christians engaged in a retaliatory persecution of Jews, whom they conjectured were in some way responsible for al-Hakim's actions.<ref name="DLE Holt">{{Cite book|last=Holt|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8ubDwAAQBAJ|title=The World of the Crusades: A Daily Life Encyclopedia: Volume 2|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2019|isbn=978-1-4408-5462-0|pages=444–446|chapter="Defensive wars," crusades as}}</ref> In the second half of the eleventh century, pilgrims brought home news of how the rise of the Turks and their conflict with the Egyptians increased the persecution of Christian pilgrims.<ref name="DLE Holt"/>

In 1013, at the intervention of the emperor [[Basil II]] ({{Reign|960|1025}}), Christians were given permission to leave Fatimid territory.<ref name=":7" /> In 1016 however, the caliph was proclaimed divine, alienating his Muslim subjects by banning the ''[[hajj]]'' and the fast of ''[[ramadan]]'', and causing him to again favor the Christians.<ref name=":7" /> In 1017, al-Hakim issued an order of toleration regarding Christians and Jews, while the following year confiscated ecclesiastical property was returned to the Church, including the construction materials seized by the authorities from demolished buildings.<ref name=":7" />

In 1027, the emperor [[Constantine VIII]] ({{Reign|962|1028}}) concluded a treaty with [[Salih ibn Mirdas]], the [[emir of Aleppo]], allowing the emperor to repair the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and permitting the Christians forced to convert to Islam under al-Hakim to return to Christianity.<ref name=":7" /> Though the treaty was re-confirmed in 1036, actual building on the shrine began only in the later 1040s, under the emperor [[Constantine IX Monomachos]] ({{Reign|1042|1055}}).<ref name=":7" /> According to [[al-Maqdisi]], the Christians seemed largely in control of the Holy Land, and the emperor himself was rumored, according to [[Nasir Khusraw]], to have been among the many Christian pilgrims that came to the Holy Sepulchre.<ref name=":7" />

===Seljuk Empire===
Sultan Alp Arslan pledged: “I shall consume with the sword all those people who venerate the cross, and all the lands of the Christians shall be enslaved.”<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=leqqBgAAQBAJ|title=Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol: The battle of Mazikert|page=244|isbn=9780748631155 |last1=Hillenbrand |first1=Carole |date=21 November 2007 }}</ref> Alp Arslan ordered the Turks:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5rmHCwAAQBAJ|title=Manzikert 1071: The Breaking of Byzantium|page=92|isbn=9781780965055 |last1=Nicolle |first1=David |date=20 August 2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Henceforth all of you be like lion cubs and eagle young, racing through the countryside day and night, slaying the Christians and not sparing any mercy on the Roman nation}}

It was said that “the emirs spread like locusts, over the face of the land,”<ref>{{cite journal|title=Nomadization and Islamization in Asia Minor|page=50|jstor=1291369 |last1=Vryonis |first1=Speros |journal=Dumbarton Oaks Papers |date=26 March 1975 |volume=29 |doi=10.2307/1291369 |doi-access=free }}</ref> invading every corner of Anatolia, sacking some of ancient Christianity's most important cities, including Ephesus, home of Saint John the Evangelist; Nicaea, where Christendom's creed was formulated in 325; and Antioch, the original see of Saint Peter, and enslaved many.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0lxHPgAACAAJ |title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century |first1=Speros |last1=Vryonis |year=2008 |publisher=American Council of Learned Societies |isbn=9781597404761}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HHrKDwAAQBAJ |title=The Secrets of Ephesus |first1=Izabela |last1=Miszczak |year=2020 |publisher=ASLAN Publishing House |isbn=9788395654039}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=an9xCwAAQBAJ |title=Around Ephesus and Kuşadası |first1=Izabela |last1=Miszczak |year=2016 |publisher=ASLAN Publishing House |isbn=9788394426903}}</ref> 

Destruction and desecration of Churches became very widespread during the Turkic invasions of Anatolia which caused enormous damage to the ecclesiastical foundations throughout Asia minor:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBpIAAAAMAAJ|title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century|pages=194–95|isbn=9780520015975 |last1=Vryonis |first1=Speros |year=1971 |publisher=University of California Press }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Even before the battle of Manzikert, Turkish raids resulted in the pillaging of the famous churches of St. Basil at caesareia and of the Archangel Michael at Chonae. In the decade following 1071 the destruction of churches and the flight of the clergy became widespread. churches were often pillaged and destroyed. The churches of St. Phocas in Sinope and Nicholas at Myra, both important centers of pilgrimage, were destroyed. The monasteries of Mt. Latrus, Strobilus, and elanoudium on the western coast were sacked and the monks driven out during the early invasions, so that the monastic foundations in this area were completely abandoned until the Byzantine reconquest and the extensive support of successive Byzantine emperors once more reconstituted them. Greeks were forced to surround the church of St. John at Ephesus with walls to protect it from the Turks. The disruption of active religious life in the Cappadocian cave-monastic communies is also indicated for the twelfth century.}}

News of the great tribulation and persecutions of the eastern Christians reached European Christians in the west in the few years after the battle of Manzikert. A Frankish eyewitness says: "Far and wide they [Muslim Turks] ravaged cities and castles together with their settlements. Churches were razed down to the ground. Of the clergyman and monks whom they captured, some were slaughtered while others were with unspeakable wickedness given up, priests and all, to their dire dominion and nuns—alas for the sorrow of it!—were subjected to their lusts."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D-xIMAEACAAJ|title=The First Crusade: The Call from the East|pages=59–60|isbn=9780099555032 |last1=Frankopan |first1=Peter |year=2013 |publisher=Vintage }}</ref> In a letter to count Robert of Flanders, Byzantine emperor [[Alexios I Komnenos]] writes:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D-xIMAEACAAJ|title=The First Crusade: The Call from the East|page=61|isbn=9780099555032 |last1=Frankopan |first1=Peter |year=2013 |publisher=Vintage }}</ref>
{{blockquote|The holy places are desecrated and destroyed in countless ways. Noble matrons and their daughters, robbed of everything, are violated one after another, like animals. Some [of their attackers] shamelessly place virgins in front of their own mothers and force them to sing wicked and obscene songs until they have finished having their ways with them... men of every age and description, boys, youths, old men, nobles, peasants and what is worse still and yet more distressing, clerics and monks and woe of unprecedented woes, even bishops are defiled with the sin of sodomy and it is now trumpeted abroad that one bishop has succumbed to this abominable sin.}}

In a poem, Malik Danishmend boasts: "I am Al Ghazi Danishmend, the destroyer of churches and towers". Destruction and pillaging of churches figure prominently in his poem. Another part of the poem talks about the simultaneous conversion of 5,000 people to Islam and the murder of 5,000 others.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vvMgAwAAQBAJ|title=The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950-1072|page=245|isbn=9781139560986 |last1=Ellenblum |first1=Ronnie |date=2 August 2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

[[Michael the Syrian]] wrote: “As the Turks were ruling the lands of Syria and Palestine, they inflicted injuries on Christians who went to pray in Jerusalem, beat them, pillaged them, and levied the poll tax [jizya]. Every time they saw a caravan of Christians, particularly of those from Rome and the lands of Italy, they made every effort to cause their death in diverse ways".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHgMAQAAMAAJ|title=Der Islam: Zeitschrift für geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients, Volume 83, Issues 1-2|year=2006 |page=101}}</ref> Such was the fate German pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1064. According to one of the surviving pilgrims:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pr28oAEACAAJ|title=The First Crusade: A Brief History with Documents|page=56|isbn=9781457629105 |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Jay Carter |date=26 December 2014 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Accompanying this journey was a noble abbess of graceful body and of a religious outlook. Setting aside the cares of the sisters committed to her and against the advice of the wise, she undertook this great and dangerous pilgrimage. The pagans captured her, and the sight of all, these shameless men raped her until she breathed her last, to the dishonor of all Christians. Christ's enemies performed such abuses and others like them on the christians.}}

=== Crusades ===
After the Seljuks invaded Anatolia and the Levant, every Anatolian village they controlled along the route to Jerusalem began exacting tolls on Christian pilgrims. In principle the Seljuks allowed Christian pilgrims access to Jerusalem, but they often imposed huge ransoms and condoned local attacks against Christians. Many pilgrims were seized and sold into slavery while others were tortured (seemingly for entertainment). Soon only very large, well-armed and wealthy groups would dare attempt a pilgrimage, and even so, many died and many more turned back. The pilgrims that survived these extremely dangerous journeys, “returned to the West weary and impoverished, with a dreadful tale to tell.”<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IiwTAQAAIAAJ|title=A History of the Crusades|date=3 December 1987 |page=1:79|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-34770-9 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RfO1J6hjcdgC|title=A History of the Crusades. Vol. 1. The First Hundred Years|date=1969 |pages=68–78|publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-04834-1 }}</ref>

In the year 1064, 7,000 pilgrims led by [[Gunther of Bamberg|Bishop Gunther of Bamberg]] were ambushed by Muslims near [[Caesarea Maritima]], and two-thirds of the pilgrims were slaughtered.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQ1DnLPPXGIC|title=The First Crusaders, 1095-1131|date=1997 |page=37-38|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-64603-1 }}</ref>

In the [[Middle Ages]], the crusades were promoted as defensive response of Christianity against persecution of Eastern Christianity in the Levant.<ref name="DLE Holt" /> Western Catholic contemporaries believed the [[First Crusade]] was a movement against Muslim attacks on Eastern Christians and Christian sites in the Holy Land.<ref name="DLE Holt" /> In the mid-11th century, relations between the Byzantine Empire and the [[Fatimid Caliphate]] and between Christians and Muslims were peaceful, and there had not been persecution of Christians since the death of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.<ref name=":6" /> As a result of the migration of [[Turkic peoples]] into the Levant and the [[Seljuk Empire]]'s wars with the Fatimid Caliphate in the later 11th century, reports of Christian pilgrims increasingly mentioned persecution of Christians there.<ref name="DLE Holt" /> Similarly, accounts sent to the West of the Byzantines' medieval wars with various Muslim states alleged persecutions of Christians and atrocities against holy places.<ref name="Runciman 1965"/> Western soldiers were encouraged to take up soldiering against the empire's Muslim enemies; a recruiting bureau was even established in London.<ref name="DLE Holt"/> After the 1071 [[Battle of Manzikert]], the sense of Byzantine distress increased and [[Pope Gregory VII]] suggested that he himself would ride to the rescue at the head of an army, claiming Christians were being "slaughtered like cattle".<ref name="Runciman 1965"/> In the 1090s, the emperor [[Alexios I Komnenos]] ({{Reign|1081|1118}}) issued appeals for help against the Seljuks to western Europe.<ref name="Runciman 1965"/> In 1091 his ambassadors told the [[king of Croatia]] Muslims were destroying sacred sites, while his letter to [[Robert I, Count of Flanders]], deliberately described emotively the rape and maltreatment of Christians and the sacrilege of the Jerusalem shrines.<ref name="Runciman 1965"/>

[[Pope Urban II]], who convoked the First Crusade at the 1095 [[Council of Clermont]], spoke of the defense of his co-religionists in the Levant and the protection of the Christian holy places, while ordinary crusaders are also known to have been motivated by the notion of persecution of Christians by Muslims.<ref name="DLE Holt"/> According to [[Fulcher of Chartres]], the pope described his holy wars as being {{Langx|la|contra barbaros|lit=against the barbarians|label=none}}, while the pope's own letters indicate that the Muslims were barbarians fanatically persecuting Christians.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book|last=Holt|first=Andrew|url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/303510|title=East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World|publisher=De Gruyter|year=2013|isbn=978-3-11-032151-7|location=Berlin|pages=443–456|chapter=Crusading against Barbarians: Muslims as Barbarians in Crusades Era Sources|doi=10.1515/9783110321517.443}}</ref> The same idea, expressed in similar language, was evident in the writings of the bishop [[Gerald of Cahors]], the abbot [[Guibert of Nogent]], the priest [[Peter Tudebode]], and the monk [[Robert of Reims]].<ref name=":11" /> Outside the clergy, the ''[[Gesta Francorum]]''<nowiki/>'s author likewise described the Crusaders' opponents as persecuting barbarians, language not used for non-Muslim non-Christians.<ref name=":11" /> These authors, together with [[Albert of Aix]] and [[Baldric of Dol]], all referred to the Arabs, Saracens, and Turks as {{Langx|la|barbarae nationes|lit=barbarian races|label=none}}.<ref name=":11" /> [[Peter the Venerable]], [[William of Tyre]], and ''[[The Song of Roland]]'' all took the view that Muslims were barbarians, and in calling for the [[Third Crusade]], [[Pope Gregory VIII]] expounded on the Muslim threat from [[Saladin]], accusing the Muslims of being "barbarians thirsting for the blood of Christians".<ref name=":11" /> In numerous instances [[Pope Innocent III]] called on the Catholics to defend the Holy Land in a holy war against the {{Langx|la|impugnes barbariem paganorum|lit=attacks of the pagan barbarians|label=none}}.<ref name=":11" /> Crusaders believed that by fighting off the Muslims, the persecution of Christians would abate, in accordance to their god's will, and this ideology – much promoted by the Crusader-era propagandists – was shared at every level of literate medieval western European society.<ref name=":11" />

According to Guibert of Nogent, a Catholic writer, the persecution suffered by the Eastern Christians and the attacks on the empire by the Turks were caused by the Christians' own doctrinal errors. He claimed that "Since they deviate from faith in the Trinity, so that hitherto they who are in filth become filthier, gradually they have come to the final degradation of having taken paganism upon themselves as the punishment for the sin proceeding from this, they have lost the soil of their native land to invading foreigners ...".<ref name=":14">{{Cite book|last=Ní Chléirigh|first=Léan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HAPGBQAAQBAJ|title=The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories|publisher=Routledge|year=2010|isbn=9781136902475|editor-last=Kostick|editor-first=Conor|location=Abingdon|pages=161–188|chapter=The Impact of the First Crusade on Western Opinion Toward the Byzantine Empire: The Gesta Dei per Francos of Guibert of Nogent and the Historia Hierosolymitana of Fulcher of Chartres}}</ref> Western Christians considered the Byzantine position in the [[filioque controversy]] to be heresy and akin to [[Arianism]]; Guibert claimed that heresy was an Eastern practice, almost unknown in the Latin West.<ref name=":14" /> Further blame was attached to the Eastern Christians by the crusaders for the [[Crusade of 1101]]'s defeats in Asia Minor; Alexios Komnenos was accused of having collaborated with the Turks to attack the crusaders.<ref name=":14" /> The Norman prince Bohemond, citing the supposed transgressions of the emperor and the Eastern Church, which the pope had declared heretic and whose doctrinal errors Bohemond blamed on Alexios, seized the Muslim-held and formerly Byzantine city of [[Antioch]] ([[Antakya]]) for himself after the [[Siege of Antioch]] and subsequent [[Battle of Antioch (1098)|Battle of Antioch]] left [[Kerbogha]] defeated, becoming [[Bohemond I of Antioch|Bohemond I]] of the [[Principality of Antioch]].<ref name=":14" /> This contravention of the agreement to return conquered lands to the emperor's control, was justified in the crusaders' letter to [[Pope Urban II]] by the statement that the Greek Christians were heretics.<ref name=":14" /> Later, Bohemond took the opportunity of a crusade to attack Dyrrachium ([[Durrës]]), justifying his attack on the Christians in a letter to [[Pope Paschal II]] enumerating Alexios's faults and blaming him for the East{{En dash}}West Schism and for having taken the imperial throne by force.<ref name=":14" /> Besides Guibert, other crusader writers to accuse Eastern Christians of sabotaging the crusade include [[Raymond of Aguilers]], Albert of Aix, Baldric of Dol, and the author of the ''[[Gesta Francorum]]''.<ref name=":14" /> Alexios's departure from the crusade, followed by the departure of his envoy [[Tatikios]], was seen as proof of the Eastern Christians' treachery.<ref name=":14" /> Though Fulcher of Chartres displayed a positive assessment of Eastern Christianity, he too accused the emperor of attacking Christian pilgrims, and of being a "tyrant".<ref name=":14" />

When First Crusade's [[Siege of Jerusalem (1099)|Siege of Jerusalem]] ended successfully for the crusaders, the patriarchate of Jerusalem was vacant, and the crusaders elevated a [[Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem|Latin patriarch]] without reference to either the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox churches.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book|last=Angold|first=Michael|url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315684154|title=The Crusader World|date=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-68415-4|editor-last=Boas|editor-first=Adrian|series=Routledge Worlds|location=Oxford and New York|pages=289–308|chapter=The fall of Jerusalem (1187) as viewed from Byzantium|doi=10.4324/9781315684154}}</ref> An Orthodox candidate for the patriarchate was forced to flee to Constantinople.<ref name=":12" /> Only when [[Saladin]]'s [[Siege of Jerusalem (1187)|Siege of Jerusalem]] was concluded and the city was returned to Muslim control were the Orthodox Christians allowed to practise in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.<ref name=":12" />

