Topic summary
Catholicism
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Catholic Church.
Antiquity and Roman Empire
In the following centuries, Germanic tribes who invaded the Roman Empire adopted Christianity in its Arian form, which the Council of Nicaea declared heretical, causing discord between Germanic rulers and Catholic subjects. In 497, Clovis I, the Frankish ruler, converted to orthodox Catholicism and he aligned himself with the papacy and the monastic communities—an act that unified Germanic rulers and Catholic subjects for the most part. Following his lead, the Visigoths converted to Catholicism in 589, and the Lombards in Italy gradually adopted it during the 7th century.