Christianity is a world religion that arose around the year 33 in Palestine around the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Savior of mankind. Christians do not doubt his historicity.
Christianity is the largest Abrahamic and world religion, both in terms of the number of adherents, which is about 2.4 billion, and in terms of geographical spread – every country in the world has at least one Christian community. The main trends in Christianity are as follows: Catholicism – about 1.2 billion believers; Protestantism – about 800 million; Orthodoxy – about 280 million; Old Eastern Orthodox Churches (Miaphysitism) and ancient Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorianism) – 70-80 million. In 1054 the Christian Church split into Catholic and Orthodox churches (ancient Eastern churches had separated earlier). The emergence of Protestantism was the result of the Reformation movement in the Catholic Church in the 16th century.
Christianity originated in first-century Palestine, initially among the Jewish and Aramean populations in the context of the messianic movements of Old Testament Judaism, and already in the first decades of its existence it spread among the Greco-Romans of Syria and other provinces, and later among other ethnic groups. As early as the time of Nero, Christianity was known in many provinces of the Roman Empire.
According to the New Testament text of Acts (Acts 11:26), the noun “Χριστιανοί,” Christians, adherents (or followers) of Christ, first came into use to refer to supporters of the new faith in the Syrian-Hellenistic city of Antioch in the first century.
Christianity was first adopted as a state religion in Great Armenia in 301. Under Emperor Constantine I, starting from the edict of 313 on freedom of religion, Christianity began to acquire the status of the state religion in the Roman Empire, finally establishing itself in that status in Byzantium at the end of the 4th century.
Until the 5th century the Christianity generally spread in the geographical limits of the Roman Empire, also in its sphere of cultural influence (Armenia, Eastern Syria, Ethiopia), later (mainly in the second half of the 1st millennium) among the Germanic and Slavic peoples, later (by the 13th and 14th centuries) also among the Baltic and Finnish peoples. In the new and modern times, the spread of Christianity outside Europe was due to colonial expansion and the activity of missionaries who made this religion the most widespread in North and South America, Australia, as well as widespread in Africa.