99 Fun Facts About Christianity

By 2020, which region had overtaken Europe as home to the most Christians?

Sub-Saharan Africa now has more Christians than either Latin America or Europe, ending Europe's long lead.

Which saint is said to have used a three-leafed shamrock to show how God is three persons in one?

Saint Patrick's shamrock lesson isn't written down until 1726, though coins from the late 1600s already show him holding one.

According to the Acts of the Apostles, in which city were followers of Jesus first called 'Christians'?

Antioch is where Barnabas and Saul taught large crowds for a whole year.

Which Roman emperor issued the Edict of Milan in 313, decriminalising Christianity?

Constantine was only baptised as he lay dying in 337, nearly a quarter-century after the edict.

Which emperor's Edict of Thessalonica in 380 made Nicene Christianity the Roman state church?

Theodosius I later did public penance at Bishop Ambrose's demand after his troops massacred people in Thessalonica.

The Christian doctrine that God is one being in three persons is called what?

The Trinity was first named in Greek around AD 180, and Tertullian is the first known Latin writer to use trinitas.

The excommunications behind the 1054 Great Schism were lifted by which pope?

Paul VI's declaration with the patriarch of Constantinople was a gesture of goodwill, and it did not end the schism.

What did the 'Filioque' dispute behind the 1054 schism concern?

Whether the Spirit proceeds from the Son too: Spanish churches added 'and the Son' to the creed at Toledo in 589, but the papacy's liturgy took it up only around 1014.

Which Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated by papal legates in 1054 and returned the favour?

Michael Cerularius had shut the Latin churches in Constantinople, and the legates answered by placing their bull on the altar during the liturgy.

Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses of 1517 attacked which church practice in particular?

The sale of indulgences was linked to preacher Johann Tetzel and the slogan 'As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs'.

In which German university town were the Ninety-five Theses said to be nailed to the church door?

Wittenberg's original wooden church doors burned in 1760, and bronze doors inscribed with the theses replaced them in 1858.

The 1534 Act of Supremacy made which English king 'Supreme Head of the Church of England'?

Henry VIII broke with the papacy after Pope Clement VII refused to annul his first marriage, and Thomas More was beheaded in 1535 for rejecting the title.

Which nation is credited as the first state to adopt Christianity officially, around AD 301?

Armenia's King Tiridates III had kept Gregory the Illuminator imprisoned for over a decade before Gregory converted him.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt traces its founding to which Gospel writer?

Mark is said to have founded the church in Alexandria, and in the 820s two Venetian merchants carried his body off to Venice.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, how is the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople ranked relative to other bishops?

First among equals: the Ecumenical Patriarch alone can call extraordinary synods, yet he has no direct jurisdiction over other Orthodox churches.

Which apostle is regarded by Catholic tradition as the first pope?

Peter, a fisherman first named Simon, is said to have asked to be crucified upside down, feeling unworthy to die as Jesus did.

Elected in May 2025, Pope Leo XIV is the first pope from which country?

Leo XIV, born in Chicago in the United States, switched to Spanish in his first balcony speech to greet Chiclayo, the Peruvian diocese he had led.

Pope Francis, who died in 2025, was the first pope from which religious order?

The Jesuits had never produced a pope before him, and he took his name to honour Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscans.

Many Protestant churches recognise only two sacraments: baptism and which other?

Holy Communion and baptism are the two rites that Christians broadly agree Christ himself instituted.

Which day marks the start of Lent in Western Christianity?

Ash Wednesday ashes come from burning palms saved from the previous year's Palm Sunday, often on Shrove Tuesday.

Lent lasts 40 days in memory of what?

Jesus fasting in the desert lasted 40 days and nights, and Matthew's Gospel says the devil tempted him there.

Pentecost, celebrated seven weeks after Easter, commemorates which event?

The Holy Spirit descending on the Apostles came with what seemed like tongues of fire, which is why red is Pentecost's colour.

What is Pentecost traditionally called in Britain?

Whitsunday probably means 'White Sunday', after the white robes worn by people newly baptised at the feast.

