When did the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) emphasis on praying to saints and venerating relics and icons begin?
Oil painting of a young John Calvin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) John Calvin answers that question directly. In his work, A Treatise on Relics , Calvin utilizes his extensive knowledge of church history to demonstrate that prayers to the saints, prayers for the dead, the veneration of relics, the lighting of candles (in homage to the saints), and the veneration of icons are all rooted in Roman paganism . Such practices infiltrated the Christian church after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Here is an excerpt from Calvin’s work that summarizes his thesis: Hero-worship is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings, — gratitude, love, and admiration, — but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to most dangerous consequences. It was by such an exaggeration of these noble feelings that [Roman] Paganism f