"Blessed are you if they revile and persecute you because of me and lie and bring all kinds of evil upon you for my sake. Rejoice and rejoice, for your reward will be great in heaven" (Mt 5:11-12) - declares Jesus at the beginning of the public activity of his invited disciples.
The Church has experienced the harsh reality of this from the beginning. For nearly three centuries, he had to face the persecutions in the Roman Empire surrounded by increasingly violent outbreaks. However, the Master's promise instilled hope in them: "trust me, I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33).
Church history symbolically calls the first three centuries the Church of the Catacombs, during which time it had to fight against cultures in addition to its unequal struggle with power. Confronted with Judaism first, it moved into the even richer and more diverse Hellenic culture, and then from the 3rd century on, it incorporated Latinism, which it then used and passed on as a tool to transform Europe.

The persecutions of Christian antiquity are still depressingly relevant today. The pogroms, acts of terrorism against Christians from the Middle East, Africa or the Middle East, the prohibitions imposed by the exercisers of public power and the open efforts aimed at exterminating them cause not only the shock of the professing Christian world, but also of all people of good sense - even among Muslims -. who consider freedom of conscience and religion among the most feared values ​​of humanity.