Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The apostle Paul's missionary work laid the foundation of the Christian church in Greece, then under Roman rule. The Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistles offer vivid glimpses of the first Greek Christian communities. Thessaloniki, Corinth, Philippi and several other cities soon became important centres of Christianity. The spread of Christianity among the Greeks, both in Greece and in the Hellenistic diaspora , opened to the church the heritage of Hellenic culture, giving Christianity a new theological and philosophical vocabulary . Athens gave the apologists Athenagoras and Aristeides to the church, as well as clement of alexandria . Greece was less affected than the churches of asia minor by the periods of imperial persecution, and when Christianity became the state religion paganism rapidly lost ground, especially when proscribed by Theodosius I in 394, though it survived beyond the sixth century in the Peleponnese and furnished many elements of folk religion. Illyricum was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of rome until placed under constantinople in the eighth century, a decision Rome initially did not recognize. Foreign invasions and economic deterioration resulted in the fading of the Greek cities from the seventh century and the failure of imperial control over many inland areas. Many episcopal sees vanished. During the ninth and tenth centuries, however, ... log in or subscribe to read full text