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Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without belonging (Blackwell, 1994) Davies, Rupert E. et al. A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (3 vol. Wipf & Stock, 2017). online; Gilley, Sheridan, and W. J. Sheils. A History of Religion in Britain: Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to the Present (1994) 608pp excerpt and text ...
The process of Christianisation and timing of the adoption of Christianity varied by region and was not necessarily a one-way process, with the traditional religion regaining dominance in most kingdoms at least once after their first Christian king. Kings likely often converted for political reasons such as the imposition by a more powerful ...
The new inhabitants practiced Anglo-Saxon paganism, a polytheistic religion in which multiple gods were worshipped, among them Woden, Thor, and Tiw. Woden was the king of the gods, and early English kings traced their ancestry back to him (see Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies). [8] Christianity survived in the Brittonic kingdoms of the west and north.
After 380, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire, and there was some sort of formal church organisation in Britain led by bishops. In the 5th century, the end of Roman rule and invasions by Germanic pagans led to the destruction of any formal church organisation in England.
Christianity had been introduced into the British Isles during the Roman occupation. [66] The early Christian Berber author, Tertullian, writing in the 3rd century, said that "Christianity could even be found in Britain". [67] The Roman Emperor Constantine (306–337) granted official tolerance to Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313. [68]
There is evidence for Christianity in Roman Britain as early as the 3rd century. After the fall of the Roman Empire, England was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, who were pagans, and the Celtic church was confined to Cornwall and Wales. [5] In 597, Pope Gregory I sent missionaries to England to Christianise the Anglo-Saxons.
Reformers and early church leaders were persecuted in the first decades of the Reformation, but the non-conformist movement survived nonetheless. As a result of the Reformation, Protestantism is the most widely practiced religion in the modern United Kingdom, even though active participation in the church has declined in recent years.
There is also evidence for the continuation of Christianity in south and east Britain. The Christian shrine at St Albans and its martyr cult survived throughout the period (see Gildas above). There are references in Anglo-Saxon poetry, including Beowulf, that show some interaction between pagan and Christian practices and values. While there is ...