Diocletian Launches the Empire's Last and Harshest Persecution
Churches razed, scriptures burned, and every subject ordered to sacrifice to the old gods
Quick facts
- Started
- February 303 CE, Nicomedia
- Emperors
- Diocletian, Galerius, Maximian, Constantius
- Ended by
- Galerius's edict of toleration, 311 CE
- Followed by
- Edict of Milan, 313 CE
What happened
In February 303 CE, Emperor Diocletian ordered a newly built church at Nicomedia destroyed and issued the first of four edicts against Christians, commanding that churches be razed, scriptures burned by fire, and Christians holding positions of honor stripped of them, with Christian household slaves losing any prospect of freedom. Later edicts under Diocletian and his co-emperor Galerius ordered the imprisonment of clergy and, eventually, required all subjects, including women and children, to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods on pain of punishment. The persecution, the empire's most systematic and geographically widespread against Christians, continued under different regional emperors with varying severity until Galerius issued an edict of toleration in 311 CE, shortly before his death, followed two years later by Constantine and Licinius's Edict of Milan.
Why it matters
This was the last time the Roman state attempted to eliminate Christianity by force, and its failure, followed within a decade by imperial toleration and then favor under Constantine, marked one of the sharpest reversals of fortune for any religious movement in ancient history.
How we know
The main contemporary accounts come from the Christian writers Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History and Martyrs of Palestine, and Lactantius, who as an eyewitness in Nicomedia described the destruction of the church there and the successive edicts.
Sources
- Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Fordham University. The Great Persecution · Primary source (author-declared)sourcebooks.fordham.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Christian History Institute. Controversial Constantine · Reputable sourcechristianhistoryinstitute.org · The domain "christianhistoryinstitute.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- Ancient Rome → · Diocletian's wider administrative reforms of the late Roman Empire are covered in the Ancient Rome timeline.