Sectarian violence among Christians is a recurring phenomenon, in which Christians engage in a form of communal violence known as sectarian violence. This form of violence can frequently be attributed to differences of religious beliefs between sects of Christianity (sectarianism). Sectarian violence among Christians was common, especially during late antiquity, and the years surrounding the Protestant Reformation, in which the German monk Martin Luther disputed some of the Catholic Church's practices; particularly the doctrine of Indulgences, and it was crucial in the formation of a new branch of Christianity known as Protestantism. During the latter half of the Renaissance was when sectarianism related violence was most common among Christians. Conflicts like the European wars of religion or Dutch Revolt ravaged Western Europe. In France there were the French Wars of Religion and in the United Kingdom anti-Catholic hate was heightened by the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. And while sectarian violence may seem like an archaic footnote today, sectarian violence among Christians still persists in the modern world with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (which prominently uses the Bible along with the official KKK handbook, the Kloran, to espouse its teachings) perpetuating violence toward Catholics.
The earliest period when widespread sectarian violence occurred among Christians was the period of late antiquity (3rd century CE to 8th century CE). Events like the wars which followed the Council of Chalcedon and Constantine's persecution of the Arians caused late antiquity to be considered one of the worst periods of time for a person to be a Christian in. Other conflicts such as the Albigensian Crusade, led to wars with over 1,000,000 casualties.
Sectarian violence among Christians also became prominent during the Renaissance (from the 14th century to the 17th century CE) especially in Western Europe. In France, there were incidents of violence against a religious sect which was known as the Huguenots, whose members followed the teachings of the religious reformer John Calvin. These events included (but were not limited to) the Massacre of Vassy (which subsequently started the French Wars of Religion) and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. In Ireland some of the events that occurred during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland were so heinous, that they can be classified as war crimes.
In the 19th-century US, anti-Catholic hate was salient due to the influx of Catholic immigrants who came to the US from Europe. At that time, the US was still in its infancy as a nation and it was dominated by white English speaking protestants, who traced back their ancestry to Northern Europe. So the disparity between the non-english speaking multiracial Catholics who came from various parts of Europe and the white nativist Protestant majority led to discrimination against the former by the latter.
Late antiquity Andrew Stephenson describes late antiquity as "one of the darkest periods in the history of Christianity" characterizing it as mingling the evils of "worldly ambition, false philosophy, sectarian violence and riotous living." Constantine initially persecuted the Arians but eventually ceased the persecution and declared himself a convert to their theology. Sectarian violence became more frequent and more intense during the reign of Constantius II. When Paul, the orthodox bishop of Constantinople, was banished by imperial decree, a riot broke out that resulted in 3000 deaths. Paul was deposed five times before finally being strangled by imperial decree. Monks in Alexandria were the first to gain a reputation for violence and cruelty. Although less frequent than in Antioch and Constantinople, sectarian disturbances also racked Antioch. At Ephesus, a fight broke out in a council of bishops resulting in one of them being murdered. Gibbon's assessment was that "the bonds of civil society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions." Gregory of Nazianzus lamented that the Kingdom of heaven had been converted into the "image of hell" by religious discord.
Athanasius of Alexandria
There are at present two completely opposite views about the personality of Athanasius. While some scholars praise him as an orthodox saint with great character, others see him as a power-hungry politician who employed questionable ecclesiastical tactics. Richard Rubenstein and Timothy Barnes have painted a less than flattering picture of the saint. One of the allegations against him involves suppression of dissent through violence and murder.Barnes, Timothy D., Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1993),37Rubenstein,106
Arianism
Following the abortive effort by Julian the Apostate to restore paganism in the empire, the emperor Valens—himself an Arian—renewed the persecution of Nicene hierarchs. However, Valen's successor Theodosius I effectively wiped out Arianism once and for all among the elites of the Eastern Empire through a combination of imperial decree, persecution, and the calling of the Second Ecumenical Council in 381, which condemned Arius anew while reaffirming and expanding the Nicene Creed.See Vasiliev, A.,"The Church and the State at the End of the Fourth Century", from History of the Byzantine Empire, Chapter One. Retrieved on 2 February 2010. The text of this version of the Nicene Creed This generally ended the influence of Arianism among the non-Germanic peoples of the Roman Empire.
Circumcellions The Circumcellions were fanatical bands of predatory peasants that flourished in North Africa in the 4th century."Circumcellions." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005 At first they were concerned with remedying social grievances, but they became linked with the Donatist sect. They condemned property and slavery, and advocated canceling debts and freeing slaves.
Donatists prized martyrdom and had a special devotion for the martyrs, rendering honours to their graves. The Circumcellions had come to regard martyrdom as the true Christian virtue, and thus disagreed with the Episcopal see of Carthage on the primacy of chastity, sobriety, humility, and charity. Instead, they focused on bringing about their own martyrdom—by any means possible. They survived until the fourth century in Africa, when their desire for martyrdom was fulfilled due to persecution.
Council of Chalcedon In 451, Pope Leo I urged Anatolius to convene an ecumenical council to set aside the 449 Second Council of Ephesus, better known as the "Robber Council". The Council of Chalcedon was highly influential and marked a key turning point in the Christological debates that broke apart the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries.The acts of the Council of Chalcedon by Council of Chalcedon, Richard Price, Michael Gaddis 2006 , pages 1–5 Severus of Antioch is said to have stirred up a fierce religious war among the population of Alexandria, resulting in bloodshed and conflagrations (Labbe, v. 121). To escape punishment for this violence, he fled to Constantinople, supported by a band of two hundred Non-Chalcedonian monks. Anastasius, who succeeded Zeno as emperor in 491, was a professed Non-Chalcedonian, and received Severus with honor. His presence initiated a period of fighting in Constantinople between rival bands of monks, Chalcedonian and Non, which ended in AD 511 with the humiliation of Anastasius, the temporary triumph of the patriarch Macedonius II, and the reversal of the Non-Chalcedonian cause (Theophanes, p. 132). At the Council of Constantinople in 518, Syrian monks placed the responsibility for the slaughter of 350 Chalcedonian monks and the appropriation of church vessels on Severus' shoulders. The associated theological disputes, political rivalry, and sectarian violence produced a schism that persists to this day between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches.
France Albigensian Crusade
Jonathan Barker cited the Albigensian Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent III against followers of Catharism, as an example of Christian state terrorism. The 20-year war led to an estimated one million casualties. The Cathar teachings rejected the principles of material wealth and power as being in direct conflict with the principle of love. They worshiped in private houses rather than churches, without the sacraments or the cross, which they rejected as part of the world of matter, and sexual intercourse was considered sinful, but in other respects they followed conventional teachings, reciting the Lord's prayer and reading from Biblical scriptures. They believed that the Saviour was a "heavenly being merely masquerading as human to bring salvation to the elect, who often have to conceal themselves from the world, and who are set apart by their special knowledge and personal purity".
Cathars rejected the Old Testament and its God, whom they named Rex Mundi (Latin for "king of the world"), whom they saw as a blind usurper who demanded fearful obedience and worship and who, under the most false pretexts, tormented and murdered those whom he called "his children". They proclaimed that there was a higher God—the True God—and Jesus was his messenger. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi, who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter – He was the god of love, order and peace.See Catharism and Catharism#Theology According to Barker, the Albigenses had developed a culture that "fostered tolerance of Jews and Muslims, respect for women and women priests, the appreciation of poetry, music and beauty, [had it] been allowed to survive and thrive, it is possible the Europe might have been spared its wars of religion, its witch-hunts and its holocausts of victims sacrificed in later centuries to religious and ideological bigotry". When asked by his followers how to differentiate between heretics and the ordinary public, Abbe Arnaud Amalric, head of the Cistercian monastic order, simply said "Kill them all, God will recognize his own!".
Catholic–Protestant
Historically, the past governments of some Catholic countries once persecuted Protestants as heretics. For example, the substantial Protestant population of France (the Huguenots) was expelled from the kingdom in the 1680s following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In Spain, the Inquisition sought to root out not only Protestantism but also crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims (moriscos); elsewhere the Papal Inquisition held similar goals. In most places where Protestantism is the majority or "official" religion, there have been examples of Catholics being persecuted. In countries where the Reformation was successful, this often lay in the perception that Catholics retained allegiance to a 'foreign' power (the Papacy), causing them to be regarded with suspicion. Sometimes this mistrust manifested itself in Catholics being subjected to restrictions and discrimination, which itself led to further conflict. For example, before Catholic Emancipation in 1829, Catholics were forbidden from voting, becoming MPs or buying land in Ireland.