TL;DR:
After the decline of the Western Roman Empire, Christianity spread among numerous Germanic peoples and later among the Slavic peoples. Tribal conversion dynamics, along with the disruption and renewal of established cultures, help explain this development. Missionaries such as Patrick and Boniface contributed to Christianity’s expansion in western and central Europe, followed later by Cyril and Methodius among the Slavs.
A key period of church history as the gospel moved northward
In Romans 1:14, the Apostle Paul expresses his obligation to both Greeks and non-Greeks. The King James Version uses “Barbarians” for the Greek term referring broadly to people who did not speak Greek or participate in Greek culture. Other English translations use terms such as “non-Greeks” and “foreigners.” Warriors and migrants from the north increasingly entered the weakening Western Roman Empire. The deposition of Emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476 is traditionally regarded as marking its end.
It is fascinating that several Germanic peoples who conquered parts of the Western Roman Empire eventually adopted the Christianity of the populations they ruled. One might have expected the opposite: that Christianity would give way to the traditional religions of the conquerors. Why, during the period from approximately AD 400 to 800, did some Germanic conquerors adopt the religion of the peoples they had defeated?
Some keys to understanding the evangelization of Germanic peoples—among those whom Greek and Roman writers broadly labeled “barbarians”—can be found in their social and cultural organization. At least two cultural factors facilitated their acceptance of Christianity:
The culture of central and northern Europe was tribal in nature. When a tribal chief or key elder adopted Christianity, mass conversions within that tribe often followed. Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette noted that, traditionally, religion among the barbarians “had been a community affair.”1 Thus, when a Germanic tribe became Christian, it often did so en masse. Although such group conversions may not have reflected an equally deep personal commitment by every individual, they help to explain how Christianity spread among these peoples during the fifth through eighth centuries.
Latourette asserts that as the barbarians militarily overran much of the Western Roman Empire, their ways of life and cultures, “including their religions,”2 underwent significant disruption and transformation through contact with what remained of Greco-Roman civilization. Christianity therefore did not always find itself in direct competition with religious beliefs embedded in a stable culture. Rather, Christianity entered societies in which older religious and cultural structures were being disrupted.
Some earlier anthropologists described this encounter as contact between a “higher” and a “lower” culture. Those labels are now generally regarded as overly simplistic. Nevertheless, contact with the urban, literate, and institutionally complex Greco-Roman world disrupted many traditional Germanic social and religious structures.
In this situation, Christianity may have made rapid advances because it contributed to cultural renewal. Latourette says, “As it won over the barbarian invaders from the north, Christianity became a major stimulus in stirring them to produce an advanced civilization.”3 This quotation reflects Latourette’s terminology. Christianity may therefore have gained relatively rapid acceptance partly because its institutions contributed to education, literacy, social organization, and cultural rebuilding.
1 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 404.
2 Ibid., p. 270.
3 Ibid.
From AD 400 to 800, the evangelization of Germanic peoples marked a key chapter in the spread of Christianity in Europe. The evangelization of Slavic peoples continued beyond AD 800.
Missionaries such as Boniface played important roles in evangelizing Germanic peoples, organizing churches, and strengthening Christian institutions. They encountered linguistic and cultural barriers as well as resistance from adherents of traditional religions. Despite these obstacles, the Christian faith gradually gained ground among Germanic peoples, influencing their social norms and political structures.
In the ninth century, the Byzantine Empire played an important role in the evangelization of Slavic peoples, particularly through Cyril and Methodius. They created the Glagolitic alphabet and translated biblical and liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic. Their disciples later helped develop and disseminate the Cyrillic alphabet.
Patrick played a noteworthy role in evangelizing the Celtic population of Ireland, and Irish and other Celtic Christian communities later helped spread Christianity in parts of Europe. Their missionaries established monasteries that became centers of evangelism, education, and manuscript preservation.
Missionaries sometimes learned local languages and adapted their methods to local customs, enabling them to communicate the Christian message across cultural boundaries.
After the evangelization of the Germanic peoples, the gospel began moving into Scandinavia. [ More ]
— Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu