page_title: History of Christianity
section_title: Arianism and the first ecumenical councils
hierarchical_section_title: History of Christianity / Late antiquity (313–476) / Arianism and the first ecumenical councils
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Version corrigée de la carte anachronique Christian_states_495_AD_(en).svg [1]
context_page_description: The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christian countries, and the Church with its various denominations, from the 1st century to the present.
  Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus in the 1st century Roman province of Judea. According to the Gospels, Jesus was a Jewish teacher and healer who proclaimed the imminent kingdom of God and was crucified c. AD 30–33. His followers believed that he was then raised from the dead and exalted by God, and would return soon at the inception of God's kingdom.
  The earliest followers of Jesus were apocalyptic Jewish Christians. The inclusion of gentiles in the developing early Christian Church caused a schism between Judaism and Jewish Christianity during the first two centuries of the Christian Era. In 313, Emperor Constantine I issued the Edict of Milan legalizing Christian worship. In 380, with the Edict of Thessalonica put forth under Theodosius I, the Roman Empire officially adopted Trinitarian Christianity as its state religion, and Christianity established itself as a predominantly Roman religion in the state church of the Roman Empire.
context_section_description: Arianism was a popular doctrine of the 4th century, which was the denial of the divinity of Christ as propounded by Arius. Although this doctrine was condemned as heresy and eventually eliminated by the Roman Church, it remained popular underground for some time. In the late 4th century, Ulfilas, a Roman bishop and an Arian, was appointed as the first bishop to the Goths, the Germanic peoples in much of Europe at the borders of and within the Empire. Ulfilas spread Arian Christianity among the Goths, firmly establishing the faith among many of the Germanic tribes, thus helping to keep them culturally distinct.
  During this age, the first ecumenical councils were convened. They were mostly concerned with Christological disputes. The First Council of Nicaea (325) and the First Council of Constantinople (381) resulted in condemnation of Arian teachings as heresy and produced the Nicene Creed.
caption: Spread of Arianism in Western Europe
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