Christianized sites

In Rome the early basilica churches of St. Peter's, Saint Paul Outside the Walls and San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, all follow this pattern.

The establishment of a third century Roman military camp in the temple complex at Luxor demonstrates an ongoing process of adaptive re-use.

[2] After the Peace of the Church, the old pagan temples continued to function but gradually fell into disuse, and were finally all closed by the decrees of Theodosius I at the end of the 4th century.

The conversion of pre-Christian places of worship, rather than their destruction, was particularly true of temples of Mithras, a religion that had been the main rival to Christianity during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, especially among the Roman legions.

"[6] Exceptions to this are the conversion of the Askepieion in Athens around 529, and both the Hephaisteion and Athena's temple at the Parthenon, during the seventh century, reflecting possible conflict between Christians and non-Christians.

[7] Cassiodorus, the court secretary to the Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great, described in a letter written in AD 527, a fair held at a former pagan shrine of Leucothea, in the still culturally Greek region of south Italy, which had been Christianized by converting it to a baptistery (Variae 8.33).

Sulpicius Severus, in his Vita of Martin of Tours, wrote, "wherever he destroyed heathen temples, there he used immediately to build either churches or monasteries",[8] and when Benedict of Nursia took possession of the site at Monte Cassino, he began by smashing the sculpture of Apollo and the altar that crowned the height.

[citation needed] Montmartre (originally Mons Martis, "Mount of Mars", later re-interpreted as Mons martyris, "Mountain of the martyr") was the site of one of the oldest surviving Christian churches in France—Saint Pierre was earlier a mercurii monte—a high place dedicated to Lugus, a major Celtic deity (and one that the Romans viewed as a homology of Mercury).

In Francia, the site chosen for the abbey of Luxueil were the ruins of a well-fortified Gallo-Roman settlement, Luxovium, that had been ravaged by Attila in 451, and was now buried in the dense overgrown woodland that had filled the abandoned site over more than a century; the place still had the advantage of the thermal baths ("constructed with unusual skill", according to Columbanus' early biographer, Jonas of Bobbio) down in the valley, which still give the town its name of Luxeuil-les-Bains.

Jonas described it further: "There stone images crowded the nearby woods, which were honoured in the miserable cult and profane former rites in the time of the pagans".

Among the country people (pagani) as Jean Seznec observed that euhemerist dismissal by Christian writers of pagan deities as once having been human was insufficient cause to abandon old ways: "in country districts, the chief obstacle to Christianity was offered by the tenacious survival of anthropomorphic cults; here the problem became one of still further humanizing the divinities of springs, trees and mountains, in order to rob them of their prestige".

[11] In Britain, the legendary King Lucius, was reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the often unreliable Christian chronicler, to have deliberately converted all the old temples to churches.

The historical reality is discussed in a letter from Pope Gregory I to Mellitus, who was about to join Augustine of Kent among the Anglo-Saxons: So when almighty God has led you to the most reverend man our brother Bishop Augustine, tell him what I have long gone over in my mind concerning the matter of the English: that is, that the shrines of idols amongst that people should be destroyed as little as possible, but that the idols themselves that are inside them should be destroyed.

[citation needed] A tradition grew that St Peter upon Cornhill church in London was founded by Lucius in AD 199.

[16] [17] Historians seem to be more confident that early english christian churches met in private homes and villas belonging the wealthy.

Another major ancient holy tree was Thor's Oak, which was deliberately desecrated and destroyed by a Christian missionary named Winfrid (later canonised as Saint Boniface).

In Britain and the Celtic northwest of Europe, the divinities of springs were transformed into local saints who were often venerated only at the location of their "holy well".

In Croatia the only three remaining mosques from the Ottoman period, those in Đakovo, Klis and Drniš, have been converted or re-converted into Catholic churches.