Controversial questions raised by Ana Maria Fernandes like ''who are you'','' is our religion a true religion'' and ''our religion'' compelled me to take a peep into Roman history which is summarized below.
The city of Rome was founded in 753 BC ( before Christ ) but her imperial ambitions started with the destruction of Carthage ( Algeria and Morocco ) in 202 BC and were followed by conquest of Greece in 146 BC , Asia Minor (Turkey ) in 133 BC , Syria including Judea, Galilee, etc in 64 BC ( Jesus died in 33 AD ), Egypt in 30 BC , Spain ( including Portugal which was founded in the 12th century AD ) in 132 BC and Gaul (France)in 51 BC. With the conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, the Mediterranean Sea became a Roman lake since all lands surrounding the sea were now Roman colonies. The Roman empire reached the pinnacle of its power in the period 96 BC to 180 AD, It is worth noting at this stage that Islam as a religion was founded in 632 AD The population of the city of Rome consisted of elites called patricians, commoners were called plebeians and in addition there were people from various colonies around the Mediterranean sea who were called slaves and they enjoyed minimum of rights. By 35 AD the slave people had heard of doctrines of a prophet called Jesus and they rallied under his teachings to fight the Roman empire for 300 years to secure some rights for dignified living , The victory for the slaves of Rome was secured in 325 AD when the Roman Emperor Constantine converted himself to Christianity and convened the Council of Nicaea and adopted the Nicene Creed thus Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire and probably is the beginning of the authoritarian rule of the Popes. The Christian revolution in Rome lasted for about 300 years and during this period it is possible that various cultural groups from Spain and Algeria in the west to Turkey ,Syria and Egypt in the east saw Christianity ( as one writer puts it ) '' through the prism of their own cultures and gave meaning to words and phrases never intended by the New Testament authors.'''
