ABSTRACT
The recognition of Christianity as a religious community of equal status in the Roman Empire in two decrees of the years 311 and 313 ce formed the essential basis for the change of Jerusalem from a Roman colony of minor importance to a Christian metropolis. In the period from the reign of Emperor Constantine I (306 / 324−337) to the Muslim occupation of the city around 638, Jerusalem developed into one of the most important Christian centers of the Roman-Byzantine Empire with an increasingly dense topography of the sacred, a high pilgrimage volume, and of central importance to the monastic movement.
