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State church of the Roman Empire
Nicene Christianity
became the
state church of the Roman Empire
with the
Edict of Thessalonica
in 380 CE, when Emperor
Theodosius I
made it the
Empire's
sole
authorized religion
. The
Eastern Orthodox Church
,
Oriental Orthodoxy
, and the
Catholic Church
each claim to be the historical continuation of this church in its original form, but do not identify with it in the
caesaropapist
form that it took later. Unlike
Constantine I
, who with the
Edict of Milan
of 313 CE had established tolerance for Christianity without placing it above other religions and whose
involvement in matters of the Christian faith
extended to convoking councils of bishops who were to determine doctrine and to presiding at their meetings, but not to determining doctrine himself, Theodosius established a single Christian doctrine, which he specified as that professed by
Pope Damasus I of Rome
and
Pope Peter II of Alexandria
, as the state's official religion.
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