The Emperor Constantine

The Roman Emperor Constantine was born in the city of Naiss. On the paternal line, he, presumably, belonged to the Illyrian family. His father, Constantius Chlorus, ruled the Western part of the Roman Empire (Britain and Gaul). His mother, Elena, who later became a saint, was a Christian.

The Emperor Diocletian wished to take young Constantine to court in Nicomedia. In 305, Maximian and Diocletian folded the emperor's rank from themselves. Thus, in the West, Constantius Chlorus became ruler, and Galerius in the East.

In 306, after the death of his father, Constantine returned to Gaul, where he was proclaimed Augustus. Meanwhile, in Rome an uprising broke out against Galerius. The population and the army recognized the power of Maxentius, the son of Maximian, who had become emperor, but later joined his son and accepted the imperial order again.

These events formed the prerequisites for the beginning of internecine war. Galerius and Maximian died. The Emperor Constantine, united with Licinius (one of the new Augustus), defeated Maxentius at Rome. The latter drowned in the Tiber during the flight.

Licinius and Constantine gathered in Milan. The Edict of Milan was promulgated here about the all-world. Then came a series of events, as a result of which the Emperor Constantine became the sole ruler of the empire. He did not leave Rome as capital. The main city of his state was Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople.

Emperor Constantine was deeply convinced that only Christianity could unite the diverse population of the state. The ruler supported the Church, returning preachers from exile, erected temples, and took care of the clergy.

Deeply revering religion, the emperor Constantine the Great wished to find the Life-Creating Cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. To do this, the ruler sends his mother to Jerusalem, endowing her with powers and material means. Queen Elena with the help of the Jerusalem Patriarch Macarius found the Cross in 326 AD. During her stay in Palestine, Elena performed many righteous deeds for the church. By her order, all the places that in one way or another were connected with the life of Christ and his mother were cleansed of traces of paganism. In these holy places churches were erected. The Emperor Constantine ordered to erect a temple of the Lord's Resurrection above the cave with the grave of the Lord.

Queen Elena gave the found Cross to the patriarch for storage, taking with him a small part. After returning to Constantinople, she soon died (in 327). For the deeds for the church and the works on finding the Cross, Queen Helen was called Equal-to-the-Apostles.

But soon disagreements and heresies appear in the church. It should be said that even at the beginning of the reign of the emperor Constantine, the heresy of the Novatians and Donatists arose, which was first rejected by two cathedrals, and then finally condemned in 316 by the Milan Council.

In the East, meanwhile, the teaching of Arius arose, rejecting the divinity of Jesus. In this connection, in 325 AD, the Ecumenical Council was convened in Nicaea by order of Constantine. Here heresy Aria was condemned, the Creed was formed . It included the concept of the "One-Essential Father". Thus, in the minds of Christians the truth about the Divinity of Christ was forever fixed.

After the Ecumenical Council, Constantine continued to work for the good of the church, despite the fact that he remained a pagan.

In 326 the emperor ruled for twenty-one years. One of the personal tragedies of the ruler was his trial of his beloved son and heir of Krishmom, exposed in a conspiracy. Despite the fact that the emperor had three more sons from Fausta's second wife, Constantine felt lonely, believing that people around him needed him only because he could give them a huge empire.

The ruler adopted the baptism at the end of life. Konstantin died in 337 on the day of Pentecost.