State church
The persecutions culminated with Diocletian and Galerius at the end of the third and beginning of the 4th century. Beginning with a series of four edicts banning Christian practices and ordering the imprisonment of Christian clergy, the persecution intensified until all Christians in the empire were commanded to sacrifice to the gods or face immediate execution. This persecution lasted until Constantine I, along with Licinius, legalized Christianity in 313. It was not until Theodosius I in the later 4th century that Christianity would become the State church of the Roman Empire. Between these two events Julian II temporarily restored the traditional Greco-Roman religion and established broad religious tolerance renewing Pagan and Christian hostilities.