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| Baptistry from 5th Century Church |
The great thinker who helped define Early Christianity among the competing creeds of the Fourth Century lived and studied in Tunisia. Born of a Christian mother and a pagan father, this spiritual traveller flirted with Manicheaism, deliberated with ascetics, and debated the Donatists. He was baptized a Christian only in his mid-30s and in the course of his work in North Africa went on to give a lasting shape to the Christian doctrine.
Byzantine Churches of North Africa
Evidence of this rich Christian tradition in Tunisia is found in the remains of basilcas at most of the Roman cities. Among the most beautiful are those of Sbeitla. The Church of Saint Vitalis shows a nave of five aisles and holds a splendid mosaic batistery.
Despite the famous battle in which the Arabs defeated the Byzantine Prefect Gregory in 647, Christian and Muslim communities coexisted in Tunisia for some six centuries more. The disappearance of Christianity in Tunisia during the Thirteenth Century may have been the ultimate result of internal infighting, but this is still a puzzling question for scholars. Today there are no indigenous Christian communities in Tunisia.
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