Journey through two thousand years of the events, people, ideas, and conflicts that shaped Christianity.
Follow the apostles and martyrs, the great councils, the split between East and West, the Reformation, and the missions that made it a global faith.
Meet every pope from Saint Peter to Leo XIV, and the antipopes who challenged them.
Every Bishop of Rome from Saint Peter to Leo XIV, by papal era, with the antipopes who claimed the office. Dates before about 222 are traditional.
A Journey Through the Ages
Christianity began as a Jewish movement around a crucified teacher from Galilee and became the faith of about a third of humanity.
Persecuted for three centuries, it was embraced by Rome, defined by councils, divided between East and West, and carried by monks and missionaries across Europe, Africa and Asia.
The Reformation divided Western Christendom. Revivals, revolutions and global missions followed, and in the twentieth century the centre of gravity of Christianity moved to the Global South.
Explore the eight periods below through selected events from the timeline. Population figures are scholarly estimates, not censuses.
200 BCE – 29
The Jewish world into which Jesus was born.
Judaism under Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman rule, with messianic hope, synagogues, the Septuagint and a wide diaspora, formed the world in which Christianity was born.
The revolt against Antiochus IV restored Temple worship and left a lasting hope of God-given deliverance.
Pharisees, Sadducees and the Qumran community debated law, purity and the end of days.
Pompey, Herod and the Roman prefects brought Judea under imperial control and heavy taxation.
John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth called Israel to repentance before the coming kingdom.
30 – 99
From a Galilean movement to churches across the Roman world.
From the ministry and crucifixion of Jesus to the death of the last apostles, the first Christians spread from Jerusalem across the Roman world and wrote the texts of the New Testament.
The crucifixion of Jesus and the proclamation that he had risen became the foundation of the new faith.
Paul's journeys carried the message from Antioch to Greece and Rome, opening it to non-Jews.
Stephen, James, Peter and Paul died as martyrs under Jewish and Roman authorities.
Letters and Gospels written within two generations became Christianity's founding scriptures.
Population estimate: Johnson & Chung, 'Tracking Global Christianity's Statistical Centre of Gravity, AD 33–AD 2100', International Review of Mission 93 (2004)
100 – 311
A persecuted minority that built bishops, creeds and a canon.
In the age of the Apostolic Fathers and apologists, the church developed bishops, creeds and a canon of scripture while facing intermittent and sometimes severe persecution.
Ignatius, Justin and Irenaeus defended the faith and shaped church order around the bishop.
Local and empire-wide persecutions, from Polycarp to Perpetua, made martyrdom central to Christian identity.
Marcion, Montanism and Gnosticism pushed the church toward a canon and a shared rule of faith.
Christianity reached Edessa, Armenia and the Egyptian desert, where Anthony began the monastic life.
Population estimate: Johnson & Chung, 'Tracking Global Christianity's Statistical Centre of Gravity, AD 33–AD 2100', International Review of Mission 93 (2004)
312 – 787
From imperial recognition to defining Christian doctrine.
From Constantine to the Second Council of Nicaea, Christianity became the religion of the empire, defined its doctrine in seven ecumenical councils, built monasticism and faced the rise of Islam.
Constantine's conversion and the Edict of Milan (313) opened a new chapter for Christianity.
Councils at Nicaea, Constantinople and beyond defined key doctrines and confronted heresies.
Christianity spread across the empire while facing the rise of Islam and new geopolitical realities.
Doctrinal definitions, creeds and church structures established in this era shaped Christianity for centuries.
Population estimate: Johnson & Chung, 'Tracking Global Christianity's Statistical Centre of Gravity, AD 33–AD 2100', International Review of Mission 93 (2004)
788 – 1516
Christendom at its height: popes, monks, crusaders and schism.
The medieval centuries saw the conversion of northern and eastern Europe, the split between East and West, papal reform, crusades, cathedrals, universities and the crises of Avignon and the Great Schism.
Missions to Slavs, Scandinavians and the Rus' brought nearly all of Europe into the Christian fold.
Disputes over authority and the creed culminated in the mutual excommunications of 1054.
The Gregorian reform raised papal power over kings, and popes summoned the crusades to the East.
Gothic cathedrals, the new friars and scholastics like Aquinas shaped medieval faith and learning.
