The Great Persecution Begins

A regime that had yoked order to divine favor now tried to compel belief. In 303, imperial edicts escalated earlier tests into a general assault on Christian institutions: church buildings to be torn down, scriptures burned, Christian officials stripped of rank, and public sacrifices demanded on pain of punishment [2]. The orders rolled out from Nicomedia and were enforced most fiercely in the East.

In Palestine and Egypt, Eusebius of Caesarea saw it up close. He recorded doors broken, congregations scattered, and martyrs tried in provincial courts. Alexandria—already hardened by Diocletian’s presence in 297–298—felt the policy like a second siege. The sound was splintering wood and crowds pressed into squares; the color, the orange of burnings and the purple of magistrates’ robes [2].

The state framed the campaign as a defense of unity. Christians, in the edicts’ view, refused the sacrifices that bound soldiers and citizens to the gods who protected Rome. If prices could be fixed by decree, so too could ritual be restored by law. The Tetrarchy aligned legal compulsion with sacral monarchy, confident that policy and piety were one.

Enforcement varied with geography and zeal. In the West, Constantius and his officials were milder; in the Balkans and East, prisons filled. Some complied; some resisted; some leaders hedged. But the apparatus—edicts, courts, punishments—was systematic, and the years 303–305 gave the persecution its bleak rhythm [2][16].