Most converts to early Christianity were slaves & women who raised the children as Christians. The Romans practice of preferring male children by exposing female infants helped the Christians who took them home to raise as Christians: When the sons of Rome needed wives, the increasingly Christian pool of women accelerated the conversion process, even with the force of law & established religion against them. This cannot be circumvented. Add to that, the ideal you’re describing was most fully enabled atop a stratified economy. This is also almost entirely a critique of later Roman Catholicism that the original Byzantine/current Eastern Orthodox Church dod not and does not embody, they consider Marriage *as* a martyrdom, using martyrs crowns instead of the later development of wedding rings. Its ideal of marriage is Christ & the church as its logi (modeling the Logos): an inferior wife (I’m sure a pagan worldview wouldn’t be offended at rejecting egalitarianism), and childbearing as a sacrament. She is saved in submission to God and her husband, an icon of Christ, and He is saved in building her home as an icon of the Church.
The break in history that you’re looking for is The Great Schism.
Most converts to early Christianity were slaves & women who raised the children as Christians. The Romans practice of preferring male children by exposing female infants helped the Christians who took them home to raise as Christians: When the sons of Rome needed wives, the increasingly Christian pool of women accelerated the conversion process, even with the force of law & established religion against them. This cannot be circumvented. Add to that, the ideal you’re describing was most fully enabled atop a stratified economy. This is also almost entirely a critique of later Roman Catholicism that the original Byzantine/current Eastern Orthodox Church dod not and does not embody, they consider Marriage *as* a martyrdom, using martyrs crowns instead of the later development of wedding rings. Its ideal of marriage is Christ & the church as its logi (modeling the Logos): an inferior wife (I’m sure a pagan worldview wouldn’t be offended at rejecting egalitarianism), and childbearing as a sacrament. She is saved in submission to God and her husband, an icon of Christ, and He is saved in building her home as an icon of the Church.
I will pray for you to have a better Christain enlightenment.
It's a confusing experience, listening to ur lovely voice, and witness how ur fascinating mind works, ha ha ha...