# The first Great Persecution edict of 24 February 303 orders churches demolished and scriptures burned

Date: 303

## The fact

On 24 February 303, at Nicomedia, the first edict of the Great Persecution ordered churches razed, scriptures burned, and Christians of rank stripped of legal standing. [Diocletian](/people/diocletian) as senior Augustus issued it. Later edicts demanded sacrifice.

It is one event.

## Context

Lactantius and Eusebius are Christian narrators with reason to blacken. The edicts are still received as imperial law. Implementation was not uniform: Constantius in the West did less than Galerius and Maximinus in the East. Difference does not delete the senior signature.

Diocletian’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers date the row.

## Evidence and sources

Britannica Great Persecution, Lactantius, and Eusebius independently date February 303; Cambridge treats regional variation as real.

Official or archival record: Lactantius, Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died — New Advent (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0705.htm; New Advent).

## Significance

Ordering churches destroyed and a cult outlawed is a minority-rights harm of high confidence on the edict, medium on any one town’s body-count.

Do not write ‘religious policy’ as a euphemism for burning scriptures and killing refusers.

Ordering churches destroyed and a cult outlawed is a minority-rights harm of high confidence on the edict, medium on any one town’s body-count.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 24 February 303 first edict and subsequent edicts through 304 as received. Not established: a Factrail-original martyr census, or that every tetrarch implemented equally.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Diocletian.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date, signatory, or non-occurrence; a demonstrated forgery; or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of other causes.

## People

- Diocletian: https://factrail.ai/people/diocletian

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Great-Persecution
- https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0705.htm

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/di-great-persecution-303