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The Crucifixion of St. Peter by Caravaggio

According to the New Testament, Jesus' crucifixion was authorized by Roman authorities but demanded by the leading Jews and probably carried out by Sanhedrin soldiers, rather than Romans.^{[citation needed]} The New Testament also records that Paul was imprisoned on several occasions by the Roman authorities. Once he was stoned and left for dead. Eventually he was taken as a prisoner to Rome. The New Testament account does not say what then became of Paul, but Christian tradition reports that he was executed in Rome by being beheaded.

The Foxes Book of Martyrs reports that, of the eleven remaining Apostles (since Judas Iscariot had already killed himself), only one- John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the younger brother of James and the writer of the Book of Revelation- died of natural causes in exile. The other ten were reportedly martyred by various means including beheading, by sword and spear and, in the case of Saint Peter, crucifixion.

The first documented case of imperially-supervised persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire begins with Nero (37-68). In 64 A.D., a great fire broke out in Rome, destroying portions of the city and economically devastating the Roman population. Nero himself was suspected as the arsonist by historian Suetonius, claiming he played the lyre and sang the 'Sack of Ilium' during the fires. In his Annals, Tacitus (who claimed Nero was in Antium at the time of the fire's outbreak), stated that "to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace" (Tacit. Annals XV, see Tacitus on Jesus). By implicating the Christians for this massive act of arson, Nero successfully capitalized on the already-existing public suspicion of this religious sect and, it could be argued, exacerbated the hostilities held toward them throughout the Roman Empire.^{[citation needed]} Forms of execution used by the Romans included systematic murder, crucifixion, and the feeding of Christians to lions and other wild beasts.^{[citation needed]} Tacitus' Annals XV.44 record: "...a vast multitude, were convicted, not so much of the crime of incendiarism as of hatred of the human race. And in their deaths they were made the subjects of sport; for they were wrapped in the hides of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set on fire, and when day declined, were burned to serve for nocturnal lights."

[edit] Persecution from the second century to Constantine

The Execution of Saint Eulalia by John William Waterhouse

By the mid 2nd century, mobs could be found willing to throw stones at Christians, and they might be mobilized by rival sects. The Persecution in Lyon was preceded by mob violence, including assaults, robberies and stonings (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.1.7).

Further state persecutions were desultory until the third century, though Tertullian's Apologeticus of 197 was ostensibly written in defense of persecuted Christians and addressed to Roman governors^[6] The "edict of Septimius Severus" familiar in Christian history is doubted by some secular historians to have existed outside Christian martyrology.

The first documentable Empire-wide persecution took place under Maximin, though only the clergy were sought out. It was not until Decius during the mid-century that a persecution of Christian laity across the Empire took place. Christian sources aver that a decree was issued requiring public sacrifice, a formality equivalent to a testimonial of allegiance to the Emperor and the established order. Decius authorized roving commissions visiting the cities and villages to supervise the execution of the sacrifices and to deliver written certificates to all citizens who performed them. Christians were often given opportunities to avoid further punishment by publicly offering sacrifices or burning incense to Roman gods, and were accused by the Romans of impiety when they refused. Refusal was punished by arrest, imprisonment, torture, and executions. Christians fled to safe havens in the countryside and some purchased their certificates, called libelli. Several councils held at Carthage debated the extent to which the community should accept these lapsed Christians.

[edit] Diocletian Persecution

The persecutions culminated with Diocletian and Galerius at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century. Their persecution, the Diocletian Persecution is considered the largest. Beginning with a series of four edicts banning Christian practices and ordering the imprisonment of Christian clergy, the persecution intensified until all Christians in the empire were commandeded to sacrifice to the gods or face immediate execution. However, as Diocletian zealously persecuted Christians in the Eastern part of the empire, his co-emperors in the West did not follow the edicts and so Christians in Gaul, Spain, and Brittania were virtually unmolested.

This persecution was to be the last, as Constantine I soon came into power and in 313 legalized Christianity. It was not until Theodosius I in the latter fourth century that Christianity would become the official religion of the Empire.

Edward Gibbon, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, estimates that "the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen hundred ... an annual consumption of 150 martyrs." The Western provinces were little affected, and even in the East where Christianity was recognized as a growing threat, the persecutions were light and sporadic.

