Religious persecution in the context of "Rhode Island"

In Christianity, a martyr is a person who was killed for their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In the years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake, or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word martyr comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".

At first, the term applied to the Apostles. Once Christians started to undergo persecution, the term came to be applied to those who suffered hardships for their faith. Finally, it was restricted to those who had been killed for their faith. The early Christian period before Constantine I was the "Age of Martyrs". "Early Christians venerated martyrs as powerful intercessors, and their utterances were treasured as inspired by the Holy Spirit."

Freedom of religion or religious liberty, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the right not to profess any religion or belief or not to practice a religion, often called freedom from religion.

Freedom of religion is considered by many people and most nations to be a fundamental human right. Freedom of religion is protected in all the most important international human rights conventions, such as the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the government permits religious practices of other communities besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths or those who have no faith. The concept of religious liberty includes, and some say requires, secular liberalism, and excludes authoritarian versions of secularism.

The phenomenon of large-scale migration of Christians is the main reason why Christians' share of the population has been declining in many countries. Many Muslim countries have witnessed disproportionately high emigration rates among their Christian minorities for several generations. Today, most Middle Eastern people in the United States are Christians, and the majority of Arabs living outside the Arab World are Arab Christians.

Push factors motivating Christians to emigrate include religious discrimination, persecution, and cleansing. Pull factors include prospects of upward mobility as well as joining relatives abroad.

Religious discrimination is treating a person or group differently because of the particular religion they align with or were born into (hereditary). This includes instances when adherents of different religions, denominations or non-religions are treated unequally due to their particular beliefs, either by the law or in institutional settings, such as employment or housing.

Religious discrimination or bias is related to religious persecution, the most extreme forms of which would include instances in which people have been executed for beliefs that have been perceived to be heretical. Laws that only carry light punishments are described as mild forms of religious persecution or religious discrimination. In recent years, terms such as religism and religionism have also been used, but "religious discrimination" remains the more widely used term.

The Catholic Church in Scotland, overseen by the Scottish Bishops' Conference, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church headed by the Pope. Christianity first arrived in Roman Britain and was strengthened by the conversion of the Picts through both the Hiberno-Scottish mission and Iona Abbey. After being firmly established in Scotland for nearly a millennium and contributing enormously to Scottish literature and culture, the Catholic Church was outlawed by the Scottish Reformation Parliament in 1560. Multiple uprisings in the interim failed to reestablish Catholicism or to legalise its existence. Even today, the Papal Jurisdiction Act 1560, while no longer enforced, still remains on the books.

Throughout the nearly three centuries of religious persecution and disenfranchisement between 1560 and 1829, many students for the priesthood went abroad to study while others remained in Scotland and, in what is now termed underground education, attended illegal seminaries. An early seminary upon Eilean Bàn in Loch Morar was moved during the Jacobite rising of 1715 and reopened as Scalan seminary in Glenlivet. After multiple arson attacks by government troops, Scalan was rebuilt in the 1760s by Bishop John Geddes, who later became Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District, a close friend of national poet Robert Burns, and a well-known figure in the Edinburgh intelligentsia during the Scottish Enlightenment.

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 Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (lit. 'Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights'; sometimes translated as Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups; CEDA) was a short-lived, right-wing political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in terms of the 'affirmation and defence of the principles of Christian civilization'. It translated this theoretical stand into a political demand for the revision of the anti-Catholic passages of the republican constitution. CEDA saw itself as a defensive organisation, formed to protect religious toleration, family, and private property rights. It was heavily involved in the political disputes leading up to the Spanish Civil War, as well as several revolutionary and counter-revolutionary incidents in the mid-1930s.

The CEDA said that it was defending the Catholic Church in Spain and Christian civilization against authoritarian socialism, state atheism, and religious persecution. It would ultimately become the most popular individual party in Spain in the 1936 elections. The party represented the interests of the Catholic voters as well as the rural population of Spain, most prominently the medium and small peasants and landowners. The party sought the restoration of the powerful role of the Catholic Church that existed in Spain before the establishment of the Republic, and based their program solely on Catholic teaching, calling for land redistribution and industrial reform based on the distributist and corporatist ideals of Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno.