A Brief History of Upheavals – The Fall of the Roman Empire

The next stop on our tour of 500-year Western Christian upheavals is the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which occurred circa 476 AD. Now, it is important to note that the precise dating both of the fall of Rome and the of the upheavals themselves is not possible because both events are not actually events at all but are rather extended movements. And even these movements are difficult to pinpoint to a specific date range as they are the result of decades (even centuries) of precipitating events, and likewise, the aftershocks of these upheaval movements are experienced decades (even centuries) after the upheaval itself has subsided (not surprisingly, the aftershocks of one upheaval often become the precipitating events of the next). Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither did it fall overnight. The Empire had already been in shambles for nearly a century—a result of internal corruption and external invasion—by the time the last Roman Emperor was defeated and deposed in 476, and with his demise the Senate was disbanded and the Republic was no more. 

During this time of social, economic, and political turmoil across the known world, the Church was also in a state of upheaval. (Remember, regardless of what isolationists would lead us to believe, Church and culture are always inextricably linked, and upheaval in one will result upheaval in the other.) In the centuries since Jesus of Nazareth changed everything, the Christian community across the Roman Empire had gone from a localized, largely unnoticed Jewish sect, to a regional, increasingly problematic (in the eyes of many traditional Jewish communities) movement, to an Empire-wide, new and unwelcomed, religion. The persecution that followed has been well-documented as, for the better part of three centuries, Christians were murdered by gladiators, fed to wild animals, burned alive, and much worse, because of their faith in Jesus. But despite this rabid and widespread persecution, the Christian Church grew in size and influence across the Empire, until in one of the most dramatic twists in Church history, an Emperor of Rome named Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 AD. Constantine had already begun to enact protections for Christian communities around the world at the urging of his mother, Helena, who was herself a devout Christian, but with his own conversion, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which effectively made Christianity the favored religion of the Empire. Within just a few centuries, this upstart movement started by a Jewish carpenter (stonemason?) in the Galilee had effectively “conquered” the Roman Empire not through military might, political prowess, or economic influence, but through humble faith and courageous sacrifice.

However, the newfound freedom and influence that the Church enjoyed under Constantine and subsequent emperors was not all positive, as for the first time in its history, the Christian Church experienced the danger of political power. With Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome in 380, Christian leaders began to exert tremendous influence over not only the spiritual life of the Empire but also over its economics and politics. As a result, the Church began to rely less on the Holy Spirit and more on its own power and machinations. The vibrant, humble, courageous faith that had defined and contributed directly to the success of the early persecuted Church was replaced with an institutionalized, largely feckless, and often corrupt religious hierarchy in this period of legalized Christianity. They, as Jeremiah lamented, “Exchanged their glory for worthless idols” (Jeremiah 2:11).

In this, again, the Church mirrored the larger culture. As Rome crumbled from the inside and, subsequently, became vulnerable from the outside, so too did the Church. Corruption, hubris, greed, and the relentless pursuit of power led to infighting, which rendered the Church largely ineffective in evangelism and discipleship. So, as Rome became increasingly barbarian—the result of Germanic invaders sacking and then settling in the city—it also became increasingly pagan, and Christian doctrine was watered down as these “new Romans” blended together their polytheistic religions and the Christian faith. In other words, while the city and the Empire were on the brink of collapse, so was the Church (and, interestingly, so too was Western culture at large. In the century and a half that it enjoyed power and influence, the Church became the center of art and academia for the Roman Empire).

However, all would not be lost because, as we’ve already discussed, upheavals not all about destruction but are also opportunities for creation. When the old, encrusted structures crumble, new life begins to grow through the cracks. 

As the Church grew increasingly corrupt and powerless, Rome increasingly barbarian and syncretistic, and the Empire as a whole increasingly lawless and unstable, devout Church leaders and scholars began to flee urban regions in order to establish new stable communities in rural areas. They took with them both the knowledge and culture of the Western world, saving it from almost certain destruction at the hands of the barbarians who now controlled Rome, and a purer and more “personal” version of the Christian faith. This was the beginning of what is now known as the monastic movement, its leaders monks, and their communities monasteries.

The impact of these monks and their monasteries on the Christian movement—to say nothing, again, of their impact on Western culture as a whole—cannot be overstated. Following men like Benedict of Nursia, they established “rules of life” built upon spiritual practices like prayer, Scripture, community, fasting, simplicity, and more. The resulting community was a refreshing and needed change from the institutionalized Church or Rome. It replaced power with humility, greed with chosen poverty, status with service, and hierarchy with community. Within these monasteries, the law was personal devotion, first to God, and then to one another. And, through this devotion, they created bastions of stability in an increasingly unstable world. They truly became the light of the world and the salt of the earth that Jesus called his follower to be. And so these small, humble communities, born from the chaos of the collapse of the world’s great Empire, both saved and redefined the Christian movement. We are, in many ways, still standing on their shoulders.

So, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, cataclysmic though it was and certainly traumatizing both for individual Christians and the Church at large, paved the way for a new expression of faith. The personal spirituality that arose, cultivated in private discipline and expressed in humble service, permanently transformed the Church in the most compelling of ways. Without this upheaval, the Church as we know it would be significantly lesser, if it would still exist at all.