The Church and the Roman Empire (301-490): Constantine, Councils, and the Fall of Rome

Winner of a 2020 Catholic Press Association book award (first place, best new religious book series).

Suspense, politics, sin, death, sex, and redemption: Not the plot of the latest crime novel, but elements of the true history of the Catholic Church.

Larger-than-life figures such as Athanasius of Alexandria, Augustine, and Constantine played an important part in the history of the Christianity. In The Church and the Roman Empire (AD 301-490): Constantine, Councils, and the Fall of Rome, popular Catholic author Mike Aquilina gives readers a vivid and engaging account of how Christianity developed and expanded as the Roman Empire declined.

Aquilina explores the dramatic backstory of the Council of Nicaea and why Christian unity and belief are still expressed by the Nicene Creed. He also sets the record straight about commonly held misconceptions about the Catholic Church.

In this book, you will learn:

• The Edict of Milan didn't just legalize Christianity; it also established religious tolerance for all faiths for the first time in history.
• The growth of Christianity inspired a more merciful society: crucifixion was abolished; the practice of throwing prisoners to wild beasts for entertainment was outlawed; and slave owners were punished for killing their slaves.
• Controversy between Arians and Catholics may have resulted in building more hospitals and other networks of charitable assistance to the poor.
• When Rome fell, not many people at the time noticed.

Books in the Reclaiming Catholic History series, edited by Mike Aquilina and written by leading authors and historians, bring Church history to life, debunking the myths one era at a time.

Mike Aquilina is a Catholic author, speaker, poet, and songwriter who serves as the executive vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He is a contributing editor to Angelus News and his podcast, Way of the Fathers, drops twice monthly at CatholicCulture.org.

Aquilina is the author or editor of more than sixty books, including The Fathers of the Church, The Mass of the Early Christians, and Angels of God. Aquilina has cohosted eleven series on EWTN and hosted two documentaries. Aquilina wrote the companion volumes to the NBC miniseries A.D.: The Bible Continues (2015) and the MGM remake of the movie Ben-Hur (2016). His book A History of the Church in 100 Objects earned an honorable mention in the 2018 Catholic Press Association awards. He is the editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History series and wrote The Church and the Roman Empire (301-490).

He has published hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews in periodicals such as First Things, Crisis, National Catholic Register, The Priest, Columbia, and Our Sunday Visitor. He is a frequent guest on TV and radio, including a weekly appearance on the Son Rise Morning Show.

Aquilina previously served as editor of New Covenant magazine and The Pittsburgh Catholic. He has received honors from the Catholic Press Association, including "Best Magazine" for New Covenant during his editorship and best book in the category of biography.

He lives in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area with his wife, Terri. They have six children.