Some early Christians sought out and welcomed martyrdom. Roman authorities tried hard to avoid Christians because they "goaded, chided, belittled and insulted the crowds until they demanded their death."¹⁹³ One man shouted to the Roman officials: "I want to die! I am a Christian," leading the officials to respond: "If they wanted to kill themselves, there was plenty of cliffs they could jump off."¹⁹⁴ Such seeking after death is found in Tertullian's Scorpiace but was certainly not the only view of martyrdom in the Christian church. Both Polycarp and Cyprian, bishops in Smyrna and Carthage respectively, attempted to avoid martyrdom.

The conditions under which martyrdom was an acceptable fate or under which it was suicidally embraced occupied writers of the early Christian Church. Broadly speaking, martyrs were considered uniquely exemplary of the Christian faith, and few early saints were not also martyrs.

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". Estimates of Christians killed for religious reasons before the year 313 vary greatly, depending on the scholar quoted, from a high of almost 100,000 to a low of 10,000.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Early persecutions outside the Roman Empire

In 337 a spate in the ongoing hostilities between Sassanid Persia and the Roman Empire led to anti-Christian persecutions by the Persians of Christians, see also Sassanid Church, who were perceived as potentially treacherous friends to a Christianized Rome, see also Christendom, under Constantine.^{[citation needed]} In 341, Shapur II ordered the massacre of all Christians in Persia. Over the next few decades, thousands of Christians died.^{[citation needed]} In the 3rd and 4th centuries, Christian missionaries (most successfully Ulfilas) converted the Goths to Arian Christianity. Some Goths saw this as an attack on their religion and culture.^{[citation needed]} In response, the Terving King Athanaric began persecuting Christians, many of whom were killed.^[7]

A Converted British Family sheltering a Christian Priest from the Persecution of the Druids, a scene of persecution by druids in ancient Britain painted by William Holman Hunt.

In 429 the Vandals (who were Arians) conquered Roman Africa. Catholics were discriminated against; Church property was confiscated. Thousands of Catholics were banished from Vandal held territory.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Persecution of Christians by Christians

As with many religions, Christianity is not a homogenous group; there exist many sects of Christianity, which often find themselves at odds with each other, often because one group does not consider another Christian at all, as is the case with Mormons and mainstream Christians (see below).

The Catholic Encyclopedia mentions a Natalius,^[8] before Hippolytus, as first Antipope, who, according to Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History 5.28.8-12, quoting the Little Labyrinth of Hippolytus, after being "scourged all night by the holy angels", covered in ash, dressed in sackcloth, and "after some difficulty", tearfully submitted to Pope Zephyrinus.

Upon the establishment of official ties between the state and Christianity, the state and the Church turned their considerable negative attention to those deemed heretics, although who was and was not a heretic could alter with the winds of political change. The first nonconforming Christian executed was Priscillian. Many 4th century examples of such a situation involved Arianism, which held, against the orthodox tradition, that Jesus was not "one in unity with the Father", but instead was a created being, not on the same level with God, above humans but below God the Father.

When high-ranking officials agreed with orthodoxy, the state stopped at no ends to bring down the Arians. The converse was true when high-ranking officials, instead, adhered to Arianism, at which point the power of the state was used to promulgate that particular interpretation. The Germanic Goths and Vandals adhered to Arian Christianity, establishing Arian states in Italy and Spain. Orthodox Christians defended themselves vigorously against these foreign Arians. St. Augustine, for example, died while in a town besieged by the Arian Vandals.

An increasing number of scholars have claimed that Early Christianity had no single agreed-upon tradition, and various sects claimed no limit of things about Jesus, God, and the universe, but the extent of this "proto-Christian" diversity can be a matter of debate. Some scholarly opinion adheres to the picture of a continual line of theological orthodoxy, but the early sources, such as Celsus, Origen, Arius, Irenaeus, and Marcion, suggest a world of Christianity far more colorful than the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers painted. This must be contrasted against Irenaeus' claim in Against Heresies that the church had an overall orthodoxy.

In the medieval period the Roman Catholic church moved to suppress the Cathar heresy, the Pope having sanctioned a crusade against the Albigensians; during the course of which the massacre of Beziers took place, with between seven and twenty thousand deaths. (This was the occasion when the papal legate, Arnaud Amalric, asked about how Catholics could be distinguished from Cathars once the city fell, famously replied, "Kill them all, God will know His own.")