Crusade scholars continue to debate crusading, its causes, and its effects, so scholarship in this field repeatedly undergoes revision and reconsideration.<ref name="Cassidy-Welch">{{cite book|author=Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński|editor-last=Cassidy-Welch|editor-first=Megan|title=Remembering the Crusades and Crusading|publisher=Routledge|year=2017|chapter=chapter 6|isbn=9781138811140}}</ref>{{rp|96}} Many early crusade scholars saw the source-histories as simple recitations of how events actually transpired, but by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scholarship was increasingly skeptical of that assumption. By 1935, [[Carl Erdmann]] published ''Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens'' (The Origin of the Idea of Crusade), changing the direction of crusader studies more than any other single work by focusing on the ideology of crusade. This ideology indicated the crusades were essentially defensive, which meant that soldiers were there to provide protection for pilgrims and fellow Christians in the East and to reclaim formerly Christian lands lost to Islamic expansion and forced conversion. This ideology remained throughout the Middle Ages despite the failure to finalize these goals.<ref name="Laiou">{{cite book|author=Giles Constable|editor1-last=Laiou|editor1-first=Angeliki E.|editor1-link=Angeliki Laiou |editor2-last=Mottahedeh|editor2-first=Roy P.|editor2-link=Roy Mottahedeh |title=The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World|publisher=Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection|location=Washington D.C.|year=2001|isbn=9780884022770|chapter=The Historiography of the crusades}}</ref>{{rp|3 fn 10;6,10,13}} Constable adds that those "scholars who see the crusades as the beginning of European colonialism and expansionism would have surprised people at the time. Crusaders would not have denied some selfish aspects... but the predominant emphasis was on the defense and recovery of lands that had once been Christian and on the self-sacrifice rather than the self-seeking of the participants".<ref name="Laiou"/>{{rp|15}}

Historian [[Robert Irwin (writer)|Robert Irwin]] points out that “Christians living under Muslim rule suffered during the crusading period. They were suspected of acting as spies or [[fifth column]]s for the Franks and later the Mongols as well.” According to Coptic chronicles, Saladin had many Christians in Egypt crucified in revenge against his Crusader enemies.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CuepyJIHXuEC | isbn=978-0-19-285428-5 | title=The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades | year=2001 | publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref>

In 1951, [[Steven Runciman]], a Byzantinist who saw the crusades in terms of east–west relations, wrote in the conclusion of his crusade history, that the "Holy War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance".<ref name="Laiou"/>{{rp|3,9–10}} [[Giles Constable]] says it is this view of the crusades that is most common among the populace.<ref name="Laiou"/>{{rp|3}} The problem with this view, according to political science professor Andrew R. Murphy,<ref>{{cite web |title=Andrew R Murphy |url=https://vcu.academia.edu/AndrewMurphy |publisher=academia.edu |quote=Virginia Commonwealth University, Political Science, Faculty Member Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Political Science, Faculty Member}}</ref> is that such concepts as intolerance were not part of eleventh century thinking about relationships for any of the various groups involved in or affected by the crusades, neither the Latins, the Byzantines, the Turks, the [[Baybars]], nor others.<ref name="Murphy">{{cite journal|last=Murphy|first=Andrew R.| title=Tolerance, Toleration, and the Liberal Tradition|year=1997|volume=29|issue=4|publisher=The University of Chicago Press Journals|journal=Polity|pages=593–623|doi=10.2307/3235269|jstor=3235269|s2cid=155764374}}</ref>{{rp|xii-xvii}} Instead, concepts of tolerance began to grow during the crusades from efforts to define legal limits and the nature of co-existence, and these ideas grew among both Christians and Muslims.<ref name="Murphy"/>{{rp|xii}}

These wars produced multiple massacres perpetrated by both sides. According to Mary Jane Engh's definition of religious persecution, which identifies it as "the repressive action initiated or condoned by authorities against their own people on religious grounds," it is not possible to term these acts of war as religious persecution.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Engh |first1=Mary Jane |title=In the Name of Heaven 3000 Years of Religious Persecution |date=2010 |publisher=Prometheus |isbn=9781615925490 |page=8}}</ref>

After the collapse of the [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]] and the [[Fall of Acre]], the last of the Crusaders' possessions in Asia in 1291, one of the main Christian [[Military order (religious society)|military orders]] was suppressed from 1307 on trumped-up charges by the papacy.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last=Tyerman|first=Christopher|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H59MQj7vt4UC|title=The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2005|isbn=978-0-19-157811-3|page=101}}</ref> The [[Knights Templar]] were accused of sodomy, heresy, and corruption and the members were persecuted.<ref name=":8" /> In the crusades waged against non-Muslims, including Christians described as heretics, Catholic participants were promised the same spiritual rewards as were believed to be received by those who fought against Muslims in the Holy Land.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book|last=Nicholson|first=Helen J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xuHkATz7mZEC&pg=PA54|title=The Crusades|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2004|isbn=978-0-313-32685-1|location=Westport, CN and London|pages=53–76}}</ref>

==== Albigensian Crusade ====
[[Pope Innocent III]], with the king of France, [[Philip II of France|Philip Augustus]], began the military campaign known as the [[Albigensian Crusade]] between 1209 and 1226 against other Christians known as [[Cathars]].<ref name=":9" /><ref name="Kienzle">{{cite book|last=Kienzle|first=Beverly Mayne|title=Cistercians, Heresy, and Crusade in Occitania, 1145–1229: Preaching in the Lord's Vineyard|publisher=Boydell Press|year=2001|isbn=9781903153000|location=U.K.}}</ref>{{rp|46,47}} Scholars disagree, using two distinct lines of reasoning, on whether the war that followed was religious persecution from the Pope or a land grab by King Philip.<ref name="Rummel"/>{{rp|50}} Historian [[Laurence Marvin|Laurence W. Marvin]] says the Pope exercised "little real control over events in Occitania".<ref name="Marvin">Marvin, Laurence W.. The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218. N.p., Cambridge University Press, 2008.</ref>{{rp|258}} Four years after the [[Massacre at Beziers]] in 1213, the Pope cancelled crusade indulgences and called for an end to the campaign.<ref name="Graham-Leigh">{{cite book|last=Graham-Leigh|first= Elaine |title=The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade|publisher=The Boydell Press|location=Rochester, NY|year=2005|isbn=1-84383-129-5}}</ref>{{rp|58}} The campaign continued anyway. The Pope was not reversed until the Fourth Lateran council re-instituted crusade status two years later in 1215; afterwards, the Pope removed it yet again.<ref name="Jones-2009">{{cite journal|last1=Jones|first1=Chris|date=1 March 2009|title=09.03.20, Marvin, The Occitan War|url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/16779|journal=[[The Medieval Review]]|publisher=[[Indiana University]]|pages=no page #s available|issn=1096-746X|id=baj9928.0903.020}}</ref><ref name="Marvin"/>{{rp|229,235}} The campaign continued in what Marvin refers to as "an increasingly murky moral atmosphere" for the next 16 years: there was technically no longer any crusade, no indulgences or dispensational rewards for fighting it, the papal legates exceeded their orders from the Pope, and the army occupied lands of nobles who were in the good graces of the church.<ref name="Marvin"/>{{rp|216}} The Treaty of Paris that ended the campaign left the Cathars still in existence, but awarded rule of Languedoc to Louis' descendants.<ref name="Marvin"/>{{rp|235}}

====Northern (Baltic) crusades====
The Northern (or [[Baltic crusades]]), went on intermittently from 1147 to 1316, and the primary trigger for these wars was not religious persecution but instead was the noble's desire for territorial expansion and material wealth in the form of land, furs, amber, slaves, and tribute.<ref name="Dragnea2">{{cite book|last=Dragnea|first=Mihai|title=The Wendish Crusade, 1147: The Development of Crusading Ideology in the Twelfth Century|publisher=Routledge|year=2020|isbn=978-0-367-36696-4|location=NY}}</ref>{{rp|5,6}} The princes wanted to subdue these pagan peoples and stop their raiding by conquering and converting them, but ultimately, Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt says, the princes were motivated by their desire to extend their power and prestige, and conversion was not always an element of their plans.<ref name="Iben">{{cite book|last=Fonnesberg-Schmidt|first=Iben|title=The popes and the Baltic crusades, 1147–1254|publisher=Brill|year=2007|isbn=9789004155022}}</ref>{{rp|24}} When it was, conversion by these princes was almost always as a result of conquest, either by the direct use of force or indirectly when a leader converted and required it of his followers as well.<ref name="Iben" />{{rp|23,24}} "While the theologians maintained that conversion should be voluntary, there was a widespread pragmatic acceptance of conversion obtained through political pressure or military coercion."<ref name="Iben" />{{rp|24}} The Church's acceptance of this led some commentators of the time to endorse and approve it, something Christian thought had never done before.<ref>[[Alfred Haverkamp|Haverkamp, Alfred]]. Medieval Germany: 1056–1273. Trans. Helga Braun and Richard Mortimer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. p.g. 157–158</ref>{{rp|157–158}}<ref name="Iben" />{{rp|24}}

===Ilkhanate===
During the [[Ilkhanate]], massacres were perpetrated by [[Hulagu Khan]] against the Assyrians, particularly in and around the ancient Assyrian city of Arbela (modern [[Erbil]]).{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

[[Bar Hebraeus]] provided this contemporary assessment of the Mongols attitudes toward their Christian subjects after their conversion to Islam: “And having seen very much modesty and other habits of this kind among Christian people, certainly the Mongols loved them greatly at the beginning of their kingdom, a time ago somewhat short. But their love hath turned to such intense hatred that they cannot even see them with their eyes approvingly, because they have all alike become Muslims".<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.31826/9781463209179-020/pdf | doi=10.31826/9781463209179-020 | chapter=The Laws of Chingiz Khân | title=The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus | year=2003 | pages=354–355 | publisher=Gorgias Press | isbn=9781463209179 }}</ref> Things became worse when the khan, Mahmud Ghazan, (who converted to Islam in 1295) yielded to “popular pressure which compelled him to persecute Christians,” and culminated in the following ordinance: “The churches shall be uprooted, and the altars overturned, and the celebrations of the Eucharist shall cease, and the hymns of praise, and the sounds of calls to prayer shall be abolished; and the heads of the Christians, and the heads of the congregations of the Jews, and the great men among them, shall be killed".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ex49AAAAIAAJ|title=The Eclipse of Chrostianity in Asia|page=163|last1=Browne |first1=Laurence E. |date=September 1967 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FeHAxxEpe-cC|title=Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Modern Iran|page=82|isbn=9780739136096 |last1=Christian Van Gorder |first1=A. |year=2010 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield }}</ref><ref name="auto2">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_g58CF8_RLMC|title=The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion|page=210|isbn=9780062098702 |last1=Stark |first1=Rodney |date=25 October 2011 |publisher=Harper Collins }}</ref>

Empowered by this ordinance and believing “that everyone who did not abandon Christianity and deny his faith should be killed,” Muslim mobs ran amok, slaughtering and wreaking havoc among Christian populations. In Armenia, church services were banned and local authorities ordered to tattoo a black mark on the shoulder of every male Christian and to pluck out the beards and inflict other humiliations on every Christian man. “When few Christians defected [to Islam] in response to these measures, the Khan then ordered that all Christian men be castrated and have one eye put out which caused many deaths in this era before antibiotics, but did lead to many conversions” to Islam.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ex49AAAAIAAJ|title=The Eclipse of Chrostianity in Asia|page=167|last1=Browne |first1=Laurence E. |date=September 1967 }}</ref><ref name="auto2"/>

The consideration which the Mongols bestowed on the Christians (particularly the Nestorians) singled them out for the hatred of the Muslims. In 1261, Muslims of Mosul pillaged and killed all those who did not convert to Islam. Several monks and community leaders and others from the common people recanted. The Kurds then descended from the mountains and attacked the Christians of the region, massacring many of them; they pillaged the convent of Mar Matai, only withdrawing after extorting a heavy ransom from the monks.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8DkV4_ExCHYC|title=Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism|pages=46–47|isbn=9780521005821 |last1=Masters |first1=Bruce |date=25 March 2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

== Late Middle Ages ==

=== Western Europe ===
Advocates of lay piety called for church reform and met with persecution from the Popes.<ref name="Humanities">{{cite book|author1=Roy T. Matthews|author2=F. DeWitt Platt| title=The Western Humanities|publisher=MayfieldPublishing|location=Mountain View, California|year=1992|isbn=0-87484-785-0}}</ref>{{rp|248–250}} [[John Wycliffe]] (1320–1384) urged the church to give up ownership of property, which produced much of the church's wealth, and to once again embrace poverty and simplicity. He urged the church to stop being subservient to the state and its politics. He denied papal authority. John Wycliff died of a stroke, but his followers, called ''Lollards'', were declared heretics.<ref name="Humanities" />{{rp|249}} After the [[Oldcastle Revolt|Oldcastle rebellion]] many were killed.<ref>{{cite web|last=Crompton|first=James|title=Leicestershire Lollards |url=https://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/LollardsSmPagesfromvolumeXLIV-3.pdf}}</ref>{{rp|12,13}}

[[Jan Hus]] (1369–1415) accepted some of Wycliff's views and aligned with the [[Bohemian Reformation|Bohemian Reform movement]] which was also rooted in popular piety. In 1415, Hus was called to the [[Council of Constance]] where his ideas were condemned as heretical and he was handed over to the state and burned at the stake.<ref>Kuhns, Oscar, and Dickie, Robert. Jan Hus: Reformation in Bohemia. United Kingdom, Reformation Press, 2017.</ref>{{rp|130,135–139}}<ref name="Humanities" />{{rp|250}}

The Fraticelli, who were also known as the "Little Brethren" or "Spiritual Franciscans", were dedicated followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. These Franciscans honored their vow of poverty and saw the wealth of the Church as a contributor to corruption and injustice when so many lived in poverty. They criticized the worldly behavior of many churchmen.<ref name="Wakefield">{{cite book|editor1-last=Wakefield|editor1-first=Walter|editor2-last=Evans|editor2-first=Austin|title=Heresies of The High Middle Ages |publisher=Columbia|year=1991|isbn=9780231096324}}</ref>{{rp|28,50,305}} Thus, the Brethren were declared heretical by [[John XXII]] (1316–1334) who was called "the banker of Avignon".<ref>Chamberlin, Eric Russell. The bad Popes. United States, Dorset Press, 1986.</ref>{{rp|131}}

The leader of these brethren, [[Bernard Délicieux]] (c. 1260–1270{{Snd}} 1320) was well known as he had spent much of his life battling the Dominican-run inquisitions. He confessed, after torture and threat of excommunication, to the charge of opposing the inquisitions, and was defrocked and sentenced to life in prison, in chains, in solitary confinement, and to receive nothing but bread and water. The judges attempted to ameliorate the harshness of this sentence due to his age and frailty, but [[Pope John XXII]] countermanded them and delivered the friar to Inquisitor [[Jean de Beaune]]. Délicieux died shortly thereafter in early 1320.<ref>Burr, David. The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century After Saint Francis. United States, Penn State University Press, 2001.</ref>{{rp|191,196–198}}

===Mamluk Sultanate===
when Sultan [[Baybars]] took Antioch from the Crusaders he wrote a letter to Christians boasting of the atrocities they would have seen his soldiers commit had they been there:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fKYxKsgVpmMC|title=The New Concise History of the Crusades|pages=181–182|isbn=9780742538221 |last1=Madden |first1=Thomas F. |date=2005 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield }}</ref>
{{blockquote|You would have seen your knights prostrate beneath the horses’ hooves, your houses stormed by pillagers and ransacked by looters, your wealth weighed by the quintal, your women sold four at a time and bought for a dinar of your own money! You would have seen the crosses in your churches smashed, the pages of the false Testaments scattered, the Patriarchs’ tombs overturned. You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate the Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars, bringing sudden death to the Patriarchs and slavery to the royal princes. You would have seen fire running through your palaces, your dead burned in this world before going down to the fires of the next, your palace lying unrecognizable, the Church of St. Paul and that of the Cathedral of St. Peter pulled down and destroyed; then you would have said, “Would that I were dust, and that no letter had ever brought me such tidings!”}}

=== Timurid Empire ===
[[Timur]] (Tamerlane) instigated large scale massacres of Christians in [[Mesopotamia]], [[Persia]], [[Asia Minor]] and Syria in the 14th century AD. Most of the victims were indigenous [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]] and [[Armenians]], members of the [[Assyrian Church of the East]] and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox Church]]es, which led to the decimation of the hitherto majority Assyrian population in northern Mesopotamia and the abandonment of the ancient Assyrian city of [[Assur]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Khanbaghi|first=Aptin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7iAbUEaXnfEC&pg=PA87|title=The fire, the star and the cross: minority religions in medieval and early modern Iran|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=2006|isbn=9781845110567}}</ref> Tamerlane virtually exterminated the [[Church of the East]], which had previously been a major branch of Christianity but afterwards became largely confined to a small area now known as the [[Assyrian Triangle]].<ref name="nestoriangenocide">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nestorianism|title=Nestorianism &#124; Definition, History, & Churches &#124; Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|date=2 June 2023 }}</ref>

== Early modern period ==

=== Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation ===
{{Main|Counter-Reformation|European wars of religion|Protestant Reformation}}
[[File:Persecution of Christians with scenes of martyrdom behind. E Wellcome V0033268.jpg|thumb|''Persecution of the Servants of Christ'' by [[Maerten de Vos]] and [[engraved]] by [[Hieronymus Wierix]] ([[Wellcome Library]]). An illustration of the prophecy of persecution made during the [[Sermon on the Mount]] according to the ''[[Gospel of Luke]]''.{{Break}}"But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake."<ref>{{Bibleverse|Luke|21:12|KJV}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|({{Langx|grc-x-koine|πρὸ δὲ τούτων πάντων ἐπιβαλοῦσιν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν καὶ διώξουσιν, παραδιδόντες εἰς τὰς συναγωγὰς καὶ φυλακάς, ἀπαγομένους ἐπὶ βασιλεῖς καὶ ἡγεμόνας ἕνεκεν τοῦ ὀνόματός μου·}})}}]]

The [[Protestant]] Reformation and the [[Roman Catholic]] Counter-Reformation provoked a number of persecutions of Christians by other Christians and the [[European wars of religion]], including the [[Eighty Years' War]], the [[French Wars of Religion]], the [[Thirty Years' War]], the [[Wars of the Three Kingdoms]], the [[Savoyard–Waldensian wars]], and the [[Toggenburg War]]. There were false allegations of [[witchcraft]] and numerous [[witch trials in the early modern period]].

