What can the ancient cities of early Christianity teach us today?

New book explores a dozen important ancient cities for the evangelization of Christianity

SAN FRANCISCO — How was the early Catholic Church shaped in the cultures of the ancient cities of Jerusalem, Rome, Milan, Constantinople, Ravenna, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Carthage and Edessa? And why does it matter to today’s Christians? These cities and others – and their lasting mark on Christianity – are explored in Michael Aquilina’s new book, RABBLES, RIOTS, AND RUINS: TWELVE ANCIENT CITIES AND HOW THEY WERE EVANGELIZED (Ignatius Press).

Aquilina is the executive vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and serves as contributing editor of Angelus News and general editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History series. He hosts the “Way of the Fathers” podcast and has hosted eleven EWTN television series.

In RABBLES, RIOTS, AND RUINS, Aquilina takes readers on adventures to a dozen cities that once raged against the Gospel and persecuted the Church but later came to admirable faith. Each city had its own unique commerce, culture and institutions. Each city was different from all the others, and each became more perfectly itself through the influence of Jesus Christ.

RABBLES, RIOTS, AND RUINS is written as an imaginative entry into the world of the Church Fathers, the saints and sages who converted the world to Christ. As the Church steadily grew, so did the practices such as abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, which went from commonplace to unthinkable, which shamefully mirrors today’s culture.

“An inspiring panoramic survey of the evangelization of twelve great cities that shows how this laid the foundations for the building of the faith and subsequent spread of Christian civilization,” said Joseph Pearce, author of The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: History in Three Dimensions. “Mike Aquilina writes with an all-too-rare succinctness and clarity. His writing style is accessible and easy to read. He’s a boon and a blessing.”

For more information, to request a review copy, or to schedule an interview with Mike Aquilina, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or [email protected]) of Carmel Communications.      

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