Protestants vs Church History

Bryan Fischer, an outspoken Evangelical Protestant, today (2 August 2019) claimed on his radio program Focal Point that there were no dedicated church buildings before St Constantine the Great ascended the imperial throne of Rome.  However, if one reads a little Church history, he will see this is false.  Eusebius writes the following about the time of the Emperor Diocletian, prior to St Constantine:

5. And one could see the rulers in every church accorded the greatest favor by all officers and governors. But how can any one describe those vast assemblies, and the multitude that crowded together in every city, and the famous gatherings in the houses of prayer; on whose account not being satisfied with the ancient buildings they erected from the foundation large churches in all the cities?

--Church History, Book VIII, Ch. 1

4. It was in the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, in the month Dystrus, called March by the Romans, when the feast of the Saviour's passion was near at hand, that royal edicts were published everywhere, commanding that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire, and ordering that those who held places of honor be degraded, and that the household servants, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, be deprived of freedom.

--Ibid., Ch. 2

--http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250108.htm

There certainly were dedicated church buildings prior to St Constantine.  However, this error on the part of Mr Fischer is understandable because of Protestant revisionism with respect to Church history.  Their version of it is given by Fr Zechariah Lynch, himself a former Pentecostal who is now an Orthodox priest:

 . . . between the year 311AD and 1300AD is simply the word “Darkness” (from 33AD to 311AD the church was said to be operating in its original “power”). That is, the Church went into a time of captivity and darkness.

1300AD is labeled “Refreshing Starts,” during this period such figures as John Huss, John Wycliffe, and others are considered the pioneers of refreshment.

1500AD – “Grace,” clearly this refers to what is known as the Protestant Reformation.

1700AD – “Personal holiness and conversion.”

1800AD – “Prayer and Evangelism.”

1900AD – “Baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

1950AD – “Charismatic.”

Late 1900’s – “Combine them all!” The note below the diagram reads, “God is building, adding and adding, God is restoring His Church!” And with a note of surprised delight its comments, “In the 1950s and after charismatic gifts began to flow even in traditional churches.”

--https://inklesspen.blog/2019/06/25/the-charisma-of-the-age-an-orthodox-critique-of-the-charismatic-movement/

Such a scheme distorts one’s view of actual Church history, as it likely has in the case of Mr Fischer.  Perhaps, though, this oversight of his vis-à-vis church buildings will help him and other Protestant Evangelicals to consider where else they have gone astray with respect to the truth about the Orthodox Church and those who claim to be the Body of Christ.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!