Emperor and Saint Constantine: From Paganism to Christianity

A few days back, we discussed how Christianity, in one century, traveled the distance and became a state religion from a persecuted cult (Christianity: From a Persecuted Cult to the State Religion). Now, we discuss the central figure of this story: Constantine the Great.

Emperor Constantine is a very interesting figure, He is called Constantine, the great, for his unifying of the Roman Empire, for being the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity and giving Christianity the role of state religion, and for his many other administrative and military reforms. He was also the first ruler to commission churches in the Holy Land and founded the great city of Constantinople (currently Istanbul). He convened and presided over the first ecumenical council in Nicaea (currently İznik, Turkey), although he was not yet baptized. The council of bishops was convened in 325 AD. The council agreed on the Nicene Creed (a summary of the proper Christian faith) that declared the divinity of Christ and that God the Father and God the Son are one being, thereby rejecting the idea that there was once a time when God the Father existed but God the Son did not. The Nicene Creed is one of the most important creeds in Christianity. For all his achievements in Christianity, he is considered a saint by Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church considers him isapóstolos (equal to the Apostles), a rank bestowed only on a few saints, and called the "thirteenth apostle."

Father Bill Olnhausen is the Pastor Emeritus of Saint Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Following are some excerpts from his blog post, from September 2019, about Emperor Constantine (the whole blog post The Story of Saint Constantine the Great can be accessed):

Was Constantine an ascetic? No. Was he a brilliant theologian? No. Was his moral life exemplary? Not always, by any means. Was he a miracle worker? No. Was he even a Christian? Not formally, until he was finally baptized almost on his deathbed. So why does the Church call him a saint? Read on... 

Constantine was ambitious. His goal was to reunite the Roman empire under himself. Maxentius was then emperor in Italy. Constantine and his army marched south [from Gaul (France)], prepared to meet his far superior forces. While crossing the Alps Constantine had a strange and transformative experience. This was the story he told ever after: In the morning sky he saw (some accounts say others saw it with him) a shining cross with the words “In this sign conquer”. Some say it was in Greek “En touto nika”, others that it was Latin “In hoc signum vincit”...  

At the time Constantine was still a pagan who seems to have worshipped the sun as the high god. But he must also have had Christian sympathies, perhaps because of his mother, for he had Christian priests accompanying his army, and they explained the vision to him. So he had the Chi-Rho painted on his army’s banners. One of the banners was kept in Constantinople for many centuries. (Probably it was destroyed by the Crusaders, along with many other things including the future of the Byzantine Empire.) The armies met at the Milvian Bridge on the River Tiber outside Rome, and Maxentius was defeated. It was October in the year 312. 

Constantine's vision of a shinning cross (by Italian renaissance artist Raphael)

 Source: The Story of Saint Constantine the Great 

Constantine was now Augustus, sole emperor of the west, but he was not like other emperors. When he marched into Rome, he did not make the customary reprisals against the vanquished. More significantly, he boldly refused to make the customary sacrifices to the Roman gods. This was dangerously “politically incorrect”, for the Roman elite were chiefly pagan. Even though Christians were highly suspect, one of his first acts was to forbid the persecution of Christians. His famous Edict of Milan, made in the year 313 jointly with Licinius, the new emperor of the east, declared tolerance for all religions. And from the beginning Constantine gave special privileges to the Church. He ruled that the Church could again own property and directed the return of seized property. He ordered the return of Christian exiles. He decreed that the Christian Lord’s Day (“Kyriake” in Greek), the day of Christ’s resurrection, be the imperial weekly holiday. (“Sunday” is a pagan name for the first day of the week.)... 

Constantine soon decided to reunite the empire under himself and under the Christian God. He and his army moved east. In May 324 the combined armies numbering over 300,000 men met outside the Greek city of Adrianopolis. (In those days wars were usually fought outside cities and did not normally involve civilians. May we please go back to the old days?) Licinius was defeated and fled and finally surrendered that September. Constantine was now sole emperor, east and west. 

