On 31 April 311 Emperor Galerius issued an edict ending the persecution of Christians and giving the Christian cult official and legal recognition. This edict of tolerance represents a decisive turn in history. To mark the 1700th anniversary of this, the Faculty of Theology at Graz University held an international and interdisciplinary symposium. The academic conference examined the religious spectrum of late antiquity and took as a central theme the issues of tolerance and religious freedom. Particular emphasis was given to the ways in which Christian attitudes to the pagan and Jewish worlds were determined after 311, but there was also discussion of contemporary issues such as religious freedom in canon law and in international and Islamic law.