Prof. Gaga Shurgaia (University of Naples, Italy)

The Official Christianisation of the Roman Empire

This essay examines the various events proposed as Christianity’s official proclamation as the Roman Empire’s state religion: the alleged edict of Milan by Emperor Constantine (305–337) in 313, the first Ecumenical Council celebrated in Nicaea in 325, and the edict issued by Emperor Theodosius I (379–395) in Thessalonica on 28 February 380 (CTh 16:1.2). On the basis of analyses of historical and literary sources, it will be demonstrated that it was the first Ecumenical Council that transformed the pagan Roman empire into a Christian one. The essay also analyses the Christianisation of the peoples outside the Roman Empire in the first centuries after Christ. It will be shown that, while the Christianisation of the Roman Empire was a gradual process, interspersed with temporary restorations of paganism, the proclamation of the faith in Christ as a state religion elsewhere has been recounted by historical sources as the result of a miracle that did not leave space for second thoughts. This means that, while the imperial ruling class gradually became Christian, the ruling classes of all other kingdoms followed their own personal feelings and socio-political opportunism, culminating in a precise political and cultural choice to align themselves with the most powerful Christian state. No state or country became Christian before the Roman Empire did.

Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Gaga Shurgaia was born on 24 August 1969 in Tbilisi, Georgia, and graduated in 1991 in Georgian Philology, Language and Literature from Tbilisi State University (under supervisor Prof. Levan Menabde). In 1996, he obtained a PhD in Oriental Ecclesiastical Sciences at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome (under supervisor Prof. Miguel Arranz, SJ). Since 2018, he has been an associate professor of Georgian Language and Literature at the University of Naples L’Orientale (in 2018, he obtained the status of Full Professor). He is also a visiting professor of Ancient Georgian Language at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome and History of Christianity at St. Bernardino Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Venice. He has been a lecturer of Georgian Language and Literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, as well as a visiting professor of Caucasology at the University of Bologna (Ravenna Campus), Georgian language and Literature at La Sapienza University of Rome, Byzantine Liturgy at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and St. Tikhon Orthodox Institute at the Moscow Patriarchate. Invited as a speaker to various international scientific conferences, he is the author of numerous publications on such subjects as: ancient Georgian language and literature, Church history, diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Georgia, Byzantine literature, genesis of alphabets and Georgian writing culture, history of the liturgy, as well as various themes of twentieth-century history and literature. He is a translator of Italian and French novels into Georgian, as well as an author of fiction and essays.

Publications and Works

- “Traduzioni e citazioni dal greco in georgiano,” in I Greci, Storia, Cultura, Arte, Società, 3, I Greci oltre la Grecia, edited by Salvatore Settis, Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 2001, 1053–70. - La spiritualità georgiana: “Martirio di Abo, santo e beato martire di Cristo” di Ioane Sabanisʒe, presentazione di Levan Menabde, Rome: Studium, 2003 (La Spiritualità Cristiana Orientale, 3), 295 p. ISBN 88-382-3917-7. - “La scrittura georgiana, Storia e nuove prospettive,” Scripta 1 (2008): 157–73. - “Colophon e archeologia del codice,” in Colofoni armeni a confronto, Le sottoscrizioni dei manoscritti in ambito armeno e nelle altre tradizioni scrittorie del mondo mediterraneo, Atti del colloquio internazionale, Bologna, 12–13 ottobre 2012, edited by Anna Sirinian, Paola Buzi, and Gaga Shurgaia, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2016 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 299), 113–91. - Vaxt’ang I Gorgasali re di Kartli: Alle origini dell'autocefalia della Chiesa ortodossa di Georgia, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2018 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 303), 706 p. ISSN 1590-7449. - “L'edificante storia di Barlaam e Ioasaph: ὑπό, παρά oppure ὑπὲρ Εὐθυμίου?,” in Iranian Studies in Honour of Adriano V. Rossi, edited by Sabir Badalkhan, Gian Pietro Basello, and Matteo De Chiara, Naples: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, 2020 (Series Minor, 87), 917–53. - “Kartlis samepos črdilok’avk’asiuri p’olit’ik’is ist’oriis erti purceli” [= A Page from the History of the North Caucasian Politics of the Kingdom of Kartli], Kartuli c’q’arotmcodneoba [Georgian Source-Studies] 23 (2021): 138–64. - “Religion in the Caucasus: Christianity, Islam and Political Choices from the Perspective of New Cultural Identities,” in Heteroeuropeanisations: (In)capacity to Stay Marginal, edited by Yordan Lyutskanov, Benedikts Kalnačs, and Gaga Shurgaia, Naples: UniorPress, 2021 (Series Minor, 92), 603–81. - “Soul and body: diseases, remedies and healing in Georgian hagiography,” in Soul and body diseases, remedies and healing in Middle Eastern religious cultures and traditions, edited by Catalin-Stefan Popa, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2023 (Studies on the Children of Abraham), 224–75. - “The First Christian Version of the Bilawhar and Būḏāsaf Legend,” in Barlaam et Josaphat dans l’histoire des religions: Actes du colloque international (23–24 mai 2023), edited by Guillaume Ducœur and Michel Tardieu, Strasbourg: Université Strasbourg, 2024 (Publications de l’Institut d’histoire des religions, 5), 211–76.