Where were some of the areas where Christianity was found?
Where were some of the areas where Christianity was found?
I am assuming you are asking where Christianity spread to in
its earliest history. Of course, Christianity had its beginning in
Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, in what would be Israel and Palestine
today. From there, after about AD 50, the new religion spread rapidly
throughout the Roman Empire, especially in the Greek-speaking eastern part
of the empire. By AD 100, there were large churches in Ephesus
(present-day Turkey), Corinth (Greece) Antioch (present-day Syria) and
Rome. Significant numbers of Christians were also found in Alexandria
(Egypt), Mesopotamia, North Africa and even Gaul (France) and Spain by AD
150. By AD 200, Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire,
including England (although the German frontier (and in parts of
present-day Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia had relatively few converts
in the second century). By this time, the religion had begun to spread
outside the Roman Empire, especially into Armenia and Ethiopia. By the
fourth century, there were outposts of Christianity in Central Asia and
even on the western coast of India.
Christianity spread somewhat more slowly in Central Europe.
It arrived in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovokia and other central European
countries by the fifth and sixth centuries. It spread to Ireland in the
400’s and into Russia and Scandanavia in about the 800’s. By the time of
the Muslim conquests (600’s AD), Christianity had more or less replaced
paganism in almost all of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The
Byzantine Empire was “Christian”, and spread the religion into the
hinterlands. However, with the rise of political Islam, the Christian
communities in North Africa including Egypt, as well as the Middle East
and Mesopotamia and even in Central Asia was under great pressure and many
converted to Islam. By AD 1400, the Ottomans had a significant hold in
far southeastern Europe (inluding present-day Greece, Bulgaria, Albania
and Yugoslavia, and Christianity was reduced in these areas. However,
after AD 1500, Christianity spread from Europe to North and South America
and parts of Africa, as well as to the Philippines. That, in a nutshell,
is the story of the spread of Christianity. In saying this, I am not
judging whether any particular brand/denomination of Christianity is
biblical, and will let you decide for yourself about that.
John Oakes