Diocletian's Persecuted Church

On february 20, third, three o, three a d almost exactly one thousand, 708 years ago, diocletian finally let the hard liners off the leash. Theory contends that the junior emperor arranged for debauch, divination and the non responsive oracle in order to push Diocletian into a hard lined stance. The next day imperial authorities posted an edict not only ordering every citizen in the empire to make a proper pagan sacrifice, but further ordering that every church in the empire was to be destroyed. After this initial uprising, christians were rounded up and tortured for information about their brethren.