"...the face of Christendom was forever altered?"

One part of me was pulling your leg; another, suggesting that, among many other things, the pre-Constantine Roman church community -- antedating the "Roman variety" community (that came after Constantine) -- created no Christian paradise either. It was community that was basically Jewish. It had adopted a moderately conservative Jewish Christian stance about many things. It contained a good many "sebomenoi," Jewish by sympathy (though self-identified Christians) and some Gentile proselytes. But early Roman church communities weren't all what some people make them out to be today -- unsullied by Constantine. And I think there were just as many holy people in the pre-Constantine Roman church community as in the post Constantine Roman church community. Sanctity can triumph anywhere, under any regime, and is always an indication of Christ's presence.