===China===
[[File:Martyrerp 2.jpg|thumb|An 1858 illustration from the French newspaper, ''Le Monde Illustré'', of the torture and execution of Father [[Auguste Chapdelaine]], a French missionary in China, by slow slicing (''[[lingchi]]'').]]

Beginning in the late 17th century and for at least a century, Christianity was banned in China by the [[Kangxi Emperor]] of the [[Qing dynasty]] after [[Pope Clement XI]] forbade [[Catholic Church in China|Chinese Catholics]] from [[Veneration|venerating]] their relatives, [[Confucius]], the [[Buddha]] or [[Guanyin]].<ref name=Ye_Xiaowen>{{cite web|url=http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/45466.htm |title=China's Religions Retrospect and Prospect | author= Ye Xiaowen | place= Hong Kong|date= 19 February 2001 |publisher=China Internet Information Center |access-date=29 June 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=14 May 2018|title=Christianity and Empire: The Catholic Mission in Late Imperial China|doi=10.1017/stc.2018.1 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-church-history/article/abs/christianity-and-empire-the-catholic-mission-in-late-imperial-china/2B3485994A654C67CA80D0C5F8DAFFEE|last1=Hsia |first1=R. Po-Chia |journal=Studies in Church History |volume=54 |pages=208–224 |s2cid=165314911 |url-access=subscription }}{{Retrieved|access-date=2023-02-14}}</ref>

The [[Boxer Rebellion#Massacre of missionaries and Chinese Christians|Boxer rebellion]] targeted foreign and [[Chinese Christians]]. Beginning in 1899, Boxers spread violence across [[Shandong]] and the [[North China Plain]], attacking or murdering Christian missionaries and Chinese Christians. They decided the "primary devils" were the Christian missionaries, and the "secondary devils" were the Chinese converts to Christianity. Both had to recant or be driven out or killed.<ref>{{cite book|author=Victor Purcell|title=The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2MeUoD9G9xAC&pg=PA125|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=125|isbn=9780521148122}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Diana Preston|title=The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900|url=https://archive.org/details/boxerrebelliondr00dian|url-access=registration|year=2000|publisher=Walker|page=[https://archive.org/details/boxerrebelliondr00dian/page/25 25]|isbn=9780802713612}}</ref> Boxers burned Christian churches, killed Chinese Christians and intimidated Chinese officials who stood in their way. Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic missionaries and their Chinese parishioners were massacred throughout northern China, some by Boxers and others by government troops and authorities. [[Yuxian (Qing dynasty)|Yuxian]] implemented a brutal anti-foreign and anti-Christian policy. The [[Baptist Missionary Society]], based in England, opened its mission in Shanxi in 1877. In 1900 all its missionaries there were killed, along with all 120 converts.<ref>{{ cite book | author=R. G. Tiedemann | title=Reference Guide to Christian Missionary Societies in China: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century | date=2009 | page= 125 | publisher= M.E. Sharpe | isbn =9780765640017 }}</ref> By the summer's end, more foreigners and as many as 2,000 Chinese Christians had been put to death in the province. Journalist and historical writer Nat Brandt has called the massacre of Christians in Shanxi "the greatest single tragedy in the history of Christian evangelicalism."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brandt|first=Nat|url=http://archive.org/details/massacreinshansi00bran|title=Massacre in Shansi|date=1994|publisher=Syracuse University Press|url-access= registration |isbn=978-0-8156-0282-8 | page= xiii}}</ref> During the Boxer Rebellion as a whole, a total of 136 Protestant missionaries and 53 children were killed, and 47 Catholic priests and nuns, 30,000 Chinese Catholics, 2,000 Chinese Protestants, and 200 to 400 of the 700 Russian Orthodox Christians in Beijing were estimated to have been killed. Collectively, the Protestant dead were called the [[China Martyrs of 1900]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Larry Clinton |date=2009 |title=William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris, and the "Ideal Missionary" |place= Jefferson, NC |publisher= McFarland |page=184 |isbn=9780786453382}}</ref>

The Muslim unit [[Kansu Braves]] which was serving in the Chinese army attacked Christians.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CBOpWiyl4NsC&pg=PA172|title=A traveller's history of China|author=Stephen G. Haw|author-link=Stephen G. Haw|year=2003|publisher=Interlink Books|page=172|isbn=1-56656-486-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tvZwAAAAMAAJ&q=muslim+baron+von+ketteler|title=The modern history of China|author=Henry McAleavy|author-link=Henry McAleavy|year=1967|publisher=Praeger|page=165|isbn=9780297176619}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcdkmohiuuQC&pg=PA80|title=The Atlantic monthly, Volume 113 By Making of America Project|author=Sterling Making of America Project|year=1914|publisher=Atlantic Monthly Co.|page=80}}</ref>

During the [[Northern Expedition]], the [[Kuomintang]] incited [[Xenophobia|anti-foreign]], [[anti-Western sentiment]]. Portraits of [[Sun Yat-sen]] replaced the crucifix in several churches, KMT posters proclaimed that "Jesus Christ is dead. Why not worship something alive such as [[Nationalism]]?" Foreign missionaries were attacked and anti-foreign riots broke out.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YkREps9oGR4C&q=emocracy+absolutely+impossible|title=Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost|author=Jonathan Fenby|year=2005|publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers|page=126|isbn=0-7867-1484-0}}</ref> In 1926, Muslim General [[Bai Chongxi]] attempted to drive out foreigners in [[Guangxi]], attacking American, European, and other foreigners and missionaries, and generally making the province unsafe for foreigners. Westerners fled from the province, and some Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tCA9AAAAIAAJ&q=muslim|title=Region and nation: the Kwangsi clique in Chinese politics, 1925–1937|author=Diana Lary|year=1974|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=99|isbn=0-521-20204-3}}</ref>

From 1894 to 1938, many [[Uyghurs|Uighur]] Muslims converted to Christianity. They were killed, tortured and jailed.<ref>Missionary Review of the World; 1878-1939. Princeton Press. 1939. p. 130. vol.62.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Claydon|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gV32uPMChgAC&pg=PA385|title=A New Vision, a New Heart, a Renewed Call|date=2005|publisher=William Carey Library|isbn=978-0-87808-363-3|page=385}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Uhalley|first1=Stephen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPnqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA274|title=China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future|last2=Wu|first2=Xiaoxin|date=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-47501-9|page=274}}</ref> Christian missionaries were expelled.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Forbes|first=Andrew D. W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949|date=1986|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-25514-1| pages=84, 87}}</ref>

===French Revolution===
{{Main|Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution|Revolt in the Vendée}}
[[File:MassacrePrincessLamballe.jpg|thumb|upright=1.24|[[September massacres]], 1792]]

The dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution is a conventional description of a campaign, conducted by various [[Robespierre]]-era governments of France beginning with the start of the [[French Revolution]] in 1789, to eliminate any symbol that might be associated with the past, especially the [[Monarchy of France|monarchy]].

The program included the following policies:<ref>Latreille, A. FRENCH REVOLUTION, New Catholic Encyclopedia v. 5, pp. 972–973 (Second Ed. 2002 Thompson/Gale) {{ISBN|0-7876-4004-2}}</ref><ref>Spielvogel, Jackson [https://books.google.com/books?id=ni4PSpOxb6MC Western Civilization: Combined Volume] p. 549, 2005
Thomson Wadsworth</ref><ref name="google">{{Cite book |last1=Tallett |first1=Frank | chapter= Dechristianizing France: The year II and the revolutionary experience | pages=1–28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aL4lsWdd-rAC |title=Religion, Society and Politics in France Since 1789 |editor1-last= Tallett | editor1-first= Frank | editor2-last=Atkin |editor2-first=Nicholas |date=1991 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-85285-057-9}}</ref>{{rp|1}}
* the deportation of clergy and the condemnation of many of them to death,
* the closing, [[desecration]] and pillaging of churches, removal of the word "saint" from street names and other acts to banish Christian culture from the public sphere
* removal of statues, plates, and other iconography from places of worship
* destruction of crosses, bells and other external signs of worship
* the institution of revolutionary and civic cults, including the [[Cult of Reason]] and subsequently the [[Cult of the Supreme Being]],
* the large-scale destruction of religious monuments,
* the outlawing of public and private worship and religious education,
* forced marriages of the clergy,
* forced abjuration of priesthood, and
* the enactment of a law on 21 October 1793 making all nonjuring priests and all persons who harbored them liable to death on sight.
[[File:Fusillades de Nantes.jpg|thumb|upright=1.24|Mass shootings at Nantes, 1793]]
The climax was reached with the celebration of the Goddess "Reason" in [[Notre-Dame de Paris]], the Parisian cathedral, on 10 November.

Under threat of death, imprisonment, military conscription or loss of income, about 20,000 constitutional priests were forced to abdicate or hand over their letters of ordination and 6,000&nbsp;– 9,000 were coerced to marry, many ceasing their ministerial duties.<ref name="google"/>{{rp|10}} Some of those who abdicated covertly ministered to the people.<ref name="google" />{{rp|10}} By the end of the decade, approximately 30,000 priests were forced to leave France, and thousands who did not leave were executed.<ref>{{ cite book | last= Lewis | first= Gwynne | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=VjXHmc6Z5ZcC&dq=dechristianisation+of+france+during+the+french+revolution&pg=PA45 | title= The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate | page=96 | date= 1993 | publisher=Routledge | isbn = 0-415-05466-4}}</ref> Most of France was left without the services of a priest, deprived of the [[sacraments]] and any nonjuring priest faced the [[guillotine]] or deportation to [[French Guiana]].<ref name="google"/>{{rp|11}}

The March 1793 conscription requiring [[Vendée|Vendeans]] to fill their district's quota of 300,000 enraged the populace, who took up arms as "The Catholic Army", "Royal" being added later, and fought for "above all the reopening of their parish churches with their former priests."<ref name="Jones-52-53">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=buHXFDFdeoQC|title=Resisting Rebellion|isbn=9780813191706 |last1=Joes |first1=Anthony James |date=2006 | publisher= University Press of Kentucky | pages= 52–53 }}</ref> 
 
With these [[Mass murder|massacres]] came formal orders for forced evacuation; also, a '[[scorched earth]]' policy was initiated: farms were destroyed, crops and forests burned and villages razed. There were many reported atrocities and a campaign of mass killing universally targeted at residents of the [[Vendée]] regardless of combatant status, political affiliation, age or gender.<ref>{{cite web|year=2006|title=Jones, Adam Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction|url=http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf|publisher=Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers Forthcoming|page=7|access-date=27 October 2008|archive-date=10 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010110108/http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> By July 1796, the estimated Vendean dead numbered between 117,000 and 500,000, out of a population of around 800,000.<ref>{{cite web|title=Three State and Counterrevolution in France by Charles Tilly|url=http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft2h4nb1h9&doc.view=content&chunk.id=d0e1419&toc.depth=1&anchor.id=0&brand=eschol|access-date=29 June 2011|publisher=cdlib.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Furlaud|first1=Alice|date=9 July 1989|title=Vive la Contre-Revolution!|work=The New York Times|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=950DE1DC123AF93AA35754C0A96F948260}}</ref><ref>{{Cite periodical |last=McPhee| first= Peter|url=https://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/mcphee3.html | title= Review of Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120420184315/http://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/mcphee3.html|archive-date=20 April 2012| magazine= H-France Review | volume=4 | date=March 2004 |number= 26}}</ref>

===Japan===
{{Further|Martyrs of Japan}}
[[File:Martyrdom-of-Nagasaki-Painting-1622.png|thumb|The Christian martyrs of the 1622&nbsp;[[Great Genna Martyrdom]]. 17th-century Japanese painting.]]

[[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] assumed control over Japan in 1600. Like [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]], he disliked Christian activities in Japan. The [[Tokugawa shogunate]] finally decided to ban Catholicism in 1614, and in the mid-17th century it demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts. This marked the end of open Christianity in Japan.<ref name="Mullins">{{cite journal|last=Mullins|first=Mark R.|year=1990|title=Japanese Pentecostalism and the World of the Dead: a Study of Cultural Adaptation in Iesu no Mitama Kyokai|journal=Japanese Journal of Religious Studies|volume=17|issue=4|pages=353–374|doi=10.18874/jjrs.17.4.1990.353-374|doi-access=free}}</ref> The [[Shimabara Rebellion]], led by a young [[Kirishitan|Japanese Christian]] boy named [[Amakusa Shirō|Amakusa Shirō Tokisada]], took place in 1637. After the [[Hara Castle]] fell, the shogunate's forces beheaded an estimated 37,000 rebels and sympathizers. Amakusa Shirō's severed head was taken to [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]] for public display, and the entire complex at Hara Castle was burned to the ground and buried together with the bodies of all the dead.<ref>Naramoto, p. 401.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2024}}

Many of the Christians in Japan continued for two centuries to maintain their religion as [[Kakure Kirishitan]], or hidden Christians, without any priests or pastors. Some of those who were killed for their Faith are venerated as the [[Martyrs of Japan]].

Christianity was later allowed during the [[Meiji era]]. The [[Meiji Constitution]] of 1890 introduced [[separation of church and state]] and permitted freedom of religion.

===Kingdom of Mysore===
{{Further|Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam}}
[[File:JamalabadFortPassage.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Jamalabad|Jamalabad fort]] route. Mangalorean Catholics had traveled through this route on their way to [[Seringapatam]].]]

Muslim [[Tipu Sultan]], the ruler of the [[Kingdom of Mysore]], took action against the [[Mangalorean Catholic]] community from [[Mangalore]] and the [[South Canara]] district on the southwestern coast of India. Tipu was widely reputed to be anti-Christian. He took Mangalorean Catholics into captivity at [[Seringapatam]] on 24 February 1784 and released them on 4 May 1799.<ref name="dajser">{{cite web |url=http://www.daijiworld.com/chan/achievers_view.asp?a_id=28 |title=Deportation & The Konkani Christian Captivity at Srirangapatna (1784 Feb. 24th Ash Wednesday) |publisher=[[Daiji World|Daijiworld Media Pvt Ltd Mangalore]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080129233351/http://www.daijiworld.com/chan/achievers_view.asp?a_id=28 |archive-date=29 January 2008 | author1= Jerald Sequeira }}</ref>

Soon after the [[Treaty of Mangalore]] in 1784, Tipu gained control of Canara.<ref>{{harvnb|Forrest|1887|pp=314–316}}</ref> He issued orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates,<ref>{{harvnb|The Gentleman's Magazine|1833|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=CnSrSlq_ckcC 388]}}</ref> and deport them to Seringapatam, the capital of his empire, through the [[Jamalabad|Jamalabad fort]] route.<ref name="dm">{{cite web
|url=http://www.dioceseofmangalore.org/history.asp
|title= Christianity in Mangalore
|publisher=[[Roman Catholic Diocese of Mangalore|Diocese of Mangalore]]|url-status=usurped
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080622155343/http://www.dioceseofmangalore.org/history.asp |archive-date = 22 June 2008}}</ref> There were no priests among the captives. Together with Fr. Miranda, all the 21 arrested priests were issued orders of expulsion to Goa, fined 20,000,000 (2 lakh) rupees<!--Use western numbering first-->, and threatened death by hanging if they ever returned.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} Tipu ordered the destruction of 27 Catholic churches.

According to [[Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet|Thomas Munro]], a Scottish soldier and the first collector of Canara, around 60,000 of them,<ref name="bow2">{{harvnb|Bowring|1997|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jrL3wXQ2-rYC 126]|Ref=bow}}</ref> nearly 92&nbsp;percent of the entire Mangalorean Catholic community, were captured. 7,000 escaped. Observer [[Francis Buchanan-Hamilton|Francis Buchanan]] reports that 70,000 were captured, from a population of 80,000, with 10,000 escaping. They were forced to climb nearly {{convert|4000|ft|m}} through the jungles of the [[Western Ghats|Western Ghat]] mountain ranges. It was {{convert|210|mi|km}} from Mangalore to Seringapatam, and the journey took six weeks. According to British Government records, 20,000&nbsp; of them died on the march to Seringapatam. According to [[James Scurry]], a British officer, who was held captive along with Mangalorean Catholics, 30,000&nbsp;of them were forcibly converted to Islam. The young women and girls were forcibly made wives of the Muslims living there and later distributed and sold in prostitution.{{sfn|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=103}} The young men who offered resistance were disfigured by cutting their noses, upper lips, and ears.{{sfn|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=104}}

[[File:James Scurry.jpg|thumb|left|The British officer [[James Scurry]], who was detained a prisoner for 10 years by Tipu Sultan along with the Mangalorean Catholics]]
Tipu Sultan's invasion of the [[Malabar Coast]] had an adverse impact on the [[Saint Thomas Christian]] community of the Malabar coast. Many churches in Malabar and [[Cochin]] were damaged. The old Syrian Nasrani seminary at Angamaly which had been the center of Catholic religious education for several centuries was razed to the ground by Tipu's soldiers. Many centuries-old religious manuscripts were lost forever. The church was later relocated to Kottayam where it still exists to this date. The Mor Sabor church at Akaparambu and the Martha Mariam Church attached to the seminary were destroyed as well. Tipu's army set fire to the church at Palayoor and attacked the Ollur Church in 1790. Furthernmore, the Arthat church and the Ambazhakkad seminary was also destroyed. Over the course of this invasion, many Saint Thomas Christians were killed or forcibly converted to Islam. Most of the coconut, arecanut, pepper and cashew plantations held by the Saint Thomas Christian farmers were also indiscriminately destroyed by the invading army. As a result, when Tipu's army invaded Guruvayur and adjacent areas, the Syrian Christian community fled Calicut and small towns like Arthat to new centres like Kunnamkulam, Chalakudi, Ennakadu, Cheppadu, Kannankode, [[Mavelikkara]], etc. where there were already Christians. They were given refuge by Sakthan Tamburan, the ruler of Cochin and Karthika Thirunal, the ruler of Travancore, who gave them lands, plantations and encouraged their businesses. Colonel Macqulay, the British resident of Travancore also helped them.<ref name= Bernard >K.L. Bernard, ''Kerala History '', p. 79</ref>

Tipu's persecution of Christians also extended to captured British soldiers. For instance, there were a significant amount of forced conversions of British captives between 1780 and 1784. Following their disastrous defeat at the [[battle of Pollilur]], 7,000 British men along with an unknown number of women were held captive by Tipu in the fortress of Seringapatnam. Of these, over 300 were circumcised and given Muslim names and clothes, and several British regimental drummer boys were made to wear ''[[ghagra cholis]]'' and entertain the court as ''nautch'' girls or dancing girls.<ref>William Dalrymple ''White Mughals'' (2006) p. 28</ref> According to James Scurry, who had been jailed, he gained an inability to use western cutlery, a change in his preferred clothing, a darker skin tone, and having ""broken and confused" English that no longer had "all its vernacular idiom".<ref name=Colleycount>{{cite news|last=Colley|first=Linda|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/nov/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview5|title=Your country needs you. And your beard|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=2002-11-09|access-date=2025-05-13}}</ref> Scurry had a confinement period of 10 years.<ref name=Colleycount/>

=== Ottoman Empire ===
{{Main|Christianity in the Ottoman Empire}}

Historian Warren Treadgold gives a summary on the historical background highlighting the cumulative effects of the relentless Turkish Muslim depredations against the Byzantine Empire in its Anatolian heartland by the late 14th century:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nYbnr5XVbzUC|title=A History of the Byzantine State and Society|pages=813–814|isbn=9780804726306 |last1=Treadgold |first1=Warren T. |date=October 1997 |publisher=Stanford University Press }}</ref>
{{blockquote|As the Turks raided and conquered, they enslaved many Christians, selling some in other Muslim regions and hindering the rest from practicing their faith. Conversions [to islam], Turkish migration, and Greek outmigration increasingly endangered the Greek minority in central Asia Minor. When the Turks overran Western Anatolia, they occupied the countryside first, driving the Greeks into the cities, or away to Europe, or the islands. By the time the Anatolian cities fell, the land around them was already largely Turkish [and Islamic].}}

In accordance with the traditional custom which was practiced at the time, Sultan [[Mehmed II]] allowed his troops and his entourage to engage in unbridled pillaging and looting in the city of [[Constantinople]] for three full days shortly after [[Fall of Constantinople|it was captured]]. Once the three days passed, he claimed its remaining contents for himself.<ref name="Runciman 1965">{{Cite book|last=Runciman|first=Steven|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BAzntP0lg58C|title=The Fall of Constantinople 1453|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1965|isbn=978-0-521-39832-9|pages=145–148|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Nicol|first=Donald MacGillivray|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LpBsQgAACAAJ|title=The End of the Byzantine Empire|publisher=Edward Arnold|year=1979|isbn=978-0-7131-6250-9|location=London|page=88|language=en|author-link=Donald Nicol}}</ref> However, at the end of the first day, he proclaimed that the looting should cease because he felt profound sadness when he toured the looted and enslaved city.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Inalcik|first=Halil|year=1969|title=The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City|journal=Dumbarton Oaks Papers|volume=23/24|pages=229–249|doi=10.2307/1291293|jstor=1291293|issn=0070-7546}}</ref><ref name="Runciman 1965" /> Hagia Sophia was not exempted from the pillage and looting and specifically became its focal point as the invaders believed it to contain the greatest treasures and valuables of the city.<ref name="Nicol_a_2">Nicol. ''The End of the Byzantine Empire'', p. 90.</ref> Shortly after the defence<!--Br. Eng spllg--> of the [[Walls of Constantinople]] collapsed and the Ottoman troops entered the city victoriously, the pillagers and looters made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors before storming in.<ref name="Runciman 1965" />

Throughout the period of the [[siege of Constantinople]], the worshippers who were trapped in the city participated in the [[Divine Liturgy]] and they also recited the Prayer of the Hours at the [[Hagia Sophia]] and the church formed a safe-haven and a refuge for many of those worshippers who were unable to contribute to the city's defence<!--Br. Eng spllg-->, which comprised women, children, elderly, the sick and the wounded.<ref name="Runciman_2.5">Runciman. ''The Fall of Constantinople'', pp. 133–34.</ref><ref name="Nicol_b_1">{{ cite book | isbn =9780521439916 | last= Nicol | first=Donald M. | title=The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261–1453| place= Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press| date= 1972 | page= 389}}</ref> Being trapped in the church, the many congregants and yet more refugees inside became spoils-of-war to be divided amongst the triumphant invaders. The building was desecrated and looted, with the helpless occupants who sought shelter within the church being enslaved.<ref name="Nicol_a_2" /> While most of the elderly and the infirm/wounded and sick were killed, and the remainder (mainly teenage males and young boys) were chained up and sold into slavery.<ref name="Runciman 1965" />

The women of Constantinople also suffered from rape at the hands of Ottoman forces.<ref name="hRhtW">{{Cite magazine |last=Smith |first=Cyril J. |year=1974 |title=History of Rape and Rape Laws |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/wolj60&div=31&id=&page= |magazine=Women Law Journal |issue=60 |page=188 |access-date=12 October 2020 |archive-date=26 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200426103547/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fwolj60&div=31&id=&page= |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Barbaro, "all through the day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the city". According to historian [[Philip Mansel]], widespread persecution of the city's civilian inhabitants took place, resulting in thousands of murders and rapes, and 30,000 civilians being enslaved or forcibly deported.<ref name="iK51W">{{cite book |last1=Mansel |first1=Philip |title=Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 1453–1924 |chapter-url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm |date= 1995 | publisher= St. Martin's Press | via=The Washington Post |access-date=7 August 2020 |archive-date=24 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724153239/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm |url-status=live |chapter=One: The Conqueror}}</ref><ref name="Crowley2009">{{cite book |author=Roger Crowley|title=Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ftOp1cR7VK8C&pg=PT226|date=6 August 2009|publisher=Faber & Faber|isbn=978-0-571-25079-0|page=226|quote=The vast majority of the ordinary citizens - about 30,000 - were marched off to the slave markets of Edirne, Bursa and Ankara.}}</ref><ref name="Akbar2002">{{cite book |author=M.J Akbar|title=The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d_iBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA86|date=3 May 2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-45259-0|page=86|quote=Some 30,000 Christians were either enslaved or sold.}}</ref><ref name="Bradbury1992">{{cite book|author=Jim Bradbury|title=The Medieval Siege|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVCRpsfwkiUC&pg=PA322|year=1992|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-0-85115-312-4|page=322}}</ref> [[George Sphrantzes]] says that people of both genders were raped inside [[Hagia Sophia]].<ref>Preface to the ''Chronicle''; translated by [[Marios Philippides]], ''The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes, 1401–1477'' (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1980), p. 21</ref>

Since the time of the [[Great Turkish War|Austro-Turkish war (1683–1699)]], relations between Muslims and Christians who lived in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire gradually deteriorated {{vague|date=January 2018}} and this deterioration in interfaith relations occasionally resulted in calls for the expulsion or extermination of local Christian communities by some Muslim religious leaders. As a result of Ottoman [[oppression]], the destruction of Churches and Monasteries, and violence against the non-Muslim civilian population, [[Serbs|Serbian]] Christians and their church leaders, headed by Serbian Patriarch [[Arsenije III Čarnojević|Arsenije III]], sided with the Austrians in 1689 and again in 1737 under Serbian Patriarch [[Arsenije IV Jovanović Šakabenta|Arsenije IV]]. In the following punitive campaigns, Ottoman forces conducted systematic atrocities against the Christian population in the Serbian regions, resulted in the [[Great Migrations of the Serbs]].{{sfn|Pavlowitch|2002|pp=19–20}}

==== Ottoman Albania and Kosovo ====
{{Main|Islamization of Albania}}

Before the late 16th century, [[Christianity in Albania|Albania's population remained overwhelmingly Christian]], despite the fact that it was under Ottoman rule, unlike the more diverse populations of other regions of the [[Ottoman Empire]], such as Bosnia, Bulgaria and [[Northern Greece]],<ref name="MinkovDemographics">{{cite book|author=Anton Minkov|title=Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: ''Kisve Bahası'' Petitions and Ottoman Social Life, 1670–1730|publisher= Brill |series=The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, Volume: 30 | date= 2004 | isbn = 978-90-47-40277-0 |pages=41–42 | doi =10.1163/9789047402770_008 |s2cid=243354675 }}</ref> the mountainous Albania was a frequent site of revolts against Ottoman rule, often at an enormous human cost, such as the destruction of entire villages.<ref>Zhelyazkova, Antonina. ‘'Albanian Identities'’. pp. 15–16, 19.</ref> In response, the Ottomans abandoned their usual policy of tolerating Christians in favor of a policy which was aimed at reducing the size of Albania's Christian population through [[Islamization]], beginning in the restive Christian regions of Reka and Elbasan in 1570.<ref>Zhelyazkova, Antonina. ‘'Albanian Identities'’. Sofia, 2000: International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations. pp. 15–16</ref>

The pressures which resulted from this campaign included particularly harsh economic conditions which were imposed on Albania's Christian population; while earlier taxes on the Christians were around 45 ''[[akçe]]s'' a year, by the middle of the 17th century the rate had been multiplied by 27 to 780 ''akçes'' a year. Albanian elders often opted to save their clans and villages from hunger and economic ruin by advocating village-wide and region-wide conversions to Islam, with many individuals frequently continuing to practice Christianity in private.<ref>{{cite web |last= Zhelyazkova |first = Antonina |url=http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00003852/01/Albanian_Identities.pdf | title= Albanian Identities| date= 2000 | publisher=International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relation| quote=If the tax levied on the Christians in the Albanian communities in the 16th century amounted to about 45 akçes, in the middle of the 17th century it ran up to 780 akçes a year. In order to save the clans from hunger and ruin, the Albanian elders advised the people in the villages to adopt Islam...Nevertheless, the willingness of the Gegs to support the campaigns of the Catholic West against the Empire, did not abate.... men in Albania, Christians, but also Muslims, were ready to take up arms, given the smallest help from the Catholic West.... the complex dual religious identity of the Albanians become clear. Emblematic is the case of the Crypto-Christians inhabiting the inaccessible geographical area...}}</ref>

A failed Catholic rebellion in 1596 and the Albanian population's support of Austro-Hungary during the [[Great Turkish War]],<ref name="PahumiKosovoIslamization">{{ cite thesis | degree = Bachelor of Arts | work = Department of History| url= https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/55462 | first=Nevila | last= Pahumi | publisher= University of Michigan | date= 2007 | title= The Consolidation of Albanian Nationalism | page= 18 | hdl = 2027.42/55462| quote=The pasha of Ipek forcibly moved the Catholic inhabitants of northern Albania into the plains of southern Serbia after a failed Serb revolt forced many Serbs to flee to the Habsburg Empire in 1689. The transferred villagers were forced to convert to Islam.}}</ref> and its support of the Venetians in the 1644 Venetian-Ottoman War<ref name="Ramet210">{{harvnb|Ramet|1998|p=210}}: "Then, in 1644, war broke out between Venice and the Ottoman empire. At the urging of the clergy, many Albanian Catholics sided with Venice. The Ottomans responded to this by severely repressing them, which in turn drove many Catholics to embrace Islam (although a few of them elected to join the Orthodox Church)... Within the span of twenty-two years (1649–71) the number of Catholics in the diocese of Alessio fell by more than 50 percent, while in the diocese of Pulati (1634–71) the number of Catholics declined from more than 20,000 to just 4,045. In general, Albanian insurrections which occurred during the Ottoman-Venetian wars of 1644–69 resulted in stiff Ottoman reprisals against Catholics in northern Albania and significant acceleration of Islamization... In general, a pattern emerged. When the Ottoman empire was attacked by Catholic powers, local Catholics were pressured to convert, and when Orthodox Russia attacked the Ottoman empire, local Orthodox Christians were also pressured to change their faith. In some cases however, their Islamization was only superficial and as a result, many villages and some districts were still "crypto-Catholic" in the nineteenth century, despite their adoption of the externals of Islamic culture."</ref> as well as the [[Orlov Revolt]]<ref name="Ramet203">{{harvnb|Ramet|1998|p=203}}: "The Ottoman conquest between the end of the fourteenth century and the mid-fifteenth century introduced a third religion – Islam – but at first the Turks did not use force during their expansion, and it was only in the 1600s that large-scale conversion to Islam began – at first, it chiefly occurred among Albanian Catholics."; p.204. "The Orthodox community enjoyed broad toleration at the hands of the Sublime Porte until the late eighteenth century."; p. 204. "In the late eighteenth century Russian agents began stirring the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman empire against the Sublime Porte. In the Russo-Turkish wars of 1768–74 and 1787–91, Orthodox Albanians rose up against the Turks. In the course of the second revolt, the "New Academy" in Voskopoje was destroyed (1789), and at the end of the second Russo-Turkish war, more than a thousand Orthodox fled to Russia on Russian warships. In the aftermath of these revolts, the Porte now applied pressure in order to Islamize the Albanian Orthodox population, adding economic incentives in order to stimulate this process. In 1798, Ali Pasha of Janina led Ottoman forces against Christian believers who were assembled in their churches in order to celebrate Easter in the villages of Shen Vasil and Nivica e Bubarit. The bloodbath which was unleashed against these believers frightened Albanian Christians who lived in other districts and inspired a new wave of mass conversions to Islam."</ref><ref name="Skendi1013">{{harvnb|Skendi|1967a|pp=10–13}}.</ref><ref name="Skendi1956321323">{{harvnb|Skendi|1956|pp=321–323}}.</ref><ref name="Vickers16">{{harvnb|Vickers|2011|p=16}}.</ref><ref name="Koti1617">{{harvnb|Koti|2010|pp=16–17}}.</ref> were all factors which led to punitive measures in which outright force was accompanied by economic incentives depending on the region, and ended up forcing the conversion of large Christian populations to Islam in Albania. In the aftermath of the Great Turkish War, massive punitive measures were imposed on Kosovo's Catholic Albanian population and as a result of them, most members of it fled to Hungary and settled around [[Buda]], where most of them died of disease and starvation.<ref name="PahumiKosovoIslamization" /><ref name="MalcolmRaspasani">{{cite book|last=Malcolm|first=Noel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGQ_AQAAIAAJ&q=Toma+Raspasani|title=Kosovo: a short history|publisher=Macmillan|year=1998|isbn=978-0-333-66612-8|page=162}}</ref>

After the Orthodox Serbian population's subsequent flight from Kosovo, the pasha of Ipek (Peja/Pec) forced Albanian Catholic mountaineers to repopulate Kosovo by deporting them to Kosovo, and also forced them adopt Islam.<ref name="PahumiKosovoIslamization" /><ref name="Koti1617" /> In the 17th and 18th centuries, South Albania also saw numerous instances of violence which was directed against those who remained Christian by local newly converted Muslims, ultimately resulting in many more conversions out of fear as well as flight to faraway lands by the Christian population.<ref name="Kallivretakis233">{{harvnb|Kallivretakis|2003|p=233}}.</ref><ref name="Hammond30">{{harvnb|Hammond|1967|p=30}}.</ref><ref name="Ramet203" /><ref name="Hammond197662">{{harvnb|Hammond|1976|p=62}}.</ref><ref name="Koukoudis2003">{{harvnb|Koukoudis|2003|pp=321–322}}. "Particularly interesting is the case of Vithkuq, south of Moschopolis... It may well have had Vlach inhabitants before 1769, though the Arvanites were certainly far more numerous, if not the largest population group. This is further supported by the linguistic identity of the refugees who fled Vithkuq and accompanied the waves of departing Vlachs..." p. 339. "As the same time as, or possibly shortly before or after, these events in Moschopolis, unruly Arnauts also attacked the smaller Vlach and Arvanitic communities round about. The Vlach inhabitants of Llengë, Niçë, Grabovë, Shipckë, and the Vlach villages on Grammos, such as Nikolicë, Linotopi, and Grammousta, and the inhabitants of Vithkuq and even the last Albanian speaking Christian villages on Opar found themselves at the mercy of the predatory Arnauts, whom no-one could withstand. For them too, the only solution was to flee... During this period, Vlach and Arvanite families from the surrounding ruined market towns and villages settled alongside the few Moscopolitans who had returned. Refugee families came from Dushar and other villages in Opar, from Vithkuq, Grabovë, Nikolicë, Niçë, and Llengë and from Kolonjë..."</ref>

==Modern era (1815 to 1989)==
=== Communist Albania ===
{{Main|Religion in Albania#Communist Albania|Freedom of religion in Albania}}

Religion in Albania was subordinated to the interests of [[Marxism]] during the rule of [[Party of Labour of Albania|the country's communist party]] when all religions were suppressed. This policy was justified by the communist stance of [[state atheism]] from 1967 to 1991.<ref name="Hall1999">{{Cite journal|last=Hall|first=Derek R.|date=1999|title=Representations of Place: Albania|journal=The Geographical Journal|volume=165|issue=2|pages=161–172|doi=10.2307/3060414|jstor=3060414 |bibcode=1999GeogJ.165..161H |issn=0016-7398}}</ref> The [[Agrarian Reform Law (Albania)|Agrarian Reform Law]] of August 1945 nationalized most of the property which belonged to religious institutions, including the estates of mosques, monasteries, religious orders, and dioceses. Many clergy and believers were tried and some of them were executed. All foreign Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns were expelled from Albania in 1946.<ref name="country-data.com">{{cite web|title=Albania – Hoxha's Antireligious Campaign|url=http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-186.html|work=country-data.com | date= April 1992 | author =((Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress)) }}</ref><ref name="AlbaniaHandbook">{{cite book|title=Albania : a country study (Area Handbook for Albania)|date=1994|publisher=Library of Congress; Federal Research Division; Department of the Army|isbn=0-8444-0792-5|editor1-last=Zickel|editor1-first=Raymond|edition=2nd|editor2-last=Iwaskiw|editor2-first=Walter R.}}</ref> The military seized churches, cathedrals and mosques and converted them into basketball courts, movie theaters, dance halls, and the like; and members of the clergy were stripped of their titles and imprisoned.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Jordan|first1= Mary|date=18 April 2007|title=Albania finds religion after decades of atheism|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-04-18-0704170802-story.html|newspaper=[[The Chicago Tribune]] | url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| last1=Hargitai | first1= Quinn|date=3 November 2016|title=The country that's famous for tolerance|url=http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161024-the-worlds-most-tolerant-country|website=(BBC Travel) bbc.com|publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref> Around 6,000 Albanians were disappeared and murdered by agents of the Communist government, and their bodies were never found or identified. Albanians continued to be imprisoned, tortured and killed for their religious practices well into 1991.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Brunwasser|first1= Matthew|date=26 February 2017|title=As Albania Reckons With Its Communist Past, Critics Say It's Too Late|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/26/world/europe/as-albania-reckons-with-its-communist-past-critics-say-its-too-late.html |url-access= subscription}}</ref>

Religious communities or branches of them which had their headquarters outside the country, such as the [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] and [[Franciscans|Franciscan]] orders, were henceforth ordered to terminate their activities in Albania. Religious institutions were forbidden to have anything to do with the education of the young, because that activity had been made the exclusive province of the state. All religious communities were prohibited from owning real estate and they were also prohibited from operating philanthropic and welfare institutions and hospitals. [[Enver Hoxha]]'s overarching goal was the eventual destruction of all [[organized religion]]s in Albania, despite some variance in his approach to it.<ref name="country-data.com"/><ref name="AlbaniaHandbook"/>

=== Iraq ===
{{Main|Christianity in Iraq}}

The Assyrians were subjected to another series of persecutions during the [[Simele massacre]] of 1933, with the death of approximately 3,000 Assyrian civilians in the [[Kingdom of Iraq]] at the hands of the [[Royal Iraqi Army]].{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4&nbsp;million Christians.<ref>{{cite web|date=19 October 2006|title=Christians live in fear of death squads|url=http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61897|agency=IRIN}}</ref> They were tolerated under the secular regime of [[Saddam Hussein]], who even made one of them, [[Tariq Aziz]] his deputy. However, Saddam Hussein's government continued to persecute the Christians on an [[ethnic]], cultural and racial basis, because the vast majority are Mesopotamian [[Eastern Aramaic]]-speaking ethnic Assyrians (aka [[Chaldo-Assyrians]]). The Assyro-Aramaic language and script was repressed, the giving of Hebraic/Aramaic Christian names or Akkadian/Assyro-Babylonian names was forbidden (for example [[Tariq Aziz]]'s real name was Michael Youhanna), and Saddam exploited religious differences between Assyrian denominations such as [[Chaldean Catholics]], the [[Assyrian Church of the East]], the [[Syriac Orthodox Church]], the [[Assyrian Pentecostal Church]] and the [[Ancient Church of the East]], in an attempt to divide them. Many Assyrians and Armenians were ethnically cleansed from their towns and villages during the [[al Anfal Campaign]] in 1988, despite the fact that this campaign was primarily directed against the Kurds.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

===Madagascar===
[[File:Christian martyrs burned at the stake in Madagascar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.18|Christian martyrs [[burned at the stake]] by Ranavalona I in Madagascar]]

Queen [[Ranavalona I]] (reigned 1828–1861) issued a royal edict prohibiting the practice of [[Christianity in Madagascar]], expelled British missionaries from the island, and sought to [[Persecution of Christians in Madagascar|stem the growth of conversion]] to Christianity within her realm. Far more, however, were punished in other ways: many were required to undergo the ''[[tangena]]'' ordeal, while others were condemned to hard labor or the confiscation of their land and property, and many of these consequently died. The tangena ordeal was commonly administered to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person for any crime, including the practice of Christianity, and involved ingestion of the poison contained within the nut of the tangena tree (''[[Cerbera odollam]]''). Survivors were deemed innocent, while those who perished were assumed guilty.

In 1838, it was estimated that as many as 100,000 people in Imerina died as a result of the ''tangena'' ordeal, constituting roughly 20% of the population.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Campbell|first=Gwyn|date=October 1991|title=The state and pre-colonial demographic history: the case of nineteenth century Madagascar|journal=Journal of African History|volume=23|issue=3|pages=415–445|doi=10.1017/S0021853700031534}}</ref> contributing to a strongly unfavorable view of Ranavalona's rule in historical accounts.<ref name="Laidler 2005">Laidler (2005)</ref> [[Malagasy people|Malagasy]] Christians would remember this period as ''ny tany maizina'', or "the time when the land was dark". Persecution of Christians intensified in 1840, 1849 and 1857; in 1849, deemed the worst of these years by British missionary to Madagascar W.E. Cummins (1878), 1,900 people were fined, jailed or otherwise punished in relation to their Christian faith, including 18 executions.<ref name="Sunday">{{Cite magazine|last=Cousins|first=W.E. |title=Since 1800 in Madagascar; 1877–1878|magazine=The Sunday Magazine for Family Reading|publisher=Daldy, Isbister & Co|volume=1|pages=405–410|place=London}}</ref>

===Nazi Germany===
{{main|Nazism|Nazi Germany|Religion in Nazi Germany|Religious aspects of Nazism|Religious views of Adolf Hitler|German Christians (movement)|Positive Christianity|Kirchenkampf|Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany|Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany}}
{{Modern persecutions of the Catholic Church}}

[[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party|Nazis]] received some support from certain Christian communities, in particular the [[German Christian movement]] within the [[German Evangelical Church]]. Once in power, the Nazis moved to consolidate their power over the German churches and bring them in line with Nazi ideals. Some historians say that Hitler had a general covert plan, which some of them say existed even before the Nazis' rise to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich, which was to be accomplished through Nazi control and subversion of the churches and it would be completed after the war.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nvD2rZSVau4C|title=World Fascism: A-K|isbn=9781576079409 |editor1-last=Blamires |editor1-first=Cyprian |editor2-last=Jackson |editor2-first=Paul |year=2006 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic | page= 10 | author-last= Griffin | author-first= Roger |author-link= Roger Griffin | quote = There is no doubt that in the long run Nazi leaders such as Hitler and Himmler intended to eradicate Christianity just as ruthlessly as they intended to eradicate any other rival ideology, even if in the short term they had to be content to make compromises with it. }}{{Pb}}{{Cite book|last=Mosse|first=George Lachmann | author-link= George Lachmann Mosse |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_cyR3QyuSdIC|title=Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich|date=2003|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-19304-1|page=240 | quote= Had the Nazis won the war, their ecclesiastical policies would have gone beyond those of the [[German Christians (movement)|German Christians]], to the utter destruction of both the Protestant and Catholic Churches.}}{{pb}}{{Cite book|last=Bendersky|first=Joseph W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATCXucbTYX0C|title=A Concise History of Nazi Germany|date=2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-5363-7| page= 147 | quote =Consequently, it was Hitler's long range goal to eliminate the churches once he had consolidated his control over his European empire. }}{{Pb}}{{Cite book|last=Fischel|first=Jack R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EzBZP92xwUUC|title=Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust|date=2010 |publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-7485-5| page= 123 | author-link= Jack Fischel | quote = The objective was to either destroy Christianity and restore the German gods of antiquity or turn Jesus into an [[Aryan race|Aryan]].}}{{pb}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xRrGP7L9_hEC|title=Germany: A Modern History|isbn=0472071017 |last1=Dill |first1=Marshall |year=1970 |publisher=University of Michigan Press | page= 365 | quote = It seems no exaggeration to insist that the greatest challenge the Nazis had to face was their effort to eradicate Christianity in Germany or at least subjugate it to their general world outlook.}}</ref> The Third Reich founded its own version of Christianity which was called [[Positive Christianity]], a Nazi version of Christianity which made major changes in the interpretation of the Bible by arguing that [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]] was the son of God, but he was not a Jew, arguing that Jesus despised Jews and Judaism, and arguing that [[Jewish deicide|the Jews were the ones who were solely responsible for Jesus's death]].{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

Outside mainstream Christianity, the [[Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany|Jehovah's Witnesses were targets of Nazi Persecution]], for their refusal to swear allegiance to the Nazi government. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s, [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] refused to renounce their political neutrality and as a result, they were imprisoned in [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]]. The Nazi government gave detained Jehovah's Witnesses the option of release if they signed a document which indicated their renunciation of their faith, their submission to state authority, and their support of the German military.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.holocaust-trc.org/persecution-and-resistance-of-jehovahs-witnesses/|title=Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1938–1945|website=Holocaust Teacher Resource Center | date= October 2000 | author=Michael Berenbaum }}</ref> Historian Hans Hesse said, "Some five thousand Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps where they alone were 'voluntary prisoners', so termed because the moment they recanted their views, they could be freed. Some lost their lives in the camps, but few renounced their faith."<ref>{{cite book|last=Hesse|first=Hans|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mcxD0qxHMO0C|title=Persecution and resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Nazi regime, 1933–1945|publisher=Berghahn Books|year=2001|isbn=978-3-86108-750-2|page=10}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany: From the 1890s to 1945|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jehovahs-witnesses-in-germany-from-the-1890s-to-the-1930s|access-date=2023-01-02|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia| publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}}</ref>

===Ottoman Empire===
{{Main|Christianity in the Ottoman Empire|Armenian genocide|Assyrian genocide|Greek genocide|Late Ottoman genocides}}
{{Further|1843 and 1846 massacres in Hakkari|Great Famine of Mount Lebanon|Persecution of Eastern Orthodox Christians#Persecution in the Ottoman Empire}}

During the modern era, relations between Muslims and Christians in the [[Ottoman Empire]] were largely shaped by broader dynamics which were related to European colonial and neo-imperialist activities in the region, dynamics which frequently (though by no means always) generated tensions between the two communities. Too often, growing European influence in the region during the nineteenth century seemed to disproportionately benefit Christians, thus, it triggered resentment on the part of many Muslims, likewise, many Muslims suspected that Christians and the European powers were plotting to weaken the [[Muslim world|Islamic world]]. Further exacerbating relations was the fact that Christians seemed to disproportionately benefit from efforts at reform (one aspect of which generally sought to elevate the political status of non-Muslims), likewise, the various Christian nationalist uprisings in the Empire's European territories, which often had the support of the European powers.<ref>{{ cite book | author= Erik Freas | title= Muslim-Christian Relations in Late-Ottoman Palestine: Where Nationalism and Religion Intersect | place= New York | publisher= Palgrave Macmillan | date= 2016 | isbn =978-1137570413}}</ref> [[File:1895erzurum-victims.jpg|upright=1.32|thumb|Corpses of massacred Armenian Christians in [[Erzurum]] in 1895]]Persecutions and forced migrations of Christian populations were induced by Ottoman forces during the 19th century in the European and Asian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The [[Massacres of Badr Khan]] were conducted by [[Kurdish people|Kurdish]] and [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] forces against the [[Assyrian Christian]] population of the Ottoman Empire between 1843 and 1847, resulting in the slaughter of more than 10,000 indigenous Assyrian civilians of the [[Hakkari (historical region)|Hakkari]] region, with many thousands more being sold into [[slavery]].<ref>{{ cite book | last= Aboona | first= H |date=2008 | title= Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire| publisher= Cambria Press | isbn = 978-1-60497-583-3}}</ref>{{sfn|Gaunt|Beṯ-Şawoce|2006|p=32}}

[[File:Adana Massacre in Le Petit.jpeg|thumb|left|upright|[[Adana massacre of 1909]]]]
On 17 October 1850 the Muslim majority began rioting against the [[Eastern Catholic Churches|Uniate Catholics]] – a minority that lived in the communities of Judayda, in the city of Aleppo.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Masters|first=Bruce|title=The 1850 Events in Aleppo: An Aftershock of Syria's Incorporation into the Capitalist World System|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=22}}</ref>

During the [[April Uprising|Bulgarian Uprising against Ottoman rule (1876)]], and the [[Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)]], the persecution of the [[Bulgarians|Bulgarian]] Christian population was conducted by Ottoman soldiers. The principal locations were [[Panagurishte]], [[Perushtitza]], and [[Bratzigovo]].<ref name="Chisholm 1911, p. 781">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Bulgaria/History|display=Bulgaria § Political History|volume=4|page=871}}</ref> Over 15,000 non-combatant [[Bulgarians|Bulgarian]] civilians were killed by the Ottoman army between 1876 and 1878, with the worst single instance being the [[Batak massacre]].<ref name="Chisholm 1911, p. 781" /><ref>{{ cite book | title= Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space| editor1=Jørgen S. Nielsen | publisher= Brill | date= 2011 | isbn= 978-9004211339 | chapter=The Short History of Bulgaria for Export | first=Evelina |last= Kelbecheva | pages=223–247 |doi=10.1163/9789004216570_013 
}}</ref>{{rp|228}}
During the war, whole cities including the largest Bulgarian one ([[Stara Zagora]]) were destroyed and most of their inhabitants were killed, the rest being expelled or enslaved. The atrocities included impaling and grilling people alive.<ref>{{Cite book | first= William | date= 1896 |chapter-url=https://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/miller/m2_c5.html|title=The Balkans| chapter= Chapter 5: Bulgaria under the Turks | last= Miller | archive-date=16 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016151348/https://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/miller/m2_c5.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Similar attacks were undertaken by Ottoman troops against Serbian Christians during the [[Attacks on Serbs in the Serbian–Ottoman War (1876–78)|Serbian-Turkish War (1876–1878)]].

[[File:Anatolian Metropolises 1880.svg|thumbnail|upright=1.32|[[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek-Orthodox metropolises]] in [[Asia Minor]], {{Circa|1880}}. Since 1923, only the [[Metropolis of Chalcedon]] retains a small community.]]
[[File:Assyrianmassacres.jpg|thumbnail|upright=1.24|The [[Assyrian genocide]] was a mass slaughter of the Assyrian population perpetrated by [[Ottoman Army (1861–1922)|Ottoman forces]] and some [[Kurdish tribes]] during [[World War I]].{{refn|<ref name="Bardakçı 2017" /><ref name="Erol 2015"/><ref name="Bulut 2024"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019"/><ref name="Gutman 2019"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Roshwald 2013"/><ref name="Üngör 2008"/><ref name="İçduygu 2008"/><ref>{{ cite book | first= Martin van | last= Bruinessen | title=Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan| date= 1992 | publisher= Bloomsbury Academic | pages= 25, 271 | isbn =9781856490184 }}</ref>}}]]

The abolition of ''jizya'' and emancipation of formerly ''[[dhimmi]]'' subjects was one of the most embittering stipulations the Ottoman Empire had to accept to end the [[Crimean War]] in 1856. Then, "for the first time since 1453, church bells were permitted to ring... in Constantinople," writes M. J. Akbar. "Many Muslims declared it a day of mourning." Indeed, because superior social standing was from the start one of the advantages of conversion to Islam, resentful Muslim mobs rioted and hounded Christians all over the empire. In 1860 up to 30,000 Christians were massacred in the Levant alone.<ref>{{cite book | first = M.J. | last= Akbar | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y5R3PwAACAAJ | isbn=9788174362919 | title=The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity | year=2003 | publisher=Lotus Collection }}</ref>
Mark Twain recounts what took place in the levant:<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3-RTAAAAcAAJ | isbn=9781495902291 | title=The Innocents Abroad | year=1869 | publisher=Collins Clear-Type Press | author1= Mark Twain | author-link= Mark Twain }}</ref>
{{Blockquote
|text=Men, women and children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all through the Christian quarter... the stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the city, and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the 'infidel dogs.' The thirst for blood extended to the high lands of Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, and in a short time twenty-five thousand more Christians were massacred.|}}

