First Ruler

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

Constantine was the first Roman Emperor (306-337) to fight wars in the name of Christianity. Bishops soon accompanied his troops, and since 317 no battle was fought without the "Labarum," the ensign with the initial letters of Christ. Although Constantine himself was not baptized until on his deathbed, under Constantine the Christian religion had become legal (edict of tolerance 313). After defeating his opponent Maxentius (drowned in the river Tiber, Rome), breaking the alliance with his brother-in-law, the eastern emperor Licinius, Constantine started a war in the year 324 that was fought as a crusade from the beginning and was to annihilate the troops of Licinius. Although Constantine's sister pleaded for the life of her husband, who was exiled to Thessalonike, Constantine again broke his oath and had him murdered there. But Constantine also had another brother-in-law of his murdered, as well as the son of Licinius, his own illegitimate son Crispus, and even his allegedly adulterous wife Fausta (who was found to be innocent afterwards). [DA510]
Thus, according to Church Father Lactantius, Constantine was "a model of Christian virtue and holiness."
Constantine also intervened in the controversy between Arius, a well known scholar and minister of the Baukalis Church, Alexandria, and Church Father Athanasius, who declared Arius to be a heretic. Athanasius forged a letter in the name of Constantine, calling for the death penalty for all who kept any of Arius' writings. Constantine had him sent into exile, but immediately after his death Athanasius was pardoned by the emperor's son, Constantius II in 337. [DA375-401]