Church of Sts. Margaret Mary and Martyr

Diocletian was an able administrator and basically a kindly man. But in the earliest years of the fourth century his huge empire was becoming unmanageable due to constant inroads of barbarian armies against its northern borders. Therefore he appointed as co-emperors Maximinus and Constantius Chlorus in the West; and chose to assist him in the East, Co-emperor Galerius. Galerius, under constant pressure from his fanatical pagan mother, considered Christians as the real enemies of the Roman Empire. Consequently he sought to entrap Diocletian into proceeding against them initially by urging that all soldiers guarding the borders, especially in the Danube provinces, be forced to offer sacrifices to the Roman gods, on the pretext of strengthening military discipline. Once he had won over the old emperor, that ruler, who had a totalitarian mentality, authorized a persecution in which every Christian in the Empire was at risk, and literally thousands actually suffered.