Advent, which opens the Western church year, begins on which day?

The fourth Sunday before Christmas can fall anywhere from 27 November to 3 December, whichever Sunday is nearest St Andrew's Day.

The earliest record of Christmas on 25 December comes from which city, around AD 336?

Rome's Chronograph of 354 also marks 25 December as the birthday of Sol Invictus, the 'unconquered' sun god.

The early Christian fish symbol, the ichthys, works as an acrostic in which language?

The Greek letters ΙΧΘΥΣ, the word for fish, are the initials of 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour'.

Which artist, who saw himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, frescoed the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

Michelangelo took Pope Julius II's commission reluctantly, then spent four years, from 1508 to 1512, painting the ceiling.

The Gutenberg Bible, printed in Mainz around 1455, was an edition of which text?

The Latin Vulgate was Saint Jerome's translation, and Gutenberg's lender Johann Fust later sued him and took over the workshop.

Which commandment lost its 'not' in the 1631 Wicked Bible?

Adultery lost its 'not', so the verse read 'Thou shalt commit adultery', and the royal printers were fined £300 and lost their printing licence.

Which pope launched the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095?

Urban II died two weeks after the crusaders took Jerusalem in July 1099, before news of their victory had reached him.

Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first what, at Greccio in 1223?

The Nativity scene at Greccio was a live re-enactment staged in a cave, with real animals.

The Second Vatican Council of 1962-65 famously allowed Catholic Mass to be celebrated in what?

Local languages won a far wider place in the Mass, though the council's liturgy constitution still said Latin should be preserved.

Which Constantinople church, completed in 537, was reclassified as a mosque in 2020?

Hagia Sophia was the world's largest church for more than 500 years, until the abbey church at Cluny outgrew it.

Which basilica is the pope's own cathedral, called the mother and head of all churches in the world?

St John Lateran stands beside the Lateran Palace, the popes' main home for about a thousand years before they settled at the Vatican.

The 1906 Azusa Street Revival, the launch of modern Pentecostalism, was in which city?

Los Angeles's revival was led by Black preacher William J. Seymour, and Black and white worshippers shared its altar at the height of segregation.

John Wesley, whose 'heart strangely warmed' experience came in 1738, founded which movement?

Methodism began as a revival inside the Church of England and only became a separate denomination after John Wesley's death.

Baptists are distinguished by baptising only believers, and by which method?

Full immersion goes with believer's baptism, and the first Baptist church met in Amsterdam, where its leader John Smyth baptised himself in 1609.

In which state did Joseph Smith organise the Latter-day Saints church in 1830?

New York was only the start: after a mob killed Joseph Smith in Illinois in 1844, Brigham Young led the pioneers west to Utah.

The Amish take their name from Jakob Ammann, who led a 1693 split from which group?

Mennonites split with Jakob Ammann partly over shunning: his followers would not even share meals with expelled members.

The Religious Society of Friends, founded in 17th-century England by George Fox, is better known by what name?

Quakers got their name from a judge who mocked George Fox in 1650 after Fox told him to 'tremble at the word of the Lord'.

The Salvation Army, founded in London in 1865 by William Booth, uses which unusual structure?

Military ranks arrived in 1878, when the mission was renamed The Salvation Army and William Booth took the title of General.

Jehovah's Witnesses grew out of the Bible Student movement founded in the 1870s by whom?

Charles Taze Russell's Bible Students took the name Jehovah's Witnesses only in 1931, 15 years after his death.

Which evangelist preached to live audiences in more than 185 countries and territories?

Billy Graham preached in person to more than 200 million people and made Gallup's most-admired top ten a record 61 times.

How had John Newton, who wrote 'Amazing Grace' in 1772, earlier made his living?

Trading enslaved people was Newton's work as a slave-ship captain, and only decades later did he become an outspoken abolitionist.

The 30-metre statue of Christ the Redeemer, completed in 1931, overlooks which city?

Rio de Janeiro's statue was sculpted by French sculptor Paul Landowski, while Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida made its face.