Between 1894 and 1896, a series of ethno-religiously motivated [[Anti-Christian sentiment|anti-Christian]] [[pogrom]]s known as the [[Hamidian massacres]] were conducted against the ancient [[Armenians|Armenian]] and [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] [[Christians|Christian populations]] by the forces of the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{ cite book
| orig-date= 2002 | isbn = 978-0-8108-6096-4
| last= Adalian | first=Rouben Paul | date= 2010| title= Historical Dictionary of Armenia | edition=2nd | place= Lanham, MD | publisher= Scarecrow | page=154}}</ref> The motives for these massacres were an attempt to reassert [[Pan-Islamism]] in the Ottoman Empire, resentment of the comparative wealth of the ancient indigenous Christian communities, and a fear that they would attempt to secede from the tottering Ottoman Empire.<ref>{{Citation
 | last1 =Morris
 | first1 =Benny
 | last2 =Ze'evi
 | first2 =Dror
 | author2-link=Dror Ze'evi
 | title =[[The Thirty-Year Genocide]]
 | publisher =Harvard University Press
 | year =2019
 | page =672
 | isbn =9780674916456}}</ref> The massacres mainly took place in what is today southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and northern Iraq. Assyrians and Armenians were massacred in [[Diyarbakir]], [[Hasankeyef]], [[Sivas]] and other parts of Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The death toll is estimated to have been as high as 325,000 people,<ref>[[Taner Akçam|Akçam, Taner]] (2006) [[A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility]] p. 42, [[Metropolitan Books]], New York {{ISBN|978-0-8050-7932-6}}</ref><ref>Angold, Michael (2006), O'Mahony, Anthony, ed., Cambridge History of Christianity, 5. Eastern Christianity, Cambridge University Press, p. 512, {{ISBN|978-0-521-81113-2}}.</ref> with a further 546,000 Armenians and Assyrians made destitute by forced deportations of survivors from cities, and the destruction or theft of almost 2500 of their farmsteads towns and villages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries were also destroyed or forcibly converted into mosques.<ref>Cleveland, William L. (2000). A History of the Modern Middle East (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview. p. 119. {{ISBN|0-8133-3489-6}}.</ref> These attacks caused the death of over thousands of Assyrians and the forced "Ottomanisation" of the inhabitants of 245 villages. The Ottoman troops looted the remains of the Assyrian settlements and these were later stolen and occupied by south-east Anatolian tribes. Unarmed Assyrian women and children were raped, tortured and murdered.<ref>{{cite book|last=de Courtois|first=S|title=The forgotten genocide: eastern Christians, the last Arameans|publisher=Gorgias Press LLC|year=2004|isbn=978-1-59333-077-4|pages=105–107}}</ref> According to H. Aboona, the independence of the Assyrians was destroyed not directly by the Turks but by their neighbours under Ottoman auspices.<ref>Aboona, H (2008). Assyrians and Ottomans: intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. {{ISBN|978-1-60497-583-3}}. p.284</ref>

The [[Adana massacre]] occurred in the [[Adana Vilayet]] of the [[Ottoman Empire]] in April 1909. A massacre of [[Armenians|Armenian]] and [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] Christians in the city of [[Adana]] and its surrounds amidst the [[31 March Incident]] led to a series of anti-Christian [[pogrom]]s throughout the province.<ref>Raymond H. Kévorkian, "The Cilician Massacres, April 1909" in ''Armenian Cilicia'', eds. [[Richard G. Hovannisian]] and Simon Payaslian. UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, 7. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2008, pp. 339–69.</ref> Reports estimated that the Adana Province massacres resulted in the death of as many as 30,000 Armenians and 1,500 Assyrians.<ref>{{cite book|last=Adalian|first=Rouben Paul|title=Century of Genocide|publisher=Routledge|year=2012|isbn=9780415871914|editor1-last=Totten|editor1-first=Samuel|pages=117–56|chapter=The Armenian genocide|editor2-last=Parsons|editor2-first=William S.|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6XYp-z5aP4MC&pg=PA132}}</ref><ref name="Adalian2010">{{cite book|last=Adalian|first=Rouben Paul|title=Historical Dictionary of Armenia|publisher=Scarecrow Press|year=2010|isbn=9780810874503|pages=70–71|chapter=Adana Massacre|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QS-vSjHObOYC&pg=PA70}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.seyfocenter.com/index.php?sid=2&aID=36|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018023706/http://www.seyfocenter.com/index.php?sid=2&aID=36 | archive-date= 18 October 2013 | date= 18 April 2009 | last = Gaunt | first= David | work = Assyrian Genocide Research Center | title= The Assyrian Genocide of 1915}}</ref>

Between 1915 and 1921 the [[Young Turks]] government of the collapsing [[Ottoman Empire]] persecuted [[Eastern Christianity|Eastern Christian]] populations in [[Anatolia]], [[Persia]], Northern [[Mesopotamia]], and [[The Levant]]. The onslaught by the [[Ottoman Army (1861–1922)|late Ottoman army]] (which included [[Arabs|Arab]], [[Kurds|Kurdish]], and [[Circassians|Circassian]] irregulars) resulted in an estimated 3.4&nbsp;million deaths, divided between roughly 1.5&nbsp;million [[Armenians|Armenian]] Christians,<ref>{{cite web|title=Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex|url=http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/Description_and_history.php|publisher=[[Armenian genocide Museum-Institute]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Kifner|first=John|author-link=John Kifner|date=7 December 2007|title=Armenian Genocide of 1915: An Overview|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html}}</ref> 0.75 million [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] Christians, 0.90&nbsp;million [[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox Christians]], and 0.25&nbsp;million [[Maronites|Maronite Christians]] (see [[Great Famine of Mount Lebanon]]);<ref>Hatzidimitriou, Constantine G., ''American Accounts Documenting the Destruction of Smyrna by the Kemalist Turkish Forces: September 1922'', New Rochelle, [[New York (state)|NY]]: Caratzas, 2005, p. 2.</ref> groups of [[Georgians|Georgian]] Christians were also killed. The massive ethno-religious cleansing expelled from the empire or killed the [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]], [[Armenians]], [[Greeks]], and [[Thracian Bulgarians|Bulgarians]] who had not converted to Islam,{{refn|<ref name="Bardakçı 2017"/><ref name="Erol 2015"/><ref name="Bulut 2024"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019"/><ref name="Gutman 2019"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Roshwald 2013"/><ref name="Üngör 2008"/><ref name="İçduygu 2008"/>}} and it came to be known as the [[Armenian genocide]],<ref>{{Citation|last1=Kieser|first1=Hans-Lukas|title=Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah|page=114|year=2002|trans-title=The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah|publisher=Chronos|language=de|isbn=3-0340-0561-X|last2=Schaller|first2=Dominik J}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Christopher J. Walker|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KNEOAAAAQAAJ|title=Armenia, the Survival of a Nation|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=1980|isbn=978-0-312-04944-7}} * {{cite book|last=Akçam|first=Taner|title=A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility|title-link=A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility|year=2007|page=327|author-link=Taner Akçam}} – [https://books.google.com/books?id=E-_XTh0M4swC Profile at] [[Google Books]]</ref> [[Assyrian genocide]],<ref name="Aprim2005">{{cite book|last=Aprim|first=Frederick A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4glAQAAMAAJ|title=Assyrians: the continuous saga|date=January 2005|publisher=F.A. Aprim|page=40|isbn=9781413438574}}</ref> [[Greek genocide]],<ref name="Rummel">{{Citation|last=Rummel|first=Rudolph|title=Death by Government|year=1994}}</ref> and [[Great Famine of Mount Lebanon]].<ref>Ghazal, Rym (14 April 2015). "Lebanon's dark days of hunger: The Great Famine of 1915–18". The National. Retrieved 24 January 2016.</ref><ref>Harris 2012, p. 174</ref> which accounted for the deaths of Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Maronite Christians, and the deportation and destitution of many more. The Genocide led to the devastation of ancient [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous]] [[Christianity in the Middle East|Christian populations who had inhabited the Middle East]] for thousands of years.<ref>The Plight of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism Survive? – p. 51 by United States Congress</ref><ref>The Armenian Genocide: Wartime Radicalization Or Premeditated Continuum – p. 272 edited by Richard Hovannisian</ref><ref>Not Even My Name: A True Story – p. 131 by [[Thea Halo]]</ref><ref>The Political Dictionary of Modern Middle East by Agnes G. Korbani</ref>

[[Benny Morris]], [[Dror Ze'evi]], [[Uğur Ümit Üngör]], and several other [[historian]]s argue that the [[Armenian genocide]], [[Greek genocide]], and [[Assyrian genocide]] constitute a series of extermination campaigns, usually referred to as the [[late Ottoman genocides]], that had been carried out by the [[Ottoman Empire]] against [[Christianity in the Ottoman Empire|its Christian subjects]].{{refn|<ref name="Bardakçı 2017"/><ref name="Erol 2015"/><ref name="Bulut 2024"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019"/><ref name="Gutman 2019"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Roshwald 2013"/><ref name="Üngör 2008"/><ref name="İçduygu 2008"/>}}

In the aftermath of the [[Sheikh Said rebellion]], the [[Syriac Orthodox Church]], and the [[Assyrian Church of the East]] were subjected to harassment by Turkish authorities, on the grounds that some [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]] allegedly collaborated with the rebelling [[Kurds]].<ref>J. Joseph, Muslim-Christian relations and Inter-Christian rivalries in the Middle East, Albany, 1983, p. 102.</ref> Consequently, mass deportations took place and Assyrian Patriarch [[Mar Ignatius Elias III]] was expelled from the [[Mor Hananyo Monastery]] which was turned into a Turkish barrack. The patriarchal seat was then temporarily transferred to [[Homs]].

=== Turkey ===
{{Main|Christianity in Turkey}}

The [[Republic of Turkey]] was established in 1923, after the vast majority of Christian inhabitants of Anatolia had been expelled or massacred as a result of the [[late Ottoman genocides]].{{refn|<ref name="Bardakçı 2017"/><ref name="Erol 2015"/><ref name="Bulut 2024"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2021"/><ref name="Morris-Zeevi 2019"/><ref name="Gutman 2019"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Roshwald 2013"/><ref name="Üngör 2008"/><ref name="İçduygu 2008"/>}} However, there still remained sizeable Greek and Armenian minorities in Istanbul. Beginning in the 1940s, the Turkish government instituted repressive policies forcing many Christians to emigrate. Examples are the [[Labour battalion (Turkey)|labour battalions]] drafted among non-Muslims during World War II, as well as the Fortune Tax ([[Varlık Vergisi]]) levied mostly on non-Muslims during the same period. These resulted in financial ruination and death for many Christians. The exodus was given greater impetus with the [[Istanbul Pogrom]] of September 1955 and the [[Expulsion of Greeks from Istanbul|expulsion of Istanbul Greeks]] which led to thousands of Greeks fleeing the city, eventually reducing the Greek population from 200,000 in 1924 to about 7,000 by 1978 and to about 2,500 by 2006.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Standpoint |first=Internationalist |date=2023-09-06 |title=September 6-7, 1955: Istanbul Pogrom- a "closed chapter" in Turkish history? |url=https://www.internationaliststandpoint.org/september-6-7-1955-istanbul-pogrom-a-closed-chapter-in-turkish-history/ |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=Internationalist Standpoint |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Soviet Union ===
[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|Demolition of the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] on 5 December 1931: The USSR's official [[state atheism]] resulted in the [[USSR anti-religious campaign (1921–1928)|1921–1928 anti-religious campaign]], during which many "church institution[s] at [the] local, diocesan or national level were systematically destroyed."<ref>{{cite book|title=Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2002|isbn=1857431375|page=46}}</ref>]]{{Further|Human rights in the Soviet Union#Freedom of religion|Operation North|Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union|Religion in the Soviet Union|Soviet anti-religious legislation|Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc}}

After the [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917, the [[Bolsheviks]] undertook a massive program to remove the influence of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] from the government, outlawed [[antisemitism]] in society, and promoted [[state atheism|atheism]]. Tens of thousands of churches were destroyed or they were converted to buildings which were used for other purposes, and many members of the clergy were murdered, publicly executed and imprisoned for what the government termed "anti-government activities". An extensive educational and propaganda campaign was launched to convince people, especially children and youths, to abandon their religious beliefs. This persecution resulted in the intentional murder of 500,000 Orthodox followers by the government of the Soviet Union during the 20th century.<ref name="russian orthodox killed">World Christian trends, AD 30-AD 2200, pp. 230–246 Tables 4–5 & 4–10 By David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, Christopher R. Guidry, Peter F. Crossing NOTE: They define 'martyr' on p235 as only including Christians killed for faith and excluding other Christians killed</ref> In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.<ref name="Ostling">{{cite magazine|last=Ostling|first=Richard|date=24 June 2001|title=Cross meets Kremlin|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070813173443/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 August 2007|magazine=Time}}</ref>

The state established [[atheism]] as the only scientific truth.<ref name="peris">[[Daniel Peris]] ''Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless'' Cornell University Press 1998 {{ISBN|978-0-8014-3485-3}}</ref><ref>Antireligioznik (The Antireligious, 1926–41), Derevenskii Bezbozhnik (The Godless Peasant, 1928–1932), and Yunye Bezbozhniki (The Young Godless, 1931–1933).</ref><ref name="Vladimir pg 291">History of the Orthodox Church in the History of Russian Dimitry Pospielovsky 1998 St Vladimir's Press {{ISBN|0-88141-179-5}} pg 291</ref><ref name="auto">A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies, Dimitry Pospielovsky Palgrave Macmillan (December 1987) {{ISBN|0-312-38132-8}}</ref> Soviet authorities forbade the criticism of atheism and agnosticism until 1936 or of the state's anti-religious policies; such criticism could lead to forced retirement.<ref>John Anderson, Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp 9</ref><ref>Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, St Martin's Press, New York (1987). pg 84.</ref><ref>Prot. Dimitri Konstantinov, Gonimaia Tserkov' (New York:Vseslavianskoe izdatel'stvo, 1967) pp. 286–7, and (London:Macmillan, 1969) chs 4 and 5</ref> Militant atheism became central to the ideology of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] and a high priority policy of all Soviet leaders.<ref name="Froese, Paul 2005">Froese, Paul. "'I am an atheist and a Muslim': Islam, communism, and ideological competition." Journal of Church and State 47.3 (2005)</ref> Christopher Marsh, a professor at the [[Baylor University]] writes that "Tracing the social nature of religion from Schleiermacher and Feurbach to Marx, Engles, and Lenin...the idea of religion as a social product evolved to the point of policies aimed at the forced conversion of believers to atheism."<ref name="Marsh2011">{{cite book|last=Marsh|first=Christopher|title=Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival|date=2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-4411-0284-3|page=13}}</ref>

Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to [[Marxist-Leninist atheism|atheism]]" was conducted by the Communists.<ref>Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival, by Christopher Marsh, p. 47. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.</ref><ref>Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History, by Dilip Hiro. Penguin, 2009.</ref><ref name="Adappur2000">{{cite book|last=Adappur|first=Abraham|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=44DYAAAAMAAJ|title=Religion and the Cultural Crisis in India and the West|publisher=Intercultural Publications|year=2000|isbn=9788185574479|quote=Forced Conversion under Atheistic Regimes: It might be added that the most modern example of forced "conversions" came not from any theocratic state, but from a professedly atheist government – that of the Soviet Union under the Communists.}}</ref> The Communist Party destroyed churches, mosques and [[synagogue|temples]], ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called "[[Marxist–Leninist atheism|scientific atheism]]", with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers.<ref name="Paul Froese 2004 pp. 35–50">Paul Froese. Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Mar. 2004), pp. 35–50</ref><ref name="Haskins, Ekaterina V 2009">Haskins, Ekaterina V. "Russia's postcommunist past: the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the reimagining of national identity." History and Memory: Studies in Representation of the Past 21.1 (2009)</ref> Many priests were killed and imprisoned; thousands of churches were closed. In 1925 the government founded the [[League of Militant Atheists]] to intensify the persecution.<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p. 494"</ref> The League of Militant Atheists was also a "nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Peris |first1=Daniel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nC2LSv5QNYkC |title=Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless| date=1998 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9780801434853| location=Ithaca| page=2 |quote=Created in 1925, the League of the Militant Godless was the nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism.}}
</ref>

The Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions against particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most [[organized religion]]s were never outlawed. It is estimated that 500,000 Russian Orthodox Christians were martyred in the [[gulag]]s by the Soviet government, excluding the members of other [[Christian denominations]] who were also tortured or killed.<ref name="russian orthodox killed" />

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the [[Russian Orthodox Church]], which had the largest number of faithful worshippers. A very large segment of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to [[Gulag|labor camps]]. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500. Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. The widespread persecution and internecine disputes within the church hierarchy led to the seat of [[Patriarch of Moscow]] being vacant from 1925 to 1943.

After [[Operation Barbarossa]], Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, [[Joseph Stalin]] revived the Russian Orthodox Church in order to intensify the Soviet population's patriotic support of the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|war effort]]. By 1957, about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced about 12,000 churches to close. By 1985, fewer than 7,000 churches remained active.<ref name="Ostling" />

In the Soviet Union, in addition to the methodical closure and destruction of churches, the charitable and social work which was formerly done by ecclesiastical authorities was taken over by the state. As with all private property, Church owned property was confiscated and converted to public use by the state. The few places of worship which were left to the Church were legally viewed as state property which the government permitted the church to use. After the advent of state funded universal education, the Church was not permitted to carry on educational, instructional activity for children. For adults, only training for church-related occupations was allowed. With the exception of sermons which could be delivered during the celebration of the divine liturgy, it could not instruct the faithful nor could it evangelize the youth. Catechism classes, religious schools, study groups, Sunday schools and religious publications were all declared illegal and banned. This caused many religious tracts to be circulated as illegal literature or ''[[samizdat]]''.<ref name="google" /> Even after the [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|death of Stalin]] in 1953, the persecution continued, and it did not end until the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] in 1991. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church has recognized a number of [[New-martyr|New Martyrs]] as saints, some of whom were executed during the [[Mass operations of the NKVD]] under directives like [[NKVD Order No. 00447]].

