History of Christianity Focusing Mainly on its Origin and Spread Across the Continent (Essay Sample)

Christianity is the dominant religion all over the world. It is mainly practiced in Europe, Russia, North America and South America. The origins of Christianity are said to be from Judaism with the two religions sharing much in common such as the Ten Commandments and the idea of a Messiah being sent. The cutline, where the Messiah for Christians, Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God has already been sent whereas the Judaism are still expecting him to be sent. In this way, Christians believe in the Holy Trinity and attend church services, mostly on Sundays as recognition of the day Jesus rose from the dead and observe other Holy Days such as the Easter Week and the Christmas Day. In this manner most Christians are identified through baptismal practices and sharing and partaking of the Holy Communion. Today, the spread of Christianity means almost all the major continents have them. Accounting for 2.2 billion of the 7 billion human beings, Christianity is the largest religion. About half of Christians are found in Europe and Africa, about 37% in the Americas with the remaining 13% in the Asia Pacific region. This article explores the different locations of Christianity, how it is practiced and how it originated (PewResearch Center, 2011).
Originating in the early Greek after the first church was formed in Antioch Syria, Christianity spread through the ages to Europe. The Roman Empire saw the influence of Christianity and the church grew to levels that the Pope of the Catholic Church was even more powerful than the emperor and in most times, it was the church that dictated the events in the empire. Such were the foundations of Christianity in Europe enabling it to prosper under the leadership of the Roman Catholic Papacy based in Rome. Later, the evangelical groupings came up after breaking ranks with the Roman Catholicism. The major religious persecutions that occurred in England and Ireland are a testimony to this. Later in 2015 Christianity in Europe not only forms the largest grouping of Christians in the world but was also the epicenter of spread of Christianity to all other regions during colonialization of both the Americas and Africa (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2016).
Despite the fact that Christianity had its earlier roots in Europe, people in most European countries due to scientific and technological developments are becoming more and more secular leaving most of the Juda-Christianity practices unattended to. In fact the growth rate of Christianity is at an all-time low of about 0.16% per year with threats coming from the refugee migration crisis triggered by the instability posed by the Islamic State in most Islamic countries in the Middle East such as Syria. This has seen the increase in number of Muslims in countries such as France.
In Africa, where the religions are spread basing on the colonial masters, the growth rate at 22.5% per year is the largest across all Christian regions in the world. The Roman Catholics, mainly propagated by Italian Missionaries such as the Holy Ghost Fathers and in the few Portuguese colonies explain the predominance of the Roma...