Which council of 451 did the Coptic Church and other Oriental Orthodox churches reject?

Chalcedon taught that Christ has two natures, but these churches hold to one united nature and reject the label 'monophysite'.

The Council of Nicaea in 325 mainly settled a dispute named for which Alexandrian priest?

Arius taught that the Son was created by the Father, and though Nicaea condemned him, missionaries later spread his views among the Goths.

Which man, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death while the future apostle Paul looked on?

Stephen's killers laid their coats at the feet of Saul, who approved of the stoning and later became the apostle Paul.

Which council declared anathema anyone who says there are more or fewer than seven sacraments?

Trent passed that canon in 1547, and the Catholic Church still recognises exactly those seven sacraments today.

Which carol was first sung on Christmas Eve 1818 in Oberndorf, Austria, accompanied by a guitar?

Silent Night was written by a village priest, Joseph Mohr, and set to music by the schoolmaster Franz Gruber. Austria added it to its national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2011.

Saint Nicholas, the bishop behind Santa Claus, served at Myra, a city in which modern country?

Turkey is where the real Saint Nicholas lived and died: Myra is now the town of Demre. Italian merchants carried off most of his bones in 1087 to Bari, where they remain.

Which two-word verse, from the story of Lazarus's death, is the shortest in many English Bibles?

Jesus wept is John 11:35, just nine letters long in English. In the languages the Bible was first written in, other verses are even shorter.

Easter Sunday is set as the first Sunday after which lunar event falling on or after 21 March?

Full moon is the trigger, though churches use a calculated 'Paschal' one instead of watching the sky. The rule lets Easter fall anywhere from 22 March to 25 April.

Halloween takes its name from being the eve of which Christian feast, kept on 1 November?

All Saints' Day was once known as All Hallows, so the evening before became All Hallows' Eve and then Halloween. The Frankish Empire fixed the feast on 1 November in 835.

The word 'gospel' comes from the Old English 'godspel', which had what literal meaning?

Good news is the literal sense: 'god' meant good and 'spel' meant news. The compound was coined to translate the older church word 'evangelion', which has the same meaning.

Soldiers from which country have guarded the pope since 1506, in striped Renaissance-style uniforms?

Switzerland has supplied the papal bodyguard since Julius II set it up in 1506. Recruits are sworn in every 6 May, the date in 1527 when the Guard was nearly wiped out.

What colour of smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney signals that a conclave has elected a pope?

White smoke, the 'fumata bianca', means a pope has been chosen, while black means the vote failed. Since 1963 chemicals have been added to make the colour unmistakable.

Which group, founded by travelling salesmen in Wisconsin, is known for placing Bibles in hotels?

The Gideons placed their first Bibles in 1908, in the rooms of the Superior Hotel in Montana. Their emblem, a pitcher and torch, recalls the biblical Gideon's victory over the Midianites.

Which country, home to the vast shrine of Aparecida, has the world's largest Catholic population?

Brazil has more Catholics than any other nation, though their share of the population fell to about 57% in the 2022 census. Its basilica at Aparecida is the second largest Catholic church by interior area, after St Peter's.

Which Renaissance artist painted The Last Supper on a wall of a Milan convent in the 1490s?

Leonardo da Vinci painted it in tempera, a medium meant for panels, so that he could keep revising. The paint was already flaking by 1517, within his own lifetime.

Which oratorio by Handel, first performed in Dublin in 1742, includes the 'Hallelujah' chorus?

Messiah audiences traditionally stand for that chorus, supposedly because King George II did so at the London premiere. There is no convincing evidence that he was even there.

Which day of Holy Week marks the crucifixion of Jesus and is a public holiday in many countries?

Good Friday takes its name from an old sense of 'good' meaning pious or holy. The same sense survives in 'the good book' as a name for the Bible.

Which of the twelve apostles betrayed Jesus to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver?

Judas Iscariot pointed Jesus out to the arresting party with a kiss on the cheek. Of the four Gospels, only Matthew's puts a figure on the payment.

