Did Christianity vanish in the West when the Roman Empire collapsed?
A viewer asks whether, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, Christianity also vanished in the western lands Rome had ruled.
Answer
No, I don't think so. As a matter of fact, the collapse of the Roman Empire made a vacuum, and that vacuum had to be filled by some entity that had a government. And the Catholic Church, by this time in the 400s, had a government: the Pope, the bishops, dioceses all over Europe, West and East, a congregation that was obedient to them, bishops, priests, everything was in place. And the Church basically filled the vacuum that was created by the Romans, who basically just walked away, or they were killed, or they just didn't have the same government force that they had before. And they needed the help of the Church eventually. So I think exactly the opposite: Christianity filled the vacuum created by the Roman collapse.