09/05/2025
Constantine: The man who shaped the Catholic Church
A call to reflection
Far from what many imagine, Christianity we know today was not born as it was with Jesus or his apostles. It was structured, remodeled, and largely institutionalized by Roman Emperor Constantine I.
In year 325, during the Council of Nicea, Constantine the Great gathered bishops to unite the divergent Christian streams and create a unique religion at the service of the Empire. It was not faith that led this reform, but the need for political order and imperial unity. This moment marks the birth of imperial Christianity, adapted to the interests of power.
In 327, Constantine - nicknamed later "the thirteenth apostle" - charges Jerome to translate the biblical texts into Latin: it will be the famous Vulgate. This translation is not neutral. Hebrew names modified, passages reinterpreted, and some meanings deeply transformed to correspond with Roman values.
The following centuries see the accumulation of dogmatic additions and ritual inventions:
431: establishment of the cult of the Virgin Mary, an absent figure from the early Christian centuries as an object of veneration.
594: birth of the concept of purgatory.
610: appearance of “Pope” official title.
788: Integration of pagan deities and rituals in the form of saints or Christian feasts.
995: The Hebrew word Kadosh ("separated, sacred") is distorted to justify the notion of "holiness" by Catholic standards.
1079: imposition of bachelorhood of priests — a purely ecclesiastical rule, foreign to the beginning of Christianity.
1090: The rosary is becoming mandatory practice.
1184: official start of the Inquisition, institution of religious persecution.
1190: Indulgences are on sale: salvation becomes monetary.
1215: Confession becomes a regular duty.
1216: the dogma of transsubstantiation (bread becoming divine flesh) is imposed. An idea inspired by ancient mythologies.
1311: Baptism becomes an indispensable and structured rite.
143