Both before and after the October Revolution of 7 November 1917 (25 October Old Calendar), there was a movement within the Soviet Union which sought to unite all of the people of the world under Communist rule (see [[Communist International]]). This movement spread to the Eastern European bloc countries as well as the Balkan States. Since the populations of some of these Slavic countries tied their ethnic heritages to their ethnic churches, the people and their churches were both targeted for ethnic and political genocide by the Soviets and their form of [[State atheism]].<ref>President of Lithuania: Prisoner of the Gulag a Biography of [[Aleksandras Stulginskis]] by Afonsas Eidintas Genocide and Research Center of Lithuania {{ISBN|9986-757-41-X}} / 9789986757412, pg 23 "As early as August 1920 [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] wrote to [[Ephraim Sklyansky|E. M. Sklyansky]], President of the Revolutionary War Soviet: "We are surrounded by the greens (we pack it to them), we will move only about 10–20 versty and we will choke by hand the [[bourgeoisie]], the clergy and the landowners. There will be an award of 100,000 rubles for each one hanged." He was speaking about the future actions in the countries neighboring Russia.</ref><ref>Christ Is Calling You: A Course in Catacomb Pastorship by Father [[George Calciu]] Published by Saint Hermans Press April 1997 {{ISBN|978-1-887904-52-0}}</ref> The Soviets' official religious stance was one of "religious freedom or tolerance", though the state established atheism as the only scientific truth (see also the Soviet or committee of the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Scientific and Political Knowledge or [[Znanie (educational organization, founded 1947)|Znanie]] which was until 1947 called [[Society of the Godless|The League of the Militant Godless]] and various [[Intelligentsia]] groups).<ref name="Vladimir pg 291" /><ref name="auto" /><ref>Daniel Peris Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless Cornell University Press 1998 {{ISBN|978-0-8014-3485-3}}</ref> Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden and sometimes, it resulted in imprisonment.<ref name="Froese2008">{{cite book|last=Froese|first=Paul|title=The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization|date=6 August 2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-94273-8|page=122|quote=Before 1937, the Soviet regime had closed thousands of churches and removed tens of thousands of religious leaders from positions of influence. By the midthirties, Soviet elites set out to conduct a mass liquidation of all religious organizations and leaders... officers in the League of Militant Atheists found themselves in a bind to explain the widespread persistence of religious belief in 1937.... The latest estimates indicate that thousands of individuals were executed for religious crimes and hundreds of thousands of religious believers were imprisoned in labor camps or psychiatric hospitals.}}</ref><ref name="FranklinWiddis2006">{{cite book|last1=Franklin|first1=Simon|title=National Identity in Russian Culture|last2=Widdis|first2=Emma|date=2 February 2006|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-02429-7|page=104|quote=Churches, when not destroyed, might find themselves converted into museums of atheism.}}</ref><ref name="Bevan2016">{{cite book|last=Bevan|first=Robert|title=The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War|date=15 February 2016|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=978-1-78023-608-7|page=152|quote=Churches, synagogues, mosques and monasteries were shut down in the immediate wake of the Revolution. Many were converted to secular uses or converted into Museums of Atheism (antichurches), whitewashed and their fittings were removed.}}</ref><ref name="Ramet1990">{{cite book|last1=Ramet|first1=Sabrina P.|title=Catholicism and Politics in Communist Societies|date=1990|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0822310471|pages=232–33|quote=From kindergarten onward children are indoctrinated with an aggressive form of atheism and trained to hate and distrust foreigners and to denounce parents who follow religious practices at home.|author-link=Sabrina P. Ramet}}</ref> Some of the more high-profile individuals who were executed include [[Benjamin of Petrograd|Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd]], priest and scientist [[Pavel Florensky]].

=== Spain ===
{{Main|Red Terror (Spain)|White Terror (Spain)|Cristero War}}

The [[Second Spanish Republic]], established in 1931, attempted to establish a regime with separation between State and Church, as had been established in France in 1905. When it was established, the Republic passed legislation which prevented the Church from conducting educational activities.  The Spanish Second Republic was characterized by a process of political polarisation, as party divisions became increasingly embittered and questions of religious identity came to assume major political significance. The existence of different Church institutions was an illustration of the situation which resulted from the proclamation which denounced the 2nd Republic as an anti-Catholic, Masonic, Jewish, and Communist internationalist conspiracy which heralded a clash between God and atheism, chaos and harmony, Good and Evil.<ref name="Dronds 2013">{{cite book |last=Dronda |first=Javier |date=2013 |title=Con Cristo o contra Cristo: Religión y movilización antirrepublicana en Navarra (1931–1936)|location=Tafalla |publisher=Txalaparta |pages=201–202, 220 |isbn=978-84-15313-31-1 | language= es}}</ref>{{rp|201–202}} The Church's high-ranking officials like Isidro Goma, bishop of [[Tudela, Navarre|Tudela]], reminded their Christian subjects of their obligation to vote "for the righteous", and they also reminded their priests of their obligation to "educate the consciences."<ref name="Dronds 2013" />{{rp|220}} In the [[Asturian miners' strike of 1934]], during the [[Revolution of 1934]], 34 Catholic priests were massacred and churches were systematically burned.<ref name=":13">{{Cite journal|last=de la Cueva|first=Julio|year=1998|title=Religious Persecution, Anticlerical Tradition and Revolution: On Atrocities against the Clergy during the Spanish Civil War|journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=355–369|jstor=261121|issn=0022-0094}}</ref> Anticlerical opinion accused the Catholic priesthood and religious orders of hypocrisy: clerics were guilty of taking up arms against the people, of exploiting others for the sake of wealth, and of sexual immorality all while claiming the moral authority of peacefulness, poverty, and chastity.<ref name=":13" />

Since the early years of the Second Spanish Republic, [[History of the far-right in Spain|far-right]] forces, which were imbued with an ultra-Catholic spirit, attempted to overthrow the Republic. [[Carlists]], Africanistas, and Catholic theologians fostered an atmosphere of social and racial hatred in their speeches and writings.<ref name="Preston 2013">{{cite book | author=Paul Preston | title=The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. | publisher= HarperCollins | location= London, UK | isbn=978-0-00-638695-7 | year=2013 | pages=4, 44–45}}</ref>{{rp|44–45}} The Catholic Church endorsed the rebellion which was led by the fascist [[Francisco Franco]], and [[Pope Pius XI]] expressed sympathy for the Nationalist side during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref name=":13" /> The Catholic authorities described Franco's war as a "crusade" against the Second Republic, and later the [[Collective Letter of the Spanish Bishops, 1937]] appeared, justifying Franco's attack on the Republic.<ref name=":13" /> A similar approach is attested in 1912, when the bishop of [[Almería]] {{Interlanguage link|José Ignacio de Urbina|lt=|es||WD=}} (founder of the {{Interlanguage link|Liga Nacional Antimasónica y Antisemita|lt=National Anti-Masonic and Anti-Semitic League|es||WD=}}) announced "a decisive battle that must be unleashed" between the "light" and "darkness".<ref name="Preston 2013" />{{rp|4}} Though the official declaration of the "crusade" followed the Republican persecution of Catholic clerics, the Catholic Church was already predisposed towards Franco's position, because it was seen as the "perfect ally of fascism" while it opposed the anticlerical policies of the Second Republic.<ref name=":13" /> The 1936 anticlerical persecution has been seen as "final phase of a long war between clericalism and anticlericalism"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ranzato|first=Gabriele|year=1988|title=Dies irae. La persecuzione religiosa nella zona repubblicana durante la guerra civile spagnola (1936–1939)|journal=Movimento Operaio e Socialista|volume=11|pages=195–220 | language= es}}</ref> and "fully consistent with a Spanish history of popular anticlericalism and anticlerical populism".<ref name=":13" />

Stanley Payne suggested that the persecution of right-wingers and of people who were associated with the [[Catholic Church in Spain|Catholic church]] both before and at the beginning of the [[Spanish Civil War]] involved the murder of priests and other clergy, as well as the murder of thousands of lay people, by members of nearly all leftist groups, while a killing spree was also unleashed across the Nationalist zone.<ref>{{Cite book
| via = The Library of Iberian Resources Online
| first= Stanley G. | last= Payne
|chapter=Chapter 26: The Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939
|title= A History of Spain and Portugal vol. 2|chapter-url=https://libro.uca.edu/payne2/payne26.htm|access-date=2023-01-02}}</ref> During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, and especially during the early months of the conflict, individual clergymen and entire religious communities were executed by leftists, some of whom were [[Communism|communists]] and [[Anarchism|anarchists]]. The death toll of the clergy alone included 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns, reaching a total of 6,832 clerical victims.<ref name=":13" /> The main perpetrators of the Red Terror were members of the anarchist [[Federación Anarquista Ibérica]], the [[Confederación Nacional del Trabajo]], and the [[Trotskyist]] [[Workers' Party of Marxist Unification]].<ref name=":13" /> These organizations distanced themselves from the violence, condemned those who were responsible for it or characterized the killings as mob reprisals for acts of violence which had been perpetrated by the clerics themselves, an explanation which was readily accepted by the public.<ref name=":13" />

In addition to the murder of both the clergy and the faithful, the destruction of churches and the desecration of sacred sites and objects was also widespread. On the night of 19 July 1936 alone, some fifty churches were burned.<ref name="Mitchell 1983">{{ cite book | first= David | last= Mitchell | title= The Spanish Civil War | place= New York| publisher= Franklin Watts| date= 1983| pages= 45–46}}</ref>{{rp|45}} In [[Barcelona]], out of the 58 churches, only the cathedral was spared, and similar desecrations occurred almost everywhere in Republican Spain.<ref name="Mitchell 1983" />{{rp|46}}

Two exceptions were [[Biscay]] and [[Gipuzkoa]], where the [[Christian Democratic]] [[Basque Nationalist Party]], after some hesitation, supported the Republic and halted the persecution of Catholics in areas which were held by the [[Basque Government]]. All other Catholic churches which were located in the Republican zone were closed. The desecration was not limited to Catholic churches, because synagogues and Protestant churches were also pillaged and closed, but some small Protestant churches were spared. After [[Francisco Franco]]'s [[Francoist Spain|regime]] rose to power, it would keep Protestant churches and synagogues closed, because it only legalized the Catholic Church.<ref name="google2">{{Cite book| last=Payne |first=Stanley G.| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPgPFqXub14C| title=Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II| date=2008 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-12282-4| pages=13, 215}}</ref>{{rp|215}}

Payne called the terror the "most extensive and violent persecution of Catholicism in Western History, in some way even more intense than that of the [[Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution|French Revolution]]."<ref name="google2"/>{{rp|13}}
The persecution drove Catholics to the side of the Nationalists, even more of them sided with the Nationalists than would have been expected, because they defended their religious interests and survival.<ref name="google2" />{{rp|13}}

The Roman Catholic priests who were killed during the Red Terror are considered "[[Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War]]", but the priests who were executed by the fascists are not counted among them. A group known as the "[[498 Spanish Martyrs]]" was [[beatified]] by the Roman Catholic Church's [[Pope Benedict XVI]] in 2007. The history of the Red Terror has been obscured by the inattention of scholars and the "embarrassing partiality" of ecclesiastical historians.<ref name=":13" />
Some of the numerous non-fascists who were persecuted during Franco's [[White Terror (Spain)|White Terror]] were [[Protestantism in Spain|Protestants]], because the fascists accused them of being associated with [[Freemasonry]], and the persecution which they were subjected to during Franco's White Terror was much more intense than the persecution which they were subjected to during the [[Red Terror (Spain)|Red Terror]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Vincent|first=Mary|date=18 December 2014|title=Ungodly Subjects: Protestants in National-Catholic Spain, 1939–53| publisher= Sage |journal=European History Quarterly| volume=45|issue=1 |pages=108–131|doi=10.1177/0265691414552782|s2cid=145265537|issn=0265-6914|url=http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/80827/3/Ungodly%20subjects%20EHQ%20revised.pdf }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Beevor|first=Antony|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-mayoYS6eIC|title=The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939|publisher=Penguin|year=2006|isbn=978-1-101-20120-6|pages=88–89}}</ref>

===United States===
{{See also|Christianity in the United States|Freedom of religion in the United States|History of Christianity in the United States|History of religion in the United States|Human rights in the United States#Freedom of religion|Religion in the United States|Religious discrimination in the United States}}
The [[Latter Day Saint Movement|Latter Day Saints]], ([[Mormons]]) have been [[Anti-Mormonism|persecuted]] since their founding in the 1830s. The persecution of the Mormons drove them from New York and [[Ohio]] to [[Missouri]], where they continued to be subjected to violent attacks. In 1838, Missouri Governor [[Lilburn Boggs]] declared that Mormons had made war on the state of Missouri, so they "must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State".<ref name="Feldman">{{cite news|last=Feldman|first=Noah|date=6 January 2008|title=What Is It About Mormonism?|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=92f33bb3ad8525e6&ex=1357448400&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink}}</ref> At least 10,000 Mormons were expelled from the State. In the most violent altercation which occurred at that time, the [[Haun's Mill massacre]], 17 Mormons were murdered by an anti-Mormon mob and 13 other Mormons were wounded.<ref>{{citation|title=Church History in the Fulness of Times, Student manual (Religion 341, 342, and 343)|year=2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111022133933/http://lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-sixteen-missouri-persecutions-and-expulsion?lang=eng|chapter=Chapter Sixteen: Missouri Persecutions and Expulsion|chapter-url=http://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-sixteen-missouri-persecutions-and-expulsion?lang=eng|publisher=[[Institute of Religion]], [[Church Educational System]], [[LDS Church]]|archive-date=22 October 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Missouri Executive Order 44|Extermination Order]] which was signed by Governor Boggs was not formally invalidated until 25 June 1976, 137 years after being signed.

The Mormons subsequently fled to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]], Illinois, where hostilities escalated again. In Carthage, Ill., where [[Joseph Smith]] was being held on the charge of [[treason]], a mob stormed the jail and killed him. Smith's brother, Hyrum, was also killed. After a [[succession crisis (Latter Day Saints)|succession crisis]], most Mormons followed [[Brigham Young]], who organized an evacuation from the United States after the federal government refused to protect them.<ref>{{citation|last=Smith|first=Joseph Fielding|title=Church History and Modern Revelation|date=1946–1949|volume=4|pages=167–173|publisher=[[Deseret Book]]|author-link=Joseph Fielding Smith}}</ref> 70,000 [[Mormon pioneers]] crossed the [[Great Plains]] to settle in the [[Salt Lake Valley]] and surrounding areas. After the [[Mexican–American War]], the area became the US [[Utah Territory|territory of Utah]]. Over the next 63 years, several actions by the [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]] were directed against Mormons in the [[Mormon Corridor]], including the [[Utah War]], the [[Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act]], the [[Poland Act]], ''[[Reynolds v. United States]]'', the [[Edmunds Act]], the [[Edmunds–Tucker Act]], and the [[Reed Smoot hearings]].
[[File:KKK - St Patricks Day (cr).jpg|thumb|In this 1926 cartoon, the Ku Klux Klan chases the Roman Catholic Church, personified by [[St Patrick]], from the shores of America.]]
The second iteration of the [[Ku Klux Klan]], founded in 1915 and launched in the 1920s, persecuted Catholics in both the United States and [[Ku Klux Klan in Canada|Canada]]. As stated in its official rhetoric which focused on the threat of the [[Catholic Church]], the Klan was motivated by [[Anti-Catholicism in the United States|anti-Catholicism]] and American [[Nativism (politics)|nativism]].<ref name="pegram">Thomas R. Pegram, ''One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s'' (2011), pp. 47–88.</ref> Its appeal was exclusively directed towards [[white Anglo-Saxon Protestants]]; it opposed [[Jews]], [[Black people|blacks]], Catholics, and newly arriving [[Southern Europe|Southern]] and Eastern European immigrants such as [[Italians]], [[Russians]], and [[Lithuanians]], many of whom were either Jewish or Catholic.<ref>Kelly J. Baker, ''Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930'' (2011), p. 248.</ref>

=== Warsaw Pact ===
[[File:Cerkiew Teodory z Sihli.jpg|thumb|[[St. Teodora de la Sihla Church]] in [[Central Chișinău]] was one of the churches that were "converted into museums of atheism", under the doctrine of [[Marxist–Leninist atheism]].<ref name="BrezianuSpânu2010">{{cite book|last1=Brezianu|first1=Andrei|title=The A to Z of Moldova|date=26 May 2010|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-7211-0|page=98|quote=Communist Atheism. Official doctrine of the Soviet regime, also called "scientific atheism". It was aggressively applied to Moldova, immediately after the 1940 annexation, when churches were profaned, clergy were assaulted, and signs and public symbols of religion were prohibited, and it was again applied throughout the subsequent decades of the Soviet regime, after 1944. … The St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city's Museum of Scientific Atheism,}}</ref>]]
Across Eastern Europe following World War II, the parts of the [[Nazi Empire]] which were conquered by the Soviet [[Red Army]] and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] became one-party Communist states and the project of coercive conversion to atheism continued.<ref>Peter Hebblethwaite; Paul VI, the First Modern Pope; HarperCollins Religious; 1993; p. 211</ref><ref>Norman Davies; Rising '44: the Battle for Warsaw; Viking; 2003; p.566 & 568</ref> The Soviet Union ended its war time truce with the Russian Orthodox Church, and [[Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc|extended its persecutions to the newly Communist Eastern bloc]]: "In [[Polish anti-religious campaign|Poland]], Hungary, Lithuania and other Eastern European countries, Catholic leaders who were unwilling to be silent were denounced, publicly humiliated or imprisoned by the Communists. Leaders of the national Orthodox Churches in [[Anti-religious campaign of Communist Romania|Romania]] and Bulgaria had to be cautious and submissive", wrote [[Geoffrey Blainey]].<ref name="Viking p. 494">[[Geoffrey Blainey]]; ''[[A Short History of Christianity]]''; Viking; 2011; p.494</ref> While the churches were generally not persecuted as harshly as they had been in the USSR, nearly all of their schools and many of their churches were closed, and they lost their formally prominent roles in public life. Children were taught atheism, and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands.<ref name="Viking p. 508">[[Geoffrey Blainey]]; ''[[A Short History of Christianity]]''; Viking; 2011; p.508</ref> In the [[Eastern Bloc]], Christian churches, along with Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques were forcibly "converted into museums of atheism."<ref name="FranklinWiddis2006" /><ref name="Bevan2016" />

