The first decade of the fourth century, from about 302 to 313, is one of the most remarkable in history. In that short time, the Church would go from the worst of persecutions to the beginning of an unprecedented new era of peace and favor....

The popes in the middle of the third century experienced intense persecution by the emperors Decius and Valerius, but this suddenly gave way to a forty-year period of official and explicit toleration, which provided the Church with a...

The first four of the six popes covered in this installment found themselves in conflict with a priest named Hippolytus, the most brilliant intellectual of the Roman Church at the time. Hippolytus would become the first antipope in the...

The three popes who reigned during this period all had to deal with serious divisions within the Church, especially over questions of how the Church should treat fallen-away Catholics who wished to return, as well as those who had been...

Liberius (352-366) is not only the first pope in history not to be considered a saint in the Catholic Church, but is also often used by anti-Catholic critics to argue against papal infallibility—since he allegedly signed documents in...

The first three popes after St. Peter likely knew the Prince of the Apostles personally and may even have been hand-selected by him. We know little of Sts. Linus and Cletus, but the first writing we possess by a pope after St. Peter himself...

Little is known about many of the popes of the second century. Several of them were martyrs. They had to deal with different heresies that made their way to Rome, and there was also a controversy over the correct date of...

They have governed the world’s largest religion for the past two millennia—yet their fascinating history is strangely little-known. These are the lives and reigns of the popes of the Catholic...

So far in this series, we’ve seen a number of examples of early popes exercising authority over bishops and churches outside of Rome, and even outside of the West. As the documentary record improves, this becomes even clearer, and the...

The widespread persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire was finally over for good, beginning the “Peace of the Church”. But the “Peace” could only be so peaceful, as internal dissension took the place of external...