India, June 30 -- hristianity, a major religion of the world, stemmed from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, or the Anointed One of God in the 1 st century common era. Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome. On February 27, 380, in Thessaloniki, the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I (347 - 395) signed a decree in the presence of the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian-II that made Christianity the religion of the state and punished the practice of pagan rituals. As the capital of the empire, Rome was the natural centre for the growing church which put a name to every bishop in an unbroken line back to the 1st century of the Christian era. St Peter was the first pope.

The Catholic Church we...