Role of Christianity in Western society

Common card · No. 450828

Christianity has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society. Throughout its long history, the Catholic Church has been a major source of social services like schooling and medical care; an inspiration for art, culture and philosophy; and an influential player in politics and religion. In various ways it has sought to affect Western attitudes towards vice and virtue in diverse fields. Festivals like Easter and Christmas are marked as public holidays; the Gregorian Calendar has been adopted internationally as the civil calendar; and the calendar itself is measured from an estimation of the date of Jesus's birth. The cultural influence of the Church has been vast. Church scholars preserved literacy in Western Europe following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, the Church rose to replace the Roman Empire as the unifying force in Europe and is credited with dissolving traditional kinship networks. The medieval cathedrals remain among...

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