Constantine

[wittgenstein]

I was going to include this in the “how much can a Catholic disagree with the church” thread and then realized that I knew that the eastern church considers him a saint, but not if Rome does.
Anyway,what does the Catholic church think of him? If a person accepted every Catholic belief but despised Constantine, would that person still be Catholic? I do not even consider him a Christian. Just someone that pretended to believe in order to unify his kingdom.

 

[GreatergoodGod]

Constantine seems to be a dividing point for some Christians. Some say that Christianity turned political, or that his conversion was a political move. I personally believe that he was a practicing Christian and the fruits of this can be seen in that Christianity did become the state religion of the Roman empire.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

I was going to include this in the “how much can a Catholic disagree with the church” thread and then realized that I knew that the eastern church considers him a saint, but not if Rome does.
Anyway,what does the Catholic church think of him? If a person accepted every Catholic belief but despised Constantine, would that person still be Catholic? I do not even consider him a Christian. Just someone that pretended to believe in order to unify his kingdom.

You obviously are either not a Catholic or have a background in the early history of the Catholic Church.
It is not incumbant upon Catholics to approve or disapprove of the Emperor Constantine even though he is a Saint in both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.One of the reasons for this is that he was the first Roman Emperor to ban the official persecution of Christians with his Edict of Milan in the year 313 A.D. He also was the first Roman Emperor to be Baptized as a Christian -even though it was on his death bed.
St. Constantine lived the life of a Christian for many years before he was Baptized mainly because of the influence of his mother and wife. both of whom were Christians.
You say that you dispise him because his conversion was due to political expediency…You are completely wrong in this.
I strongly suggest that you research both the life of St. Constantine as well as the history of the early Catholic Church before you make any judgment about Constantine or any other historical figure. In addition, you have to realize that it is a major mistake to judge any historical figure by modern standards!