The Crusades in the Middle East also spilled over into conquest of Eastern Orthodox Christians by Roman Catholics and attempted suppression of the Orthodox Church. The Waldenses were as well persecuted by the Catholic Church, but survive up to this day. The Reformation led to a long period of warfare and communal violence between Catholic and Protestant factions, leading to massacres and forced suppression of the alternative views by the dominant faction in many countries. In the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre the French king ordered the murder of Protestants in France.

In the modern period, such events include violence between Mormons and Protestants in the United States during the 19th century. That century also saw the martyrdom of St. Peter the Aleut at the hands of Roman Catholic clergy in San Francisco, California.

[edit] Anti-Catholic

Main article: Anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism officially began in 1534 during the English Reformation; the Act of Supremacy made the King of England the 'only supreme head on earth of the Church in England.' Any act of allegiance to the latter was considered treason. It was under this act that Thomas More was executed. Queen Elizabeth I's scorn for Jesuit missionaries led to many executions at Tyburn. Catholic / Protestant strife has been blamed for much of "The Troubles," the ongoing struggle in Northern Ireland.

This attitude was carried "across the pond" to the American colonies, which would leave England, forming the United States. Although there has been a strong anti-Catholic sentiment in North America since before the dawn of the US, the feeling grew stronger during waves of Catholic immigration from old Europe. Nationalist, "native" feeling was represented by the Know-Nothing Party. Father James Coyle, a Roman Catholic priest, was murdered in 1921 by the Ku Klux Klan.

[edit] Anti-Protestant

Main article: Anti-Protestantism

The Bartholomew's Day massacre

Anti-Protestantism originated in a reaction by the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Protestants were denounced as heretics and subject to persecution in those territories, such as Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, in which the Catholics were the dominant power. This movement was orchestrated by Popes and Princes as the Counter Reformation. This resulted in religious wars and eruptions of sectarian hatred such as the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

[edit] Persecution of the Anabaptists

Main article: Anabaptist

When the disputes between Lutherans and Roman Catholics gained a political dimension, both groups saw other groups of religious dissidents that were arising as a danger to their own security. The early "Täufer" (lit. "Baptists") were mistrusted and rejected by both religio-political parties. Religious persecution is often perpetrated as a means of political control, and this becomes evident with the Treaty of Augsburg in 1555. This treaty provided the legal groundwork for persecution of the Anabaptists.

[edit] Anti-Mormon

Main article: Anti-Mormonism

Followers of the Latter Day Saint movement (commonly known as Mormons) have been persecuted since the faith's creation in the 1830s. This drove the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from New York to Missouri, where escalating attacks by neighboring villages caused them to flee to Nauvoo, Illinois. However hostilities between Mormons, non-Mormons and former Mormons would soon escalate. After a mob was let into the jail in Carthage, Illinois, where Joseph Smith was being held on charges of committing treason against the state of Illinois, a gun fight ensued and as a result Smith was killed.^[9][10] This caused an exodus by the Latter-day Saints to Utah, which was not a part of the United States at the time.

[edit] Muslim persecution of Christians

Main article: Islam and Anti-Christian sentiment

[edit] Ottoman Empire

The new Ottoman government that arose from the ashes of Byzantine civilization was neither primitive nor barbaric. Islam not only recognized Jesus as a great prophet, but tolerated Christians as another People of the Book. As such, the Church was not extinguished nor was its canonical and hierarchical organization significantly disrupted. Its administration continued to function. One of the first things that Mehmet the Conqueror did was to allow the Church to elect a new patriarch, Gennadius Scholarius. The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had been Christian churches for nearly a millennium were converted into mosques, although countless other churches, both in Constantinople and elsewhere, remained in Christian hands. Moreover, it is striking that the patriarch's and the hierarchy's position was considerably strengthened and their power increased. They were endowed with civil as well as ecclesiastical power over all Christians in Ottoman territories. Because Islamic law makes no distinction between nationality and religion, all Christians, regardless of their language or nationality, were considered a single millet, or nation. The patriarch, as the highest ranking hierarch, was thus invested with civil and religious authority and made ethnarch, head of the entire Christian Orthodox population. Practically, this meant that all Orthodox Churches within Ottoman territory were under the control of Constantinople. Thus, the authority and jurisdictional frontiers of the patriarch were enormously enlarged.