On the road to which Syrian city was Saul of Tarsus struck blind by a light from heaven?

Damascus is where the blinded Saul was led by the hand, going three days without food or drink. He had set out to arrest followers of Jesus and ended up joining them.

In which English cathedral city was Archbishop Thomas Becket killed by four knights in 1170?

Canterbury drew pilgrims to Becket's shrine for centuries, and Chaucer's storytellers in The Canterbury Tales are on their way there. He was declared a saint little more than two years after the murder.

Which nun, born in Skopje to an Albanian family, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta?

Mother Teresa won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize and was declared a saint in 2016. She had spent two decades with the Sisters of Loreto before founding her own order in 1950.

Which Oxford don wrote Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters as well as the Narnia stories?

C. S. Lewis had become an atheist at 15 before returning to the faith as an adult. Mere Christianity began as BBC radio talks broadcast during the Second World War.

Which string of beads do Catholics use to count sets of ten Hail Marys known as decades?

Rosary comes from the Latin 'rosarium', a rose garden, which in medieval Latin also meant a garland. Most have five groups of ten beads, and five decades are usually recited in one session.

Which day, the last before Lent begins, is traditionally marked in Britain by eating pancakes?

Shrove Tuesday is named from 'shrive', to absolve after confession. Pancakes used up rich, fatty foods before the fast, which is why the French call the day Mardi Gras, 'Fat Tuesday'.

Which English translation of 1611, the work of 47 scholars, is also known as the Authorized Version?

The King James Bible was drafted by six committees, two each at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster, whose versions were then compared and revised against one another.

Many Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on 7 January because they follow which older calendar?

Julian dates run 13 days behind the everyday Gregorian calendar until 2099, so the old 25 December lands on 7 January. Julius Caesar's calendar took effect in 45 BC.

Which town became a pilgrimage site after Bernadette Soubirous reported visions of Mary in 1858?

Lourdes was a sleepy country town of about 4,000 people until the girl described a lady in a grotto. Within a year thousands of pilgrims were arriving.

Which Italian city has kept, since 1578, a linen shroud that some believe wrapped the body of Jesus?

Turin received the cloth after the Dukes of Savoy made the city their capital. Radiocarbon tests in 1988 dated the linen to the Middle Ages, between 1260 and 1390.

Which country is home to the eleven rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, built as a new Jerusalem?

Ethiopia's King Lalibela is said to have been told in a vision to build a second Jerusalem at home. Each church was carved out of solid rock, and the site remains a place of pilgrimage.

The Camino pilgrim routes across northern Spain end at the cathedral of which Galician city?

Santiago de Compostela grew up around a shrine said to hold the remains of the apostle James, whose name in Spanish is Santiago. Pilgrims wear a scallop shell as the badge of the route.

Which apostle, the patron saint of Scotland, is by tradition said to have died on an X-shaped cross?

Andrew is said to have asked for that shape, thinking himself unworthy to die on the same kind of cross as Jesus. It became the saltire on Scotland's flag and so part of the Union Flag.

What name is given to the sacred painted images of Christ venerated in Eastern Orthodox churches?

Icons often cover an iconostasis, a whole wall of them standing between the worshippers and the sanctuary. Orthodox writers speak of 'writing' an icon, not painting one.

Which governor of Judaea, named in the Nicene Creed, ordered the crucifixion of Jesus?

Pontius Pilate governed Judaea for about a decade under the emperor Tiberius. He is the best-attested holder of the post, yet almost nothing is known of his earlier life.

Which language, found in parts of Daniel and Ezra, was probably the everyday speech of Jesus?

Aramaic was the common tongue of first-century Judaea, and Jesus probably spoke its Galilean dialect, which differed from the speech of Jerusalem.

Which central part of a church, used by the lay worshippers, takes its name from a word for a ship?

Nave comes from 'navis', the ship being an early symbol of the Church as a whole. In many Nordic and Baltic countries a model ship hangs from the ceiling there.

What is the name of the basin, often carved from stone, that holds the water for church baptisms?

