CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

In its early centuries, Christianity was seen with suspicion by authorities.

Writing in defense of Christians who were unfairly charged with crimes in second-century Rome,  a philosopher condemned the death penalty when he wrote that Christians

“cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly.”

But as Christianity became more connected with state power, European Christian monarchs and governments regularly carried out the death penalty until its abolition through the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the Western world, today, only the USA and Belarus retain capital punishment for crimes not committed during wartime.