| Abstract: | The time period I will specifically focus on is from 312 to 604 A.D. This era opens with the Emperor Constantine giving his personal sanction to Christianity as a lawful religion in the Roman Empire. The bishop of Rome at this time is Militades, a man who most of his life as a Christian, and especially as the bishop of Rome, was constantly in hiding and fearful for his life. Many, many thousands like him had only shortly before 'returned to the dust' as martyrs; the result of several centuries of Christian persecution. Militades is the 32nd bishop of Rome in succession to Peter. This era of time in consideration then moves on through the next 32 men who fill the papal office in Rome, covering the powerful and somewhat well known bishops like Damasus, Leo I, and Gregory I, as well as many of the less well known but still significant bishops like Sylvester, Liberius, Boniface and Symmachus, as well as some of the anti-popes of this era. My research will end with the death of Gregory the Great in 604, as the church under his leadership begins to expand to all of western Europe, with great ecclesiastical as well as civil power beginning to consolidate at the mantle of the Roman Pontiff. |
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