Along with executions, some other actions which were taken against Orthodox priests and believers included [[torture]], being sent to [[Gulag|prison camps]], [[sharashka|labour camps]] or [[Psikhushka|mental hospitals]].<ref name="google" /><ref>{{Cite news|last=Sullivan|first=Patricia|date=26 November 2006|title=Anti-Communist Priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500783.html|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref><ref>The Washington Post Anti-Communist Priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa by Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, 26 November 2006; p. C09</ref>

=== North Korea ===
{{Main articles|Persecution of Christians in North Korea|Prison camps in North Korea|Christianity in North Korea|Religion in North Korea}}

==Current situation (1989 to the present)==
{{Main|Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era}}

In 2010, [[Pope Benedict XVI]] claimed that Christians were the most persecuted religious group in the [[Contemporary history|contemporary world]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101216/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_religious_persecution |author=Frances D'Emillo |title=Pope calls Christians the most persecuted |agency=Associated Press |date=16 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101219182958/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101216/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_religious_persecution |archive-date=19 December 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In a speech to the [[United Nations Human Rights Council]]'s 23rd session in May 2013, then-[[Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva]], [[Silvano Maria Tomasi]] claimed that "an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are violently killed because of some relation to their faith every year".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|date=29 May 2013|title=Archbishop Silvano Tomasi's Address to the UN Human Rights Council Interactive Dialogue|url=https://zenit.org/2013/05/29/archbishop-silvano-tomasi-s-address-to-the-un-human-rights-council-interactive-dialogue/|access-date=2020-10-07|website=Zenit}}{{pb}}{{cite web|url=http://www.news.va/en/news/vatican-to-un-100-thousand-christians-killed-for-t|title=Vatican to UN: 100 thousand Christians killed for the faith each year|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130608063330/http://www.news.va/en/news/vatican-to-un-100-thousand-christians-killed-for-t|archive-date=8 June 2013|url-status=dead | work= Vatican Radio }}</ref> This number was supported by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at the evangelical [[Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary]] in [[Massachusetts]], which published a statement in December 2016 stating that "between 2005 and 2015 there were 900,000 Christian martyrs worldwide – an average of 90,000 per year."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Persecution of Christians in 2016|url=https://us11.campaign-archive.com/?u=060e80f6eebfc8804f8049bad&id=c0d75f13c6&e=88b938d3be|access-date=2023-01-02|website=Center for the Study of Global Christianity | date= 2017}}{{pb}}{{ cite web | title = Status of Global Christianity, 2017, in the Context of 1900–2050 | url= https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/StatusofGlobalChristianity2017-1.pdf | work= Center for the Study of Global Christianity | date= 2017}}</ref> Tomasi's radio address to the council called the figures both a "shocking conclusion" and "credible research".<ref name=":1" /> The accuracy of this number, based on population estimates in a 1982 edition of the ''[[World Christian Encyclopedia]]'', is disputed.<ref name="BBC-martyrs">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24864587|title=Are there really 100,000 new Christian martyrs every year?|author=Ruth Alexander|date=12 November 2013|work=BBC News}}</ref><ref name=igfm>{{ cite web | title= Christenverfolgung auf einen Blick | language= de | work = Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte (International Society for Human rights) | date= 14 August 2019 | url= https://www.igfm.de/christenverfolgung-auf-einen-blick/ }}</ref> Almost all died in wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where all sides of the [[Second Congo War]] and subsequent conflicts are majority-Christian, and previous years included victims of the [[Rwandan genocide]], an [[ethnic conflict]] and a part of the [[First Congo War]] where again most belligerents were Christian.<ref name="BBC-martyrs" /> As a result, the ''[[BBC News Magazine]]'' cautioned that "when you hear that 100,000 Christians are dying for their faith, you need to keep in mind that the vast majority – 90,000 – are people who were killed in DR Congo".<ref name="BBC-martyrs" />

{{ill|Klaus Wetzel|de}}, a German expert on religious persecution, states that there is a discrepancy in numbers of reported martyrs due to the contradiction between the definition used by Gordon-Conwell defining [[Christian martyrdom]] in the widest possible sense, and the more [[sociological]] and political definition Wetzel himself, [[Open Doors]], and others such as ''The International Institute for Religious Freedom'' use, which is: "those who are killed, ''who would not have been killed'', if they had not been Christians".<ref name=igfm />{{verify source | reason = by what criteria is Wetzel an expert and who is Gordon-Conwell? |date=April 2025}}

Numbers are affected by several important factors, for example, population distribution is a factor. The United States submits an annual report on religious freedom and persecution to the Congress which recognizes restrictions on religious freedom, ranging from low to very high, in three-quarters of the world's countries including the United States. In approximately one quarter of the world's countries, there are high and very high restrictions and oppression, and some of those countries, such as China and India, Indonesia and Pakistan are among those with the highest populations.<ref>{{Cite web|editor =Robert W. Boehme| display-editors=etal| title=2018 Report on International Religious Freedom| url=https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-report-on-international-religious-freedom/|access-date=2023-01-02|publisher=United States Department of State|work=Office of International Religious Freedom |language=en-US}}</ref>

Numbers of martyrs are especially difficult to accurately identify, because religious persecution often occurs in conjunction with wider conflicts. This fact complicates the identification of acts of persecution because they may be politically rather than religiously motivated.<ref name="Grim">{{cite book|author1-last=Grim|author1-first= Brian J.|author2-last=Finke|author2-first=Roger|title=The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=UK|year=2011|isbn=978-0-521-19705-2}}</ref>{{rp|xii}} For example, the U.S. Department of State identified 1.4&nbsp;million [[Christians in Iraq]] in 1991 when the [[Gulf War]] began. By 2010, the number of Christians dropped to 700,000 and by 2011 it was estimated that there were between 450,000 and 200,000 Christians left in Iraq.<ref name="Grim"/>{{rp|135}} During that period, actions against Christians included the burning and bombing of churches, the bombing of Christian owned businesses and homes, kidnapping, murder, demands for protection money, and anti-Christian rhetoric in the media with those responsible saying that they wanted to rid the country of its Christians.<ref name="Grim"/>{{rp|135–138}}

A report which was released by the UK's [[Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs]] and prepared by [[Philip Mounstephen]], the [[Bishop of Truro]], in July 2019, and a report on worldwide restrictions on religious freedom by the PEW organization, both stated that the number of countries where Christians were suffering as a result of religious persecution was increasing, rising from 125 in 2015 to 144 as of 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Persecution of Christians review: Foreign Secretary's speech following the final report|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/persecution-of-christians-review-foreign-secretarys-speech-following-the-final-report|access-date=2023-01-02|website=Foreign & Commonwealth Office|date=8 July 2019 |last= Hunt | first= Jeremy | author-link= Jeremy Hunt}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pewforum.org/2019/07/15/a-closer-look-at-how-religious-restrictions-have-risen-around-the-world/|title=How Religious Restrictions Have Risen Around the World|work=Pew Research Center|date=15 July 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Mitchell|first=Travis|date=2019-07-15|title=A Closer Look at How Religious Restrictions Have Risen Around the World|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/07/15/a-closer-look-at-how-religious-restrictions-have-risen-around-the-world/|access-date=2023-01-02|website=Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project|language=en-US}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|PEW measured government restrictions and social hostilities: laws and policies restricting religious freedom (such as requiring religious groups to register in order to operate) and government favoritism of religious groups (through the funding of religious education, property and clergy, for example); government limits on religious activities and government harassment of religious groups. One category of social hostilities has substantially increased – hostilities which are related to religious norms (for example, the harassment of women for violating religious dress codes). Two other types of social hostility, harassment by individuals and social groups (ranging from small [[gang]]s to [[Lynching|mob violence]]) and [[religious violence]] by organized groups (including [[Neo-Nazism|neo-Nazi]] groups such as the [[Nordic Resistance Movement]] and [[Islamism|Islamist]] groups like [[Boko Haram]]), have risen more modestly. A fourth category of social hostility is interreligious tension and violence (for instance, [[Religious violence in India|sectarian or communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India]]).}} PEW has published a caution concerning the interpretation of its numbers: "The Center's recent report ... does not attempt to estimate the number of victims in each country... it does not speak to the intensity of harassment..."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/21/quotes-from-experts-on-the-future-of-democracy/|title=Quotes from experts on the future of democracy|date=21 February 2020}}</ref>

The Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte<ref>{{cite web |title=About Us |url=https://ishr.org/about/ishr-at-a-glance/ |website=International Society for Human Rights at a Glance |publisher=International Society for Human Rights}}</ref> – the International Society for Human Rights – in Frankfurt, Germany, is a non-governmental organization with 30,000 members from 38 countries who monitor human rights. In September 2009, then chairman Martin Lessenthin,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lessenthin |first1=Martin |title=Martin Lessenthin Executive and press spokesman for the ISHR |url=https://www.igfm.de/igfm-sprecher-martin-lessenthin/ |publisher=International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) |access-date=4 October 2020 |archive-date=8 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008143241/https://www.igfm.de/igfm-sprecher-martin-lessenthin/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> issued a report estimating that 80% of acts of religious persecution around the world were aimed at Christians at that time.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Vallely |first1=Paul |title=Christians: The world's most persecuted people |date=28 July 2014 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/christians-world-s-most-persecuted-people-9630774.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/christians-world-s-most-persecuted-people-9630774.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |publisher=Independent}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Sherwood |first1=Harriet |title=Christianity under global threat due to persecution, says report |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/christianity-under-global-threat-persecution-says-report |work=The Guardian|date=13 October 2015 }}</ref>

W. J. Blumenfeld says that Christianity enjoys [[Christian privilege|dominant group privilege]] in the US and some other Western societies.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Blumenfeld |first=W. J. |year=2006 |title=Christian privilege and the promotion of "secular" and not-so "secular" mainline Christianity in public schooling and in the larger society |journal=Equity and Excellence in Education |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=195–210 |doi=10.1080/10665680600788024|s2cid=144270138 }}</ref> Christianity is, numerically, the largest [[Religion in the United States|religion in the U.S.]] according to PEW, with 43% of [[Americans]] identifying themselves as [[Protestantism in the United States|Protestants]] and one in five (20%) of Americans identifying themselves as [[Catholic Church in the United States|Catholics]].<ref name="PEW decline">{{cite web |title=In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace |url=https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/ |website=Pew Research Center Religion & Public Life |date=17 October 2019 |publisher=Pew Research Center |access-date=27 October 2020}}</ref> It remains the largest religion in the world.<ref>{{cite web |title=Christians remain world's largest religious group, but they are declining in Europe |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/ |website=Factank News in the Numbers |date=5 April 2017 |publisher=Pew Research Center |access-date=27 October 2020}}</ref> Roughly two-thirds of the world's countries have Christian majorities.<ref name="Kishi">{{cite web |last1=KISHI |first1=KATAYOUN |title=Christians faced widespread harassment in 2015, but mostly in Christian-majority countries |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/09/christians-faced-widespread-harassment-in-2015-but-mostly-in-christian-majority-countries/ |website=PEW Research Center Facttank News in the numbers |date=9 June 2017 |publisher=Pew |access-date=3 July 2020}}</ref> Due to the large number of Christian majority countries, differing groups of Christians are harassed and persecuted in Christian countries such as Eritrea<ref name="Eritrea">{{cite web |title=2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea |url=https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-report-on-international-religious-freedom/eritrea/ |website=OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 2019 Report |publisher=U.S. Department of State |access-date=3 July 2020}}</ref> and Mexico<ref name="Mexico">{{cite web |title=2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Mexico |url=https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-report-on-international-religious-freedom/mexico/ |website=U.S. Department of State OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Report |publisher=U.S. Department of State |access-date=3 July 2020}}</ref> more often than in most Muslim countries, though not in greater numbers.<ref name="Kishi"/>

According to PEW, the Middle East and North Africa have experienced the highest rates of restrictions on non-favorite religions for the last decade, being higher than any other region, each year, from 2007 to 2017.<ref name="PEW religion report">{{cite web |title=A Closer Look at How Religious Restrictions Have Risen Around the World |url=https://www.pewforum.org/2019/07/15/a-closer-look-at-how-religious-restrictions-have-risen-around-the-world/ |website=PEW Research Center Religion & Public Life |date=15 July 2019 |publisher=PEW research center}}</ref> But it's the gap between this region and other regions where government favoritism is concerned that is particularly large: "the average country in this region scores nearly twice as high on measures of government favoritism of one religion as the average country in any other region".<ref name="PEW religion report"/>

The [[United States Commission on International Religious Freedom]], a bipartisan independent federal agency which was created by the [[United States Congress]] in 1998, published a study of the predominantly Muslim countries which are located in the Middle Eastern/North African region. It concludes that, of the world's 1.3&nbsp;billion Muslims, "28 percent live in ten countries that declare themselves to be [[Islamic state]]s. In addition, there are 12 predominantly Muslim countries that have chosen to declare that [[Islam]] is the official state religion ... Taken together, the 22 states that declare that Islam is the official religion account for 58 percent – or just over 600 million – of the 1 billion Muslims living in 44 predominantly Muslim countries.<ref name="constitutions"/>{{rp|6}}

"Several countries with constitutions establishing Islam as the state religion either do not contain guarantees of the right to freedom of religion or belief, or they contain guarantees that, on their face, do not compare favorably with all aspects of international [human rights] standards."<ref name="constitutions"/>{{rp|16}} All of these countries defer to religious authorities or doctrines on legal issues in some way.<ref name="PEW religion report"/> For example, "when one spouse is Muslim and the other has a different religion (such as [[Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria|Coptic Christianity]]), or if spouses are members of different [[Christian denomination]]s, courts still defer to Islamic family law."<ref name="PEW religion report"/> Grim and Finke say their studies indicate that: "When religious freedoms are denied through the regulation of religious profession or practice, violent religious persecution and conflict increase."<ref name="Grim and Finke">{{cite book |last1=Grim |first1=Brian J. |last2=Finke |first2=Roger |title=The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781139492416}}</ref>{{rp|6}} In its annual report, the USCIRF lists 14 "Countries of Particular Concern" with regard to religious rights and it also lists 15 additional countries which it has recommended be placed on the U.S. Department of State's Special Watch List (SWL), a lesser category than the CPC designation.<ref name="USCIRF"/>

Eleven predominantly Muslim countries are ruled by governments which proclaim that their states are secular. "These countries account for nearly 140 million Muslims, or 13.5 percent of the 1 billion Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries. The 11 remaining predominantly Muslim countries have not made any constitutional declaration concerning the Islamic or secular nature of the state, and have not made Islam the official state religion. This group of countries, which includes Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, accounts for over 250 million Muslims".<ref name="constitutions">{{cite web |last1=Stahnke |first1=Tad |last2=Blitt |first2=Robert C. |title=The Religion-State Relationship and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Comparative Textual Analysis of the Constitutions of Predominantly Muslim Countries |url=https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/resources/stories/pdf/Comparative_Constitutions/Study0305.pdf |website=The Religion-State Relationship and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Comparative Textual Analysis of the Constitutions of Predominantly Muslim Countries |publisher=UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM}}</ref>{{rp|6}} This demonstrates that the majority of the world's Muslim population live in countries that either proclaim the state to be secular, or that make no pronouncements concerning Islam as the official state religion.<ref name="constitutions"/>{{rp|2}}

The rise of [[Hindutva]] (Hindu nationalism) in India, led by the [[Bharatiya Janata Party]], has seen increasing [[Violence against Christians in India|persecution and violence against Christians]].<ref>{{cite news |date=16 February 2025 |title=Hindu extremists attack Christians in India |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-16/hindu-extremists-attack-christians-in-india/104943066 |work=[[abc.net.au]] |language=en-AU}}</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church]]
* [[Anti-Christian sentiment]]
* [[List of massacres in Turkey]]
** [[Racism in Israel#Religious racism|Anti-Christian ethnic discrimination in Israel]]
** [[Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II]]
* [[Christian persecution complex]]
** [[Foolishness for Christ]]
** [[Martyrdom in Christianity]]
** [[Sign of contradiction]]
* [[Christianity and violence]]
** [[Christian fascism]]
** [[Christian fundamentalism]]
** [[Christian terrorism]]
* [[Criticism of Christianity]]
** [[Anti-Catholicism]]
** [[Anti-Mormonism]]
** [[Anti-Protestantism]]
** [[Persecution of Eastern Orthodox Christians]]
** [[Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses]]
** [[Sectarian violence among Christians]]
* [[Hindu nationalism]]
** [[Hindutva]]
** [[Hindu terrorism]]
* [[Islam and violence]]
** [[Al-Qaeda]]
** [[Boko Haram]]
** [[Islamic extremism]]
*** [[International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism]]
** [[Islamic fundamentalism]]
** [[Islamic State]]
** [[Islamic terrorism]]
** [[Jihadism]]
*** [[Salafi jihadism]]
** [[Sectarian violence among Muslims]]
** [[Taliban]]
* [[Judaism and violence]]
** [[Jewish fundamentalism]]
** [[Jewish religious terrorism]]
** [[Kahanism]]
** [[Zionist political violence]]
{{Portal|Christianity}}
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=note}}
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

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==Further reading==
*{{cite web|url=https://stockholmcf.org/most-religion-based-hate-crimes-in-turkey-targeted-alevis-christians-in-2022-report/|title=Most religion-based hate crimes in Turkey targeted Alevis, Christians in 2022: report|date=8 August 2023 |publisher=Stockholm Center for Freedom}}

==External links==
{{externalvideo|video1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT7LupH5Sf4&t=168s Christians Persecuted in Turkey (2010)- Journeyman Pictures]}}
{{Commons category|Persecution of Christians}}
*Kostos, Sofia Kontogeorge. "[https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.31826/9781463224868/html Before The Silence: Archival News Reports Of The Christian Holocaust That Begs To Be Remembered]", Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.31826/9781463224868

{{Persecution of Christians}}
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[[Category:Persecution of Christians| ]]