Saint Constantine, really?

Status
Not open for further replies.
BlueKumul said:
I know monarchy can be righteous, but Constantine killed many people while fighting for throne.
Click to expand...
Do you understand that we are not the ones who decide “who is and who isn’t” the saint? Canonisations are brought by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

All saints were sinners. (except Our Lady Mary the Mother of God) And there were many saints who committed adultery (St Augustine, King David), there were those who murdered many people (St Paul). But they stopped, and then stood closer to God than most of us will ever be able to.

And the question “Saint Constantine, really?” implies that you try to put yourself in the place of the judge who you think can or cannot become a saint. Just stop. We don’t know the secrets of these people’s souls.
 
Last edited:
Just trying to understand what he did that made him a saint.

We cannot know the secrets of Osama bin Laden’s soul either.
 
Last edited:
Yes you express very well my own first reaction to this thread
 
BlueKumul said:
Just trying to understand what he did that made him a saint.
Click to expand...
Largely because he undertook the arduous task of abolishing widespread discrimination (political, judicial, religious, etc.) against Christianity in the Roman Empire with the Edict of Milan. This was an exceptionally momentous occasion in Christian history because it marked the first time that Christians could freely practice their religion without the threat of some sanction or another, from property confiscation (with ensuing destitution) to execution.
 
As far as we are concerned, he isn’t a saint. But he did some very great things; he introduced religious tolerance and gave Christianity a special place in the Roman Empire; he called the Council of Nicea and he enabled his mother St Helena to recover some of our most important relics.
 
Because he ended the persecution of Christians, his mother St. Helena discovered the Holy Cross, and because there are miracles performed in his name.
All saints had sins and some waged wars. St. David ran wars, St Elli killed Jezebel’s priests for example. St. Joan of Arc also killed people in her wars.
The only people I found complaining about Constantine are those regretting Christianity becoming an official state religion in the Roman Empire. Some think this corrupted the Apostles’ message. But I also wonder if the same people doubting Constantine today could handle being Christians under Diocletian or under stress and persecution…
 
Mary888 said:
Because he ended the persecution of Christians, his mother St. Helena discovered the Holy Cross, and because there are miracles performed in his name.
All saints had sins and some waged wars. St. David ran wars, St Elli killed Jezebel’s priests for example. St. Joan of Arc also killed people in her wars.
The only people I found complaining about Constantine are those regretting Christianity becoming an official state religion in the Roman Empire. Some think this corrupted the Apostles’ message. But I also wonder if the same people doubting Constantine today could handle being Christians under Diocletian or under stress and persecution…
Click to expand...
If miracles have been performed in his name then why does the Latin Church NOT recognise him as a saint.
 
Montrose said:
If miracles have been performed in his name then why does the Latin Church NOT recognise him as a saint.
Click to expand...
Technically, the Latin Church accepts all saints of the Eastern Catholic Church.

However, the Latin Church is unlikely to publicly venerate Eastern saints who weren’t traditionally venerated in the West as well. In other words, a Latin Catholic can venerate St. Constantine or St. Uriel, but don’t look for a Roman Catholic Church named “St. Constantine” any time soon.
 
Mary888 said:
The only people I found complaining about Constantine are those regretting Christianity becoming an official state religion in the Roman Empire. Some think this corrupted the Apostles’ message.
Click to expand...
A couple of months ago I started a thread here, hoping to discover the origin of the expressions “Constantinian Christianity” and “the Constantinian shift.” The thread didn’t get very far. Maybe you can help?
40.png
Where and when did the expression "Constantinian Christianity" originate? Who coined it? Popular Media
From time to time we hear (or read) the expression “Constantinian Christianity”. It seems to be a fairly recent term, though I don’t know exactly who originated it, and when. I found three names, Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, and Cornel West, but whether it dates back earlier than any of these three, I don’t know. It seems to be used, invariably, in a derogatory sense, implying that “Constantinian Christianity” is an inferior, second-rate kind of religion. We don’t see people describing t…
Click to expand...
 
BartholomewB said:
“the Constantinian shift.”
Click to expand...
The name that I most frequently see associated with that term in scholarship is the Anabaptist theologian J. H. Yoder.

My inkling is that historiographical debates on Constantine and Christianity mostly concern Protestant scholars. It seems to be a continuation of the Reformation disagreement on the relationship between Church and state amongst the Magisterial Reformers (e.g. Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist) and the Radical Reformers (e.g. Anabaptist): the former favoured a relationship, the latter did not.
 
Why would killing people and running an authoritarian state bar someone from sainthood? Is forgiveness not available to all?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It’s my understanding that Constantine was baptized on his deathbed, which would have absolved his sins provided he repented.
Click to expand...
Vico said:
Constantine the first was baptized at the end of his life, just before his death in 337 A.D…
Click to expand...
Problem is that he wasn’t baptized an Orthodox Catholic, but an Arian heretic, and his baptism would not have been valid in the eyes of the Church.
 
Jbrady said:
40.png
Tis_Bearself:
It’s my understanding that Constantine was baptized on his deathbed, which would have absolved his sins provided he repented.
Click to expand...
Vico said:
Constantine the first was baptized at the end of his life, just before his death in 337 A.D…
Click to expand...
Problem is that he wasn’t baptized an Orthodox Catholic, but an Arian heretic, and his baptism would not have been valid in the eyes of the Church.
Click to expand...
Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia baptised Constantine and Eusebius of Nicomedia signed the Confession of Nicaea, professing belief per the Nicene Creed.
 
Eusebius of Nicomedia was a professed Arian, there is no doubt about that. The question is, if he used the prescribed Trinitarian formula, would his professed Arianism have somehow invalidated the baptism?

This is the concluding paragraph of the long article about him in the old online Catholic Encyclopedia:

Eusebius died, full of years and honors, probably soon after the council; At all events he was dead before that of Sardica. He had arrived at the summit of his hopes. He may really have believed Arian doctrine, but clearly his chief aim had ever been his own aggrandizement, and the humiliation of those who had humbled him at Nicæa. He had succeeded. His enemies were in exile. His creatures satin the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. He was bishop of the imperial city, and the young emperor obeyed his counsels. If Epiphanius is right in calling him an old man even before Nicæa he must now have reached a great age. His work lived after him. He had trained a group of prelates who continued his intrigues, and who followed the court from place to place throughout the reign of Constantius. More than this, it may be said that the world suffers to this day from the evil wrought by this worldly bishop.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05623b.htm
 
Last edited:
Wherever did you get that farfetched and fanciful idea? Certainly from nothing I wrote. You have quite the imagination.

I am saying that it is strange that they venerate someone who lived after Christ but had never been an Orthodox Christian as a Saint, and I’m curious how that came about.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top