CHRISTIAN MARTYRS

 

CHRISTIAN MARTYRS

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

Persecuted Church Statistics

http://theestherproject.com/statistics/

It is impossible to provide a definitive number for how many Christians have been killed by other Christians throughout history

. However, historical sources confirm that sectarian violence has been a recurring feature of Christian history, resulting in millions of casualties. 

Examples of Christians killing fellow Christians include:

• The European Wars of ReligionFollowing the Protestant Reformation, these conflicts from the 16th to early 18th centuries involved immense violence between different Christian factions.
  • The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648): This conflict, fought primarily between Catholics and Protestants, caused an estimated 3 to 11.5 million deaths, largely within the Holy Roman Empire.
  • The French Wars of Religion (1562–1598): These internal conflicts between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots) are believed to have caused 2 to 4 million deaths.
• The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572): This event saw Catholic mobs kill thousands of Huguenots in Paris. Violence spread to other cities, with total death estimates ranging from 5,000 to 30,000.
• Late Antiquity (3rd–8th centuries CE): Sectarian violence among Christians was widespread during this time. For instance, in 4th-century Constantinople, a riot over an exiled bishop resulted in 3,000 deaths. The Albigensian Crusade also killed over a million people, including heretical Christians.
• The Crusades: While primarily associated with campaigns against Muslims, some Crusades were also waged against other Christian groups deemed heretical or schismatic. A prime example is the Fourth Crusade, where Crusaders from Western Europe attacked and sacked the Eastern Orthodox city of Constantinople in 1204.
• Colonial violence: Christian colonizers have perpetrated widespread violence against Indigenous peoples, many of whom had converted to Christianity. In the Democratic Republic of Congo civil war (2000–2010), Christians fought Christians, resulting in up to 900,000 deaths that some researchers count as martyrs.
• Modern sectarian conflicts:Tensions and violence between different Christian denominations have persisted. In the 19th-century U.S., anti-Catholic mob violence led to the deaths of Catholics. Some scholars also suggest that in modern conflicts, such as the Yugoslav Wars, religious differences served as markers of group identity in what were primarily inter-ethnic conflicts. 

The reasons for this violence are complex, stemming from theological disputes, political power struggles, and ethnic or national tensions. Historical estimates for conflicts like the European wars and genocides involve wide ranges because many victims died indirectly from conflict-induced famine and disease, in addition to direct battle.