These rights and privileges (see Dhimmitude), including freedom of worship and religious organization, were often established in principle but seldom corresponded to reality. The legal privileges of the patriarch and the Church depended, in fact, on the whim and mercy of the Sultan and the Sublime Porte, while all Christians were viewed as little more than second-class citizens. Moreover, Turkish corruption and brutality were not a myth. That it was the "infidel" Christian who experienced this more than anyone else is not in doubt. Nor were pogroms of Christians in these centuries unknown (see Greco-Turkish relations).^{[11] [12]}Devastating, too, for the Church was the fact that it could not bear witness to Christ. Missionary work among Moslems was dangerous and indeed impossible, whereas conversion to Islam was entirely legal and permissible. Converts to Islam who returned to Orthodoxy were put to death as apostates. No new churches could be built and even the ringing of church bells was prohibited. Education of the clergy and the Christian population either ceased altogether or was reduced to the most rudimentary elements.

The Ottoman Empire was marked by periods of limited tolerance and periods of often bloody repression of non-Muslims. The Janissary army corps consisted of young men who were brought to Istanbul as child-slaves (and were often from Christian households) who were converted, trained and later employed by the Sultan (the devshirme system).

[edit] Turkey

Main articles: Armenian Genocide, Pontic Greek Genocide, and Assyrian Genocide

Things worsened after the Empire collapsed at the end of World War I. Nationalist movements like the Young Turks began persecuting and murdering Greek, Armenian, Assyrian and other Christians in what is known as the Armenian, the Pontic Greek and the Assyrian Genocides. This mass murder of Christians is fairly unknown today outside Greece and Armenia, despite taking place not very long ago (1915-1922). It is estimated that 1,500,000 Armenians, 750,000 Assyrians and another 350,000 Pontic Greeks were murdered and most had to abandon regions inhabited by them for thousands of years.

Since the establishment of the secular nationalist Republic of Turkey, the number of Orthodox in the Anatolian peninsula has sharply declined amidst complaints of Turkish governmental repression.^{[citations needed]} These complaints include various perceived campaigns by the Turkish government against various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox groups such as the Istanbul Pogrom in 1955 and the closure of the Halki seminary in 1971 (along with private universities).

The Istanbul pogrom was a state-sponsored and state-orchestrated pogrom that compelled Greek Christians to leave Constantinople (Turkish Istanbul), the first Christian city in violation to the Treaty of Lausanne (see Istanbul Pogrom). The issue of Christian genocides by the Turks may become a problem, since Turkey wishes to join the European Union.^[13] The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is still in a difficult position. Turkey requires by law that the Ecumenical Patriarch must be an ethnic Greek, holding Turkish citizenship by birth, although most of the Greek minority has been expelled. The state's expropriation of church property and the closing of the Orthodox Theological School of Halki are also difficulties faced by the Church of Constantinople. Despite appeals from the United States, the European Union and various governmental and non-governmental organizations, the School remains closed since 1971. Persecution of Christians is continuing in modern Turkey. On February 5, 2006, the Catholic priest Andrea Santoro was murdered in Trabzon by a student influenced by the massive anti-Christian propaganda in the Turkish popular press^[14], following the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. On April 18, 2007, 3 Christians were brutally murdered in Malatya ^[15][16], the hometown of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the assassin who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981.

[edit] Persecution of Christians in Iraq

Although Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the refugees now living in nearby countries, according to UNHCR.^[17][18] Northern Iraq remained predominantly Christian until the destructions of Tamerlane at the end of the 14th century. The Church of the East has its origin in what is now South East Turkey. By the end of the 13th century there were twelve Nestorian dioceses in a strip from Peking to Samarkand. When the a 14th-century Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descent Tamerlane (Timul Lenk) conquered Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria, the civilian population was decimated. Timur Lenk had 70,000 Assyrian Christians beheaded in Tikrit, and 90,000 more in Baghdad.^[19][20]

Ethnic Assyrians (most of whom are adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East) account for most of Iraq's sizable Christian population, along with Armenians.

