EASTERN CHRISTIANITY. From the city of Jerusalem, the first Christian missionaries set out along the roads of the Roman Empire to the cities and villages of the Mediterranean world and beyond. Within only a few years after Christ, Christian communities existed in major cities of the southeastern Roman Empire. Some aspects of the church's rapid development from Jerusalem through Syria and Greece and on to the city of Rome are contained in the Acts of the Apostles. The areas where the Christian presence was the strongest were in the East: Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, and North Africa. Beyond the eastern confines of the Roman world, there were also Christian communities developing in Persia, Armenia, Ethiopia, and India.

The dramatic growth of the early church was not without difficulties. Yet the influence and prominence of Christians within the Roman world gradually increased, especially in the more eastern...