Rockland

Yes. For three hundred years after the death of christ there were dozens of Christian “sects” throughout the Empire; as there were dozens of “gospels” and everyone had a different opinion of what happened in the centuries past with regard to the story of Christ.

Christianity was very “rich” during this time with open discussion and exchange of ideas.
The “gospel of Judas” ie; is very different from story we were led to believe.

Anyway; as the Roman Gods fell out of favor, Emperor Constantive saw wisdom in uniting the Empire under ONE religion in his bid to provide national unity.

He summoned all the Bishops together and told them to find a common theme for christianity.
The Bishops did so; and in 325ce came up with what we learn today; and discarding the restThat That was the beginning of the end of “open discussion and exchange of ideas” in Christianity.

To make a long story short: Over the next five hundred years the new church worked on eliminating anything they defined as heresy; that being anything it didn’t agree with.

Then in 800ce Emperor Charlemagne began cutting off the heads of most everyone in the Empire who wouldn’t convert to the “state religion”; that being Christianity. Europe became Catholic.

Fast forward to the present and we have two billion Christians and a few surviving Jews.