In the 16th century, Christians were half the population of Iraq.^[21] In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians.^[22] They were tolerated under the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, who even made one of them, Tariq Aziz, his deputy. But as the war has radicalised Islamic sensibilities, Christians have seen their total numbers slump to about 500,000 today, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad.^[23] An exodus to the neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Turkey has left behind closed parishes, seminaries and convents. As a small minority without a militia of their own, Iraqi Christians have been persecuted by both Shi’a and Sunni Muslim militias, and also by criminal gangs.^[24][25]

As of June 21, 2007, the UNHCR estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.^[26][27] A May 25, 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in the United States.^[28]

One of the most recent tragic events of the present Iraqi situation for the Christian community is the assassination by Islamic terrorists of Chaldean Catholic priest Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni and subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed in the ancient city of Mosul.^[29] Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni was driving with his three deacons when they were stopped by Muslim terrorists who demanded their conversion to Islam, when they refused the terrorists shot them.^[29]

[edit] Persecution of Christians in Kosovo

After the defeat of a Christian Balkan coalition lead by a prince of Serbia, Lazar, the Ottomans occupied Kosovo. The Christian population of Kosovo was composed overwhelmingly of Serbs (see Demographic history of Kosovo). Initially, former Christian nobles were allowed to maintain their properties and privileges, especially the local nobles that fought on the side of the Ottomans during the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Christians within the Ottoman Empire were not violently persecuted but gradually Islamized through incentives such as property, reduced taxes and the right to bear arms. The Orthodox and Catholic churches of Kosovo during the Ottoman period were awarded special protections and rights including placing Christians under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople[2]. The living conditions of the average serf in Kosovo improved during the Ottoman occupation due to the rationalization of the Ottoman Timar system which was less demanding then previous feudal relations. Persecution of Christians has been limited to the Serbian Orthodox tradition and is ethnic not religious. Catholic's, most of whom were Albanian, were unmolested in Kosovo. The ongoing ethnic conflict has resulted in the destruction of 56 Serb Orthodox Christian churches, monasteries, graveyards and other religious monuments, some of them being of great historical and architectural importance. The latest wave of anti-Serb violence was in March 2004 (see Unrest in Kosovo).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Christian casualties of the War in Lebanon

The war in Lebanon saw a number of massacres of both Christians and Muslims. Among the earliest was the Damour Massacre in 1975 when Palestinian militias attacked Christian civilians. The persecution in Lebanon combined sectarian, political, ideological, and retaliation reasons. The Syrian regime was also involved in persecuting Christians as well as Muslims in Lebanon.^[30][31]

[edit] Persecution of Christians in Sudan

There is an abundance of evidence since the early 1990s of oppression and persecution of Christians, including by Sudan's own Sudan Human Rights Organization, which in mid-1992 reported on forcible closure of churches, expulsion of priests, forced displacement of populations, forced Islamisation and Arabisation, and other repressive measures of the Government. In 1994 it also reported on widespread torture, ethnic cleansing and crucifixion of pastors. Pax Christi has also reported on detailed cases in 1994, as has Africa Watch. Roman Catholic bishop Macram Max Gassis, Bishop of El Obeid, also reported to the Fiftieth Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, in February 1994 on accounts of widespread destruction of hundreds of churches, forced conversions of Christians to Islam, concentration camps, genocide of the Nuba people, systematic rape of women, enslavement of children, torture of priests and clerics, burning alive of pastors and catechists, crucifixion and mutilation of priests. The foregoing therefore serve to indict the Sudanese Government itself for flagrant violations of human rights and religious freedom.

In addition, it is estimated that over 1.5 million Christians have been killed by the Janjaweed, the Arab Muslim militia, and even suspected Islamists in northern Sudan since 1984.[3]

It should also be noted that Sudan's several civil wars (which often take the form of genocidal campaigns) are often not only or purely religious in nature, but also ethnic, as many black Muslims, as well as Muslim Arab tribesmen, have also been killed in the conflicts.

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.^[32][33]

[edit] Persecution of Christians in Pakistan

[edit] Blasphemy laws

In Pakistan 1.5% of the population are Christian. Pakistani law mandates that "blasphemies" of the Qur'an are to be met with punishment. On July 28, 1994 Amnesty International urged Pakistan's Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, to change the law because it was being used to terrorize religious minorities. She tried but was unsuccessful. However, she modified the laws to make them more moderate. Her changes were reversed by the Nawaz Sharif administration which was backed by Muslim fundamentalists.^{[citation needed]}

Ayub Masih, a Christian, was co