Now the empire was united under the Christian God. However, to Constantine’s great frustration, Christians were not united. Far from it, there was bitter division between the Orthodox and the Arians, who denied the divinity of Christ – or it may be they just misunderstood the meaning of divinity. So one of Constantine’s first acts, the next spring, was to call a Council of Christian bishops in Nicaea, a city on the west coast of Asia Minor, to try to unite the Church. It is said 318 bishops attended. This became known as the First Ecumenical Council. Constantine himself presided and gave great honor to those who had been injured during the persecutions. It is not clear whether Constantine understood the theological issue. Above all he wanted unity. Among the bishops at the Council, at least, he got it. After some early contention, the final vote was 316 (probably) to 2 against Arius and for the Orthodox.  

All this time Constantine had never been baptized. Historians wonder why. Some people at the time (mistakenly) delayed Baptism till late in life, lest they fall into major sin after the Washing. Even the great Saint Basil, raised in a profoundly Christian family, was not baptized till he was an adult. Or maybe Constantine delayed for political reasons, not wanting to entirely abandon the pagans, so he could be emperor “to all the people”. He never explained. But early in the year 337 he fell ill and quickly was baptized. It is said he abandoned his imperial garments and wore only his white baptismal robe for the rest of his life, which was not long. He died on Pentecost, May 21, 337, and ever since on this day the Church has honored him and his mother.

Emperor Constantine thus became Saint Constantine. Was he a true believer? Maybe. He certainly made Christianity the preferred religion of his Empire, baptized, and united Christians. And Rome and Christianity were never separated after him.

Nepal: Rare example of decline in religious nationalism

The blog post is based on the masters' thesis of David Rangdrol, Uppsala University (Sweden). The thesis was written in 2007 and is titled, "Religious Nationalism in Nepal: Understanding the Demise of the Hindu Kingdom." Most of my blog posts are about countries where religious nationalism is increasing but this one will be focusing on a country where religious nationalism declined, something rare as Mr. Rangdrol explains: 

Until 2006 Nepal was known as “the only Hindu Kingdom in the world.” The Hindu attribute has its roots in the creation of Nepal in the 18th century; it was written down in the highest law of the land in 1854 and finally enshrined in the constitution from 1962 onwards. But 2006 marked a year of important transitions for Nepal: from civil war to peace, from totalitarianism to democracy, and from religious nationalism to secularism. This last point is particularly interesting given the larger context. The above-mentioned study [of 120 armed conflicts that occurred in Asia between 1946 and 2005] has found that a majority of conflicts (21 out of 31) that had a religious incompatibility at their core involved rebel groups that fought governments against secularism in order to establish religious states. Nepal on the other hand is the unique case in Asia in the past 60 years where a rebel group, the Maoists, has fought a government and included a demand for secularism in its agenda. Though the Maoist People’s War cannot be characterised primarily as an anti-religious war, the demand for a secular state was an important part of it. In any case, the most outstanding event that we will try to explain in this essay is that Nepal has officially shifted from religious nationalism to secularism in May 2006, effectively erasing an important, centennial feature of Nepal – to the dismay of Hindu nationalists.(p-7 of  Mr. Rangrol's unpublished thesis)

The literature used to help answer the research question is: Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State; Nikki R. Keddie, The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do “Fundamentalisms” Appear?; and Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World.

According to Mr. Rangdrol, following were the four main reasons for the decline of religious nationalism in Nepal:

1. There was no failed post-colonial secular nation-building experience:. Most the nations where religious nationalism has arisen in the last three decades were witness to a high expectations period after independence from European powers when a primarily secular leadership took over and led the country. However, this leadership failed to deliver and there was marked disappointment. The ensuing soul-searching by the people (and efforts of the religious elite) made religious nationalism popular. Nepal was never colonized so there was no secular legacy. Nepal was united by Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1769 as a Hindu Kingdom and remained so till 2006. Rangdrol describes how Hinduism was linked to the Nepali Kingdom from the start and how Nepali Kings and Ranas promoted Hinduism and proclaimed Nepal as the real and the only Hindu Kingdom in the world as India, despite being bigger, was ruled by initially by the Mughals and then by the British:

In 1769, Prithivi Narayan Shah, brought small independent states, chiefdoms and principalities of different ethnicities and religions under his control and created modern Nepal. The first Gorkha King declared Nepal asali Hindustan, the “true land of Hindus,” and “garden of four varnas and thirty-six jats.” The kings became widely revered as an incarnation of god Vishnu, one of the main gods of the modern Hindu pantheon. Though scholars disagree on the intensity with which Hinduisation and cultural assimilation was thereafter implemented, it remains clear that Nepal espoused the identity of a Hindu state from its very inception, and that over time non-Hindu indigenous, nature-worshipping, animist or Buddhist people have been gradually ‘Hinduized’ as a result of the conquest of the Hindu Kings and the migration of Parbatiyas (high-caste hill people) to different parts of Nepal.” In 1846, members of a powerful family, the Ranas, relegated the Gorkha monarchy to a secondary role and effectively became the rulers of Nepal, establishing a legacy of dictatorial prime ministers that lasted over a century.

