<P> The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire . In 303, the Emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with traditional Roman religious practices . Later edicts targeted the clergy and ordered all inhabitants to sacrifice to the Roman gods (a policy known as universal sacrifice). The persecution varied in intensity across the empire--weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces . Persecutory laws were nullified by different emperors at different times, but Constantine and Licinius's Edict of Milan (313) has traditionally marked the end of the persecution . </P> <P> Christians had always been subject to local discrimination in the empire, but early emperors were reluctant to issue general laws against the sect . It was not until the 250s, under the reigns of Decius and Valerian, that such laws were passed . Under this legislation, Christians were compelled to sacrifice to pagan gods or face imprisonment and execution . After Gallienus's accession in 260, these laws went into abeyance . Diocletian's assumption of power in 284 did not mark an immediate reversal of imperial inattention to Christianity, but it did herald a gradual shift in official attitudes toward religious minorities . In the first fifteen years of his rule, Diocletian purged the army of Christians, condemned Manicheans to death, and surrounded himself with public opponents of Christianity . Diocletian's preference for activist government, combined with his self - image as a restorer of past Roman glory, forebode the most pervasive persecution in Roman history . In the winter of 302, Galerius urged Diocletian to begin a general persecution of the Christians . Diocletian was wary, and asked the oracle of Apollo for guidance . The oracle's reply was read as an endorsement of Galerius's position, and a general persecution was called on February 24, 303 . </P>

Who was targeted in the great persecution that began in 303