Edict of Serdica
Galerius's Edict of Toleration is published at Nicomedia
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The edict still called Christianity folly while allowing Christians to go back to worshipping.
Posted at Nicomedia, 30 April 311
Lactantius dates the publication precisely, to the day before the Kalends of May in 311. The measure was associated with the gravely ill Galerius, who died shortly afterwards.
It allowed Christians to be Christians again and to hold assemblies — provided that they did nothing contrary to public order. This was conditional toleration, not unrestricted religious freedom.
The price of the concession
Christians were instructed to pray to their God for the emperors, the Roman state and themselves. Provincial officials were promised further instructions.
The text also concedes that coercion had failed: many Christians had remained steadfast, while some who were forced to comply ended up worshipping neither the traditional gods nor the Christian God.
Uneven in practice
Lactantius says the prison gates opened after publication, and that his fellow Christian Donatus — confined six years — was released with other confessors.
The measure took immediate effect in Galerius's territory and apparently in Licinius's, but was not fully implemented in Maximin Daia's, where local persecution resumed later in 311.
Serdica, often attached to the edict's name, is the probable but not certain place of original promulgation; Nicomedia is where publication is securely attested.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited
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What the sources leave uncertain
- Publication at Nicomedia on 30 April is securely stated by Lactantius. Serdica as the place where the decision was originally promulgated is probable, not certain.
- The surviving text was transmitted by Christian authors Lactantius and Eusebius; no pagan account of the edict survives.
- The policy’s authorship or instigation is disputed. Scholars have variously credited Galerius, Licinius, Constantine or collaboration among them.
- The names preserved in Eusebius changed between recensions as later-disgraced emperors were removed, complicating reconstruction of the original titulature.