Population estimate: Johnson & Chung, 'Tracking Global Christianity's Statistical Centre of Gravity, AD 33–AD 2100', International Review of Mission 93 (2004)
1517 – 1647
Western Christendom divided, and the church carried worldwide.
Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and the radical reformers divided Western Christianity, while the Catholic Reformation, the Council of Trent and global missions renewed the Roman church amid wars of religion.
Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and the Anabaptists challenged Rome over grace, scripture and authority.
The Council of Trent and new orders like the Jesuits reformed Catholicism and answered Protestantism.
Missionaries followed Spanish and Portuguese empires to the Americas, India, China and Japan.
Confessional conflict tore through France, the Low Countries and Germany until the Thirty Years' War.
Population estimate: Johnson & Chung, 'Tracking Global Christianity's Statistical Centre of Gravity, AD 33–AD 2100', International Review of Mission 93 (2004)
1648 – 1869
Reason and revolution tested the churches as revival swept the Protestant world.
Between Westphalia and Vatican I, Pietism, Methodism and the Great Awakenings revived Protestantism, revolutions challenged the churches, and a great missionary movement carried Christianity worldwide.
Pietists, Moravians, Wesley and the Great Awakenings stressed personal conversion and holy living.
The Enlightenment and the French Revolution weakened established churches and separated church from state.
Carey, Morrison, Livingstone and new societies carried Protestant missions to Asia and Africa.
Christian campaigners led the fight against slavery, while Rome answered modernity with the Syllabus of Errors.
Population estimate: Johnson & Chung, 'Tracking Global Christianity's Statistical Centre of Gravity, AD 33–AD 2100', International Review of Mission 93 (2004)
1870 – present
World wars, ecumenism and the southward shift of global Christianity.
From Vatican I to the present, Christianity faced world wars, totalitarian persecution and secularization, while ecumenism, Vatican II, Pentecostalism and growth in the Global South reshaped the faith.
World wars, genocides and communist regimes produced more martyrs than any earlier century.
The World Council of Churches and Vatican II opened dialogue between long-divided churches.
From Azusa Street, Pentecostal and charismatic movements grew into a major strand of world Christianity.
By the 21st century most Christians lived in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Population estimate: Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity 2026 (World Christian Database)
From Jerusalem to the World, AD 30 – Today
From a handful of followers in Jerusalem to a global faith of 2.3 billion. See where Christianity took root, which traditions shaped each land, and where it declined.
29th pope · Bishop of Rome
Roman citizen. Feast day 26 April.
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Two thousand years of Christian history have shaped calendars, laws, languages, art, learning and ideas of the human person far beyond the churches themselves, for good and for ill.
Translating the Bible into vernacular languages created written forms of languages from Gothic and Old Church Slavonic to hundreds of modern ones, and its stories and phrases run through world literature.
The Nicene Creed and centuries of theological debate shaped Western and Eastern thought about God, history, conscience and the dignity of the human person.
Monasteries preserved and copied ancient texts, and cathedral schools grew into the first universities at Bologna, Paris and Oxford.
Churches commissioned much of the architecture, painting, icon-making and music of the last two millennia, from Hagia Sophia and the Gothic cathedrals to Bach's Passions.
Christian communities founded hospitals, orphanages, almshouses and schools, and religious orders made care for the sick and the poor a lasting institution.
Canon law influenced marriage, contract and legal procedure. Christian arguments were used both to defend slavery and to abolish it, and churches stood on both sides of many social struggles.
Schisms, crusades, inquisitions, wars of religion, forced conversions, antisemitism and abuse in church institutions are also part of this history. Modern ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and public acts of repentance are attempts to face that legacy.
Once centred on the Mediterranean and then Europe, Christianity is now a majority faith in about 120 countries and territories. Most Christians live in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and Pentecostal, independent and non-Western churches are shaping its future.
The timeline is built from the project's own research report and its event and pope datasets. The datasets are a work in progress: linked articles are starting points for verification, not proof that every claim has been independently checked. Dates before about AD 222 in the papal list are traditional, and population figures are estimates that vary widely between scholars.
Every event and every pope has its own sources. See Sources & Further Reading in each timeline entry and pope profile.
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