The Ranas chose to build on the Hindu foundations that the Gorkha Kings had laid before them: In 1854, Jangabahadur, the first Rana minister, introduced laws based on Hinduism and divided the country hierarchically, subordinating all other nationalities to the Brahmins and Kshetris (Khas) ruling class. The civil code of 1854 the Muluki Ain (law of the land) cemented the cast system and ensured that the rulers would exercise total control over a static society: “Grounded in the Hindu idea of ritual purity, the Muluki Ain regulated the lives of every citizen from birth to death, making social or political mobility almost impossible.” From then, the process of Hinduisation under the Ranas though not overtly aggressive but rather “gradual and almost imperceptible” had its effects, of which the slow, piecemeal adoption of Hindu traditions and the dominance of the Higher castes. One political function of this was to project a distinct image of Nepal vis-à-vis India which was seen as “defiled” by Mughal Muslim rule and called pejoratively “Muglan” (land of Mughals). Jang Bahadur Rana thus spoke: “We have our own country, a Hindu rajya [state], where laws prescribe the cows shall not be slaughtered; nor women and Brahmins sentenced to capital punishment…In this age of Kali this is the only where Hindus rule.” The Rana rule came to an abrupt end in the 1950s. This tumultuous decade also saw Nepal’s first democratic experiment, which lasted until 1960 when the Gorkha dynasty staged a royal coup and took back the power it has lost to the Ranas a century before. (p-24-25)

Source: Nationalism vs. Patriotism: What will save Nepal?

In 1962, King Mahendra came up with a new constitution under which the king not only reigned but also ruled on top of a panchayat regime. The new constitution enshrined rights of all Nepalis but the position of Hinduism was also secured. Nepal was declared a Hindu kingdom and cow, the national animal, and promoting conversion of religion was prohibited. The king was the source of all power and he had to be a Hindu of Aryan descent:

Article 20: His Majesty-the Source of Power
(1) In this Constitution the words ‘His Majesty’ mean His Majesty the King for the time being reigning, being a descendant of King Prithivi Narayan Shah and adherent of Aryan culture and Hindu religion.
(2) The sovereignty of Nepal is vested in His Majesty and all powers-executive, legislative and judicial emanate from Him. These powers are exercised by His Majesty through the organs established by or under this Constitution and other laws for the time being in force keeping in view the interest and wishes of His Majesty’s subjects according to the highest traditions of the Shah dynasty. (1962 Constitution)

Furthermore, the Panchayat regime safeguarded the continuance of traditional Hindu customs and religion at the lower level.

This system continued till 1990 when large-scale demonstrations forced the king to give up power. In the aftermath, for the first time in Nepal, secularism was discussed as an alternative to religious nationalism. The 1990 constitution replaced the party-less Panchayat system with a democratic multi-party system. There were more rights for minorities and the hold of monarchy and culture and tradition (of which Hinduism was a big part) was reduced. However, Nepal was still a Hindu kingdom and cow the national animal (1990 Constitution).

The 1990 Constitution continued till 2006. The period under the 1990 Constitution was tumultuous. Nepali Maoists started a civil war in 1996 and a royal massacre happened in which Crown Prince Dipendra killed nine members of the royal family (including King and Queen) before killing himself. The new King Gyanendra also showed his assertiveness by dismissing several governments and, in the end, imposing a state of emergency to directly rule Nepal.

It is obvious from the above discussion that Nepal was never secular. It remained a united Hindu kingdom from 1769 till 2006, ruled by a Hindu god-king, who claimed to be an incarnation of one of the principal deities of Hinduism, Vishnu. 

