The Church's Story

You can check this simply enough in any Holy Bible!

Peter's given name was Simon, but Jesus called him 'Peter, the rock upon which I shall build my church'. (Hence, among much else, St Peter's Church at the Vatican in Rome, with its key-shaped 'square' commemorating Jesus' promise to give him 'the keys of the kingdom'.)

The story is told in Acts 9.

The silversmiths were shouting 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians!', since they were worried that if Paul's new religion caught on, they would no longer have any sales of their souvenirs and other Diana-related items. (See Acts 19)

The island in question was Malta (then known under its Latin name, Melita, meaning 'the place of honey: you can still visit ancient Roman apiaries [bee-houses] on the hillside overlooking the rock): there is a more recent statue on St Paul's Rock, commemorating the event. See chapters 23-4 of Acts.

Long before the days of chemical dyes, purple cloth could only be manufactured using pigment from a rare shellfish called Murex, which could only be harvested in certain places and by trained divers. This made it expensive, so only rich people could afford to buy purple cloth and be seen wearing it (cf. the 'royal robe' put mockingly onto Jesus just before His crucifixion). Lydia's client list therefore included a significant number of influential people.

Constantine, who had seen military service in Britain, became the first Christian Emperor early in the 4th Century.

... Hence, at time of writing of this Quiz (2014), the Protestant church as a whole is approaching its 500th anniversary (= 1/4 of the Christian era of 2,000 years, give-or-take). Students of British history will know