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Edict of Milan

Not to be confused with Milan Decree.

Bust of Emperor Constantine I, Roman, 4th century

The Edict of Milan (Latin: Edictum Mediolanense; Greek: Διάταγμα τῶν Μεδιολάνων, Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn) was the February, AD 313 agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire.[1] Western Roman Emperor Constantine I and Emperor Licinius, who controlled the Balkans, met in Mediolanum (modern-day Milan) and, among other things, agreed to change policies towards Christians[1] following the edict of toleration issued by Emperor Galerius two years earlier in Serdica. The Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution but did not make it the state church of the Roman Empire,[2] which occurred in AD 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica,[3] when Nicene Christianity received normative status.[4][5]

The document is found in Lactantius's De mortibus persecutorum and in Eusebius of Caesarea's History of the Church with marked divergences between the two.[6][7] Whether or not there was a formal 'Edict of Milan'  is no longer really debated among scholars, who generally reject the story as it has come down in church history.[8][1]

The version found in Lactantius is not in the form of an edict.[7] It is a letter from Licinius to the governors of the provinces in the Eastern Empire that he had just conquered by defeating Maximinus[9] later that same year and issued in Nicomedia.[1][10]

  1. ^ a b c d Frend, W. H. C. (1965). The Early Church. SPCK, p. 137.
  2. ^ The Cambridge History of Christianity. Cambridge University Press. Quote: "Christianity did not become the official religion of the empire under Constantine, as is often mistakenly claimed..."
  3. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica. "Christianity: The Alliance Between Church and Empire". Quote: "...Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379–395), who made Catholic Christianity the official religion of the empire..."
  4. ^ World Encyclopaedia of Interfaith Studies: World religions. Jnanada Prakashan. 2009. ISBN 978-81-7139-280-3. In the most common sense, "mainstream" refers to Nicene Christianity, or rather the traditions which continue to claim adherence to the Nicene Creed.
  5. ^ Ehler, Sidney Zdeneck; Morrall, John B. (1967). Church and State Through the Centuries: A Collection of Historic Documents with Commentaries. p. 6-7. ISBN 9780819601896. Archived from the original on 15 May 2016. Retrieved 28 September 2016. This Edict is the first which definitely introduces Catholic orthodoxy as the established religion of the Roman world. [...] Acknowledgment of the true doctrine of the Trinity is made the test of State recognition.
  6. ^ Lenski, Noel (2017). "The Significance of the Edict of Milan". In Siecienski, Edward (ed.). Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy. London: Routledge. pp. 27–56. Retrieved 21 May 2021. Differences tabulated on pp. 39–40
  7. ^ a b Cross and Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 1974 art. "Milan, Edict of."
  8. ^ Potter, D. Constantine the Emperor 2013 p. 148. He refers to the "Edict of Milan" as the so-called Edict of Milan in note 10 at the top of p. 329.
  9. ^ Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius SPCK 1965, p. 302
  10. ^ As David Potter states in his 2013 book Constantine the Emperor, "What is significant is that the document, once wrongly known as the Edict of Milan (there was never such a thing) and attributed to Constantine, is the product of a pagan emperor who had decided that Constantine's approach to the "Christian question" was correct. Although the 'Edict of Milan' is really a letter of Licinius to the governors of the eastern provinces, it still represents an important sea change in the direction of imperial policy." Potter p. 149

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