Font bowls are very often eight-sided, a shape tied to the 'eighth day' of new creation. As baptising infants became the norm, they also grew smaller.

Which of the seven deadly sins is ranked the original and worst on almost every traditional list?

Pride is called the root from which the other vices spring, and the sin through which Lucifer fell. Its opposite among the virtues is humility.

Which tinker began writing The Pilgrim's Progress during twelve years in prison for his preaching?

John Bunyan could have gone free by agreeing to stop preaching, and refused. He went on to write nearly sixty titles, many of them expanded sermons.

Which German pastor, author of The Cost of Discipleship, was hanged at Flossenbürg in April 1945?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer attacked 'cheap grace' in that book, and had denounced Hitler on the radio two days after he became chancellor. He was 39 when he was executed.

In which city did the French reformer John Calvin lead the church from 1541 until his death in 1564?

Geneva had thrown Calvin out in 1538, and he spent three years ministering to French refugees elsewhere before the city invited him back.

What is the common name for glossolalia, a practice prized in Pentecostal and charismatic worship?

Speaking in tongues entered modern Pentecostalism at a Bible college in Topeka, Kansas, where the student Agnes Ozman experienced it on 1 January 1901.

Which feast on 6 January marks the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus in Western churches?

Epiphany is also called Three Kings' Day, and its customs include chalking the front door, having the house blessed and sharing a Three Kings cake.

Which denomination, born of the Millerite movement of the 1840s, keeps Saturday as its Sabbath?

Seventh-day Adventists trace their roots to the 'Great Disappointment', when Jesus did not return on 22 October 1844 as the Millerites had predicted. The church was formally set up in 1863.

Which Jerusalem shrine, shared by six denominations, is held to stand over the site of the crucifixion?

The Holy Sepulchre is shared so strictly that a ladder under one window has stood there since at least 1757, because even minor changes need total agreement.

The Maronite Church, whose patriarch sits at Bkerké, is centred in which Middle Eastern country?

Lebanon's unwritten National Pact requires the country's president to be a Maronite. The church looks back to Maron, a fourth-century monk who took up an ascetic life beside the Orontes River.

Which Aegean peninsula, home to twenty Orthodox monasteries, is closed to all women visitors?

Mount Athos bars not only women but female domestic animals too, with an exception made for cats because of their skill at catching mice.

Which Bavarian village has staged a Passion Play roughly once a decade since a plague vow in 1633?

Oberammergau's villagers promised to act out the life and death of Jesus if God spared them, and tradition says nobody there died of plague afterwards. The first performance came in 1634.

Which Bohemian reformer was burned at the stake for heresy at the Council of Constance in 1415?

Jan Hus had travelled there under a promise of safe conduct from the German king Sigismund. After his execution his followers, the Hussites, defeated five crusades sent against them.

Who is credited with writing The Imitation of Christ, composed in the Netherlands around 1420?

Thomas à Kempis's book is perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible. It first circulated anonymously, and his handwritten copy of 1441 survives in Brussels.

Which 12th-century abbess and composer was named a Doctor of the Church in 2012?

Hildegard of Bingen left more surviving chants than any other medieval composer and even invented a language of her own, the Lingua Ignota. She was nicknamed the 'Sibyl of the Rhine'.

Which follower of Jesus was chosen by lot to replace the apostle who had betrayed him?

Matthias was picked over Joseph Barsabbas when the remaining eleven cast lots after the Ascension. None of the four Gospels mentions him by name.

Which feast on 2 February recalls Joseph and Mary presenting the infant Jesus at the Temple?

Candlemas is named for the candles that worshippers bring to church to be blessed for the year. It falls forty days after Christmas, when some countries take their decorations down.

Which service, also called night prayer, is the final office of the day in the Liturgy of the Hours?

Compline gets its name from completing the waking day. In most monasteries it is followed by the 'Great Silence', kept by monks and guests alike through the night.

Which New England preacher delivered the 1741 sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God'?

Jonathan Edwards later became president of the college that is now Princeton, and died soon afterwards from a smallpox inoculation he had taken to encourage others.