Government Religious Policies / Toleration

Period 1 – Foundational Era - 10,000 BCE – 600 BCE

·         Conquered city-states or regions usually adopted the religion of their conquerors, seeing their gods or religion as ‘superior’ and the reason for their loss

·         Persian empire allows conquered peoples to maintain language, culture, and religion

·         Mandate of Heaven linked Chinese rulers and dynasties with the gods and their favor

Period 2 – Classical Era – 600 BCE – 600 CE

·         Maryann leader Ashoka attempted to spread Buddhism, constructing stupas and establishing monasteries, but Hindu caste system remained dominant in diverse India

·         Roman empire banned, opposed, and persecuted Christians, later making it their official religion with the Edict of Thessalonica in 385 CE

·         Roman Catholic Church established with the pope and the Roman hierarchy mimicked in the Catholic Church’s structure

·         Han China officially supported and enforced Confucian ideals and beliefs, and opposing Daoism

·         Han Chinese (and future dynasties) conquest tended to replace rather than syncretize the race and culture of those incorporated to their empire

Period 3 – Post-Classical Era – 600 CE - 1450 CE

·         Eastern Orthodoxy made the official religion of the Byzantine Empire after the East/West Schism with the Roman Catholic Church in the 11th century

·         Caesaropapism initially attempted in the Eastern Orthodox Church, then abandoned in favor of the Patriarch of Constantinople and Roman Catholic hierarchy mimicked

·         Mongols did not enforce their shamanistic religious beliefs on conquered territories, leaving no religious or cultural legacy (although several Mongol tribes and khanates later adopted Islam)

·         Caliphs ruled over caliphates as direct stewards of Allah, able to impact religious and state law; sultans limited to enforcing Islam but only impacting state law

·         Dhimmis status and jizya tax adopted in the caliphates to protect the rights of Jews and Christians, but give them tax and social incentives to convert to Islam

·         Due to Buddhism undermining Confucian social and political hierarchies, and wanting the wealth in Buddhist shrines and temples, the Tang Dynasty brutally outlawed, opposed, and destroyed Buddhism, Buddhist monks, and Buddhist monasteries in 843 CE under emperor Wuzong

·         Neoconfucianism reintroduced by Han Lu and the Song Dynasty to reinforce Confucian beliefs

·         Ghana, Mali, and other West African state leaders adopt Islam but do not enforce it as an official state religion

Period 4 – Early Modern Era – 1450 CE – 1750 CE

·         After a Christian revolt, Tokugawa Japan violently puts down the rebellion, and bans all Christianity and foreign beliefs

·         Sunni Islam the official religion of the Turkic Ottoman Empire

·         Shi’a Islam the official religion of the Persian Safavid Empire

·         Delhi Sultanate struggles to impose Islam on a largely Hindu population in India

·         Catholicism firmly established in the Catholic states of Spain (Charles V and Philip II), Portugal, Holy Roman Empire, France (after the French Wars of religion) and the Italian city-states

·         Protestantism dominate in Northern German lands, Scandinavia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Wales, and Scotland

·         Anglican Church establishes monarch (Henry XIII) as official head of the Church of England (1530s)

·         Peace of Augsburg allows Lutheranism or Catholicism in the GRE (1555)

·         Act of Supremacy and Act of Uniformity codify and re-establish the monarch at the head of the Anglican Church (1558)

·         Edict of Nantes (1598) ends persecution of French Huguenots by the French state, following St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572

·         Peace of Westphalia after Thirty Years War allows religious toleration in the HRE (1648)

·         Religious pluralism and toleration allowed in the Netherlands following freedom from Spain in 1648

·         West African states, such as Ghana and the Songhay Empire, adopted Islam but did not enforce it as the official state religion

Period 5 – Modern Era – 1750 CE – 1900 CE

·         Greater and complete religious freedom was implemented and guaranteed in the West following the Enlightenment and the rise of constitutionalism during the 19th century

·         Frederick the Great and Joseph II enact religious toleration in Prussia and Austria respectively in the mid-18th century due to the influence of Enlightenment ideals

·         Catherine the Great separates the Eastern Orthodox Church from the state of Russia due to Enlightenment influence during the 18th century

·         Enlightenment skepticism resulted in a decline in the role of religion in the West, and the beginnings of atheism and agnosticism

Period 6 – Contemporary Era – 1900 CE - Present

·         The elimination of dhimmis status and jizya in the Ottoman Empire failed to keep native-Christian Slavs in the Balkans cooperative as they moved for independence in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913)

·         Communist states in the Soviet Union removal and oppose all forms of religion

·         Muhammed Ali Jinnah moves for the separation of a Muslin Pakistan from India during the British Partition

·         Christianity moves from a view of tolerance towards state governments (even if corrupt) to that of opposition in the face of totalitarian dictators  (Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church) as Nazis attempt to ban and oppose Confessing church members

·         Creation of the first Jewish state in Israel, 1947

·         The Catholic Polish trade union is persecuted, banned, and suppressed by the Soviet Union in their anti-democratic and anti-religious campaign