Christian state in the context of "Crusader state"

Christendom or the Christian world are terms commonly used to refer to the global Christian community, Christian states, Christian-majority countries or countries in which Christianity is dominant or prevails.

Following the spread of Christianity from the Levant to Europe and North Africa during the early Roman Empire, Christendom has been divided in the pre-existing Greek East and Latin West. After the Great schism of 1054, two main branches within Christianity emerged, centred around the cities of Rome (Western Christianity, whose community was called Western or Latin Christendom) and Constantinople (Eastern Christianity, whose community was called Eastern Christendom or Byzantine commonwealth). After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Latin Christendom rose to a central role in the Western world. Following the reformation, protestantism emerged as the third main branch of Christianity in the 16th century. The history of the Christian world spans about 2,000 years and includes a variety of socio-political developments, as well as advancements in the arts, architecture, literature, science, philosophy, politics and technology.

The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state (with or without legally explicit church-state separation) and to disestablishment, the changing of an existing, formal relationship between the church and the state. The concept originated among early Baptists in America. In 1644, Roger Williams, a Baptist minister and founder of the state of Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church in America, was the first public official to call for "a wall or hedge of separation" between "the wilderness of the world" and "the garden of the church." Although the concept is older, the exact phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from "wall of separation between Church & State," a term coined by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to members of the Danbury Baptist Association in the state of Connecticut. The concept was promoted by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke.

In a society, the degree of political separation between the church and the civil state is determined by the legal structures and prevalent legal views that define the proper relationship between organized religion and the state. The arm's length principle proposes a relationship wherein the two political entities interact as organizations each independent of the authority of the other. The strict application of the secular principle of laïcité is used in France. In contrast, societies such as Denmark and England maintain the constitutional recognition of an official state church; similarly, other countries have a policy of accommodationism, with religious symbols being present in the public square.

Prester John (Latin: Presbyter Ioannes) was a mythical Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures.

At first, Prester John was imagined to reside in India. Tales of the Nestorian Christians' evangelistic success there and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels as documented in works like the Acts of Thomas probably provided the first seeds of the legend. As Europeans became aware of the Mongols and their empire, accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers came to believe that the term was a reference to Ethiopia, which at that time was an isolated Christian "exclave" distant from any other Christian-ruled territory.

The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. From north to south, they were: the County of Edessa (1098–1150), the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), the County of Tripoli (1102–1289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291).

The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern writers use the term "Outremer" as a synonym, derived from the French word for overseas.

The persecution of Christians can be traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of being martyred for their faith, ever since the emergence of Christianity.

Early Christians were persecuted at the hands of both Jews, from whose religion Christianity arose, and the Romans who controlled many of the early centers of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Since the emergence of Christian states in Late Antiquity, Christians have also been persecuted by other Christians due to differences in doctrine which have been declared heretical. Early in the fourth century, the empire's official persecutions were ended by the Edict of Serdica in 311 and the practice of Christianity legalized by the Edict of Milan in 312. By the year 380, Christians had begun to persecute each other. The schisms of late antiquity and the Middle Ages – including the Rome–Constantinople schisms and the many Christological controversies – together with the later Protestant Reformation provoked severe conflicts between Christian denominations. During these conflicts, members of the various denominations frequently persecuted each other and engaged in sectarian violence.

The migration to Abyssinia (Arabic: الهجرة إلى الحبشة, romanized: al-hijra ʾilā al-habaša), also known as the First Hijra (الهجرة الأولى, al-hijrat al'uwlaa), was an episode in the early history of Islam, where the first followers of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (they were known as the Sahabah, or the companions) migrated from Arabia due to their persecution by the Quraysh, the ruling Arab tribal confederation of Mecca. They sought and were granted refuge in the Kingdom of Aksum, an ancient Christian state that was situated in modern-day northern Ethiopia and Eritrea (also referred to as Abyssinia), in 9 BH (613 CE) or 7 BH (615 CE). The kingdom's capital was Aksum, which is an ancient city in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The ruling Aksumite monarch who received them is known in Islamic sources as Najashi (نجاشي, najāšī), the Negus of the kingdom; modern historians have alternatively identified him with the Aksumite king Armah and Ella Tsaham. Some of the Sahabah exiles returned to Mecca and made the migration to Medina with Muhammad, while the others remained in Aksum and arrived in Medina in 628.

The migration to Abyssinia is an Islamic historical event that refers to the migration of some of the early Muslims from Mecca to Abyssinia (the Kingdom of Aksum) because of the harm they were facing from the leaders of Quraysh. A number of Muslims left, and the first migration to Abyssinia was in Rajab of the fifth year after the mission. They were eleven men and four women, and they appointed Uthman ibn Mazun as their leader. Then, while they were in Abyssinia, they heard that the people of Mecca had converted to Islam. Some of them returned to Mecca, but they did not find that to be true. So they returned, and another group went with them to Abyssinia. It was the second migration. They were eighty-three men, their wives, and their children, headed by Ja`far ibn Abi Talib.

The period of rule by the Piast dynasty between the 10th and 14th centuries is the first major stage of the history of the Polish state. The dynasty was founded by a series of dukes listed by the chronicler Gall Anonymous in the early 12th century: Siemowit, Lestek and Siemomysł. It was Mieszko I, the son of Siemomysł, who is considered the founder of the Polish state. Mieszko converted to Christianity of the Western Latin Church in an event known as the Baptism of Poland in 966. His acceptance of Christianity marked the formal beginning of Polish statehood, which was recognized by the Papacy and other Christian states of Europe. The Papal incipit titled Dagome iudex, first defined Poland's geographical boundaries and affirmed that Mieszko was under the protection of the Apostolic See. Mieszko also completed a unification of the Lechitic tribal lands that was fundamental to the existence of the new country of Poland. The ruling house then remained in power in the Polish lands until 1370.

Following the emergence of the Polish state, a series of rulers converted the population to Christianity, created a kingdom of Poland in 1025 and integrated Poland into the prevailing culture of Europe. Mieszko's son Bolesław I the Brave established a Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Gniezno, pursued territorial conquests and was officially crowned in 1025 as the first king of Poland. The first Piast monarchy collapsed with the death of Mieszko II Lambert in 1034, followed by its restoration under Casimir I in 1042. In the process, the royal dignity for Polish rulers was forfeited, and the state reverted to the status of a duchy. Duke Casimir's son Bolesław II the Bold revived the military assertiveness of Bolesław I, but became fatally involved in a conflict with Bishop Stanislaus of Szczepanów and was expelled from the country.