May 22, 337 in Nicomedia at the age of 66 died the Roman emperor Constantine, who united the Roman Empire under his one-man rule and made Christianity the state religion. For this in the following centuries was called the Great and became an example for imitation of the rulers of Europe.
At the beginning of his reign Constantine, like all emperors, was a pagan. In 310, after visiting the sacred grove of Apollo, he supposedly even had a vision of the sun god. However, two years later, during the war with Maxentius, according to Constantine, Christ came to him in a dream, who ordered to inscribe the letters of the KhP on the shields and flags of his army, the next day Constantine saw in the sky the outline of the cross.
After the victory over Licinius in 313, Constantine insisted on accepting for Christians freedom of religion by issuing the Edict of Milan. Konstantin himself was baptized only before his death, which did not prevent him from interfering in subtle religious disputes, such as the First Council of Nicaea in 325, he strongly supported the catholists against the Arians. Throughout the empire, churches were built. Sometimes for their erection, the old pagan temples were sorted out.
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After successful campaigns against the Gothic and Sarmatian tribes in Transdanubia, in 336 Constantine began preparations for war with the Persian Sasanid Empire. Considering it as a Crusade in defense of the Christian subjects of Shapur the Great, he planned to be baptized in the Jordan before the campaign, but next spring fell ill.
Constantine was baptized shortly after the Easter of 337 in Nicomedia, where he arrived for treatment with hot baths, and died the next day, on May 22, at his country villa at the age of 65.
The body of Constantine was transported to New Rome and buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles he built, which for the next seven centuries became the burial vault of the Byzantine imperial families and the Patriarch of Constantinople. She survived the invasion of the Crusaders and survived until the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans who, in the place of the destroyed temple in 1462, built the Fatih Conqueror Mosque.