2. Nepal was a fragile and poor country: Literature on religious nationalism indicates that a weak state may lead people and elites to look for answers to what went wrong. As mentioned above, it was the failure of the secular experiment (in terms of economic, social and political development) that has resulted in the rise of religious nationalism in many countries. Nepal had the opposite experience of these countries. It did not experience the failure of the secular experiment; it experienced the disastrous consequences of a religious experiment. As Rangdrol explains, Nepal, social and economic indicators were one of the worse in the world:

Things were not well in the Hindu Kingdom. Nepal has a history of totalitarianism, punctuated by coups, popular revolutions, and democratic experiments that only highlighted the governing elite’s political immaturity and proclivity for corruption. As the authors of People Politics and Ideology: Democracy and Social Change in Nepal explain, legitimacy rests to a great extent on economic development.125 Nepal is one of the poorest nations in Asia. Four out of ten people live with less than one Dollar a day. Nepal ranks 138 and 147 out of 177 in the Human Development and Gross Domestic Product indexes.126 The infrastructure, especially in the capital, cannot support its growing population. Traffic is abysmal and dangerous; sewage overflows daily and spreads deadly disease in the monsoon rain, and the air quality ranks Kathmandu the second most polluted city in Asia.(p-38)

Therefore, people rejected the religious nationalism and opted for something new and different i.e. secular nationalism. 

3. No internal or external enemy that belonged to another religion: Threat from religious groups, different from one's own, is one of the primary reasons for the rise in religious nationalism in many countries. When a group identifies its enemy group on the basis of their religion, religion becomes not only a marker but also the primary reason for the conflict. The enemy group can be internal or external i.e. within the borders or outside it. According to the 2001 Census, Hindus constitute more than 80% of the Nepali population. The biggest religious minority are Buddhists, who are around 8% of the population, and most Hindus consider them a part of Hinduism, not a minority. Muslims and Christians, around 4% and 0.5% respectively, are the only "real" minorities but there was no history of tension between Hindus and Muslims and Christian as described by Rangdol:

Religious nationalist movements are typically exploiting threats of an “other,” which helps them mobilise people to their cause. But that “other” is difficult to locate in Nepal. Nepal was never a colony, neither Christians nor Muslims invaded it, it has experienced no large-scale inter-religious violence nor any other type of traumatic event that can be credibly blamed on this or that religious minority...it is clear that religious demographics show a solid Hindu majority with Buddhists for main minority. It is not customary to talk about Hindu-Buddhist confrontations, and it is very difficult for most Hindus to demonise or speak of a ‘Buddhist threat’ for the simple reason that they take Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism. (p-42)

Maoists, although instrumental in the fall of religious nationalism in Nepal, were also not considered enemy:

If not the secular west, the local secular elite, or religious minorities, who else then could personify an anti-Hindu enemy? The Maoists perhaps? After all, it is them who have asked for a secular state at the point of AK-47s, and they are communists and therefore should be in principle atheists? Although many religious nationalists perceive Maoists as enemies144 – being the brute force behind the fall of the Hindu Kingdom – they have not been widely portrayed directly in terms of an “anti-religious” force.145 In general, Maoists do not fit the anti-religious/atheist communist stereotype. The Maoists seem to have managed a skilled balancing act: on the one hand harvesting the grievances left by decades of pro-Hindu discrimination, and, on the other, being careful enough not to harm Hindu or traditional sentiments. Though the CPN-M official banners display the usual communist avatars146 alongside their leader Prachanda, they have differed from Mao and some of his acolytes in that they have not proactively promoted atheism and anti-religious policies. Although it is reported that there were incidents in the People’s War, especially at the beginning, that involved iconoclastic gestures such as destroying temples or intimidating priests, they were quick to realise the strategic downside of those methods. They have managed to recruit all the marginalised people of the Hindu state system while they have also displayed respect for the Hindu religion and its traditions. (p-43)

Similarly, although Rangdol does not talk about it, there was no external enemy that belonged to another religion. Nepal has no external enemies but Nepalis often feel resentment towards India due to historic land and water disputes, the annexation of Sikkim, both actual and perceived slights by the big neighbor as well as direct intervention by India in Nepali affairs (See Bollywood Meets Nepali Nationalism). The religious "other," therefore, does not even exist outside Nepal, contributing to the decline of religious nationalism in Nepal.

4. Top-down religious nationalist structure: There were no religious nationalist political parties in Nepal during the from the 1950s to 2006. The major reason for this was the presence of Hindu king and declaration of Nepal as a Hindu kingdom. With a four-fifths majority in population and the most powerful man in Nepal on Hinduism side, there was apparently no need for a Hindu nationalist party. Compared to India, there was no history of religious mobilization in Nepal by Hindu nationalists. Therefore, when the king was ousted, religious nationalism went with him:

Part of the reason why there were no Hindu nationalist parties even in the 1990s rests on the historical structure of religious nationalism in Nepal: its top-bottom configuration. Hindu nationalism had been imposed from the top with authoritarian means from the very beginning. The institution of Kingship always secured the Hindu state, and therefore no bottom-up religiopolitical activism was ever needed to maintain religious nationalism...If one compares this trajectory to India the contrast is telling. In India, Hindu nationalism has a century of training by trial and error...In Nepal, with the King in a corner and intensified Maoist pressure, no strong alternative mediums were there to protect the interests of the Hindu state, and none of the political parties saw it as a vital part of their agenda. Hindu political parties did not emerge because there was no demand or need for them; state Hinduness was secure with the King. The 1990 secular debate was an alarming moment Hindu nationalists did not heed, there was no such instinct, no such culture. But not much could be expected in such a short lapse of time because social networks take time to form. (p-48)

Religious Conversion Laws and Religious Nationalism

Religious conversion laws are generally anti-religious conversion as they try to make the process of religious conversions difficult. These laws can be an indicator of growing religious nationalism. Religious nationalist countries usually have these laws as conversion from majority religion is considered tantamount to disloyalty to the state. As religion is conflated with the state, a change in religion (usually from state-preferred religion to another religion) is considered not only a rejection of previous religion but also a rejection of the state. 

Today, religious conversion was in the news because Myanmar/ Burmese authorities published the draft of a bill that would make it difficult to convert from one religion to another. The draft was published to get the opinion of the public. The proposed law is the result of efforts by Buddhist groups to stop/slow/restrict religious conversion. Although the draft law does not mention any specific religion, it is clear the effort is to stop conversion from the majority religion (Buddhism), rather than to it. News report gives the following details ( See  Myanmar Publishes Draft of Religious Conversion Bill):

Myanmar’s government on Tuesday published a draft bill on religious conversion, calling for public opinion on rules proposed by nationalist Buddhist monks which would require those who want to change faiths to first obtain permission from local authorities. Under the proposed law, anyone who wants to change their faith is required to apply to local registration teams—consisting of religious affairs, immigration, women’s affairs, education, and administration officials—for permission.

If passed, those found to be guilty of violating a list of prohibitions—which includes obstructing someone from converting—would be subject to a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 kyats (U.S. $200). Anyone found guilty of proselytizing could face up to a year in prison, though there is no mention of whether any action would be taken against someone who did not obtain permission to convert.

Organization of Protection of Race, Religion and Belief, a Buddhist group, pressurized the government to propose these laws after a public campaign that collected 1.3 million signatures last year. Myanmar is drifting toward religious nationalism as discussed in this blog before (See Buddhist Fundamentalism: Is it possible?).

Many Muslim religious nationalist states have religious conversion laws or restrict conversion from Islam through courts. In Saudi Arabia, for example,  religious conversion from Islam is termed as apostasy, a crime that carries the death sentence. Similarly, Iran criminalizes apostasy. In Pakistan, apostasy is not a crime despite religious parties efforts but apostates can be charged under the blasphemy law that carries the death penalty. 

Many countries that are drifting toward religious nationalism, like Myanmar, have been consistently pressurized by their majority religious groups to pass religious conversion laws. In some federations, like Malaysia and India, although there are no specific national laws on religious conversion, there are laws at the state/provincial level that restrict religious conversion.

The recent landslide victory of BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, have revived aspirations or fears of a national (anti) religious conversion law. BJP has supported religious conversion laws at the state level (See Narendra Modi (BJP) election win good for Indian economy, but scary for Christian minority) and BJP leaders have vowed to bring such law, if they win elections in 2014 (See ‘BJP will bring law against religious conversions if voted to power’).


Anti-conversion laws in Indian states

Source: Conversion of religion: India (legal aspects) 

Religious conversions are bound to increase as people have more opportunities to know about other religions so pressure from majority religious groups in states based on religious nationalism would also increase to restrict/ban religious conversions (from the majority religion, not to the majority religion). 

    

 Update: Myanmar Parliament passed the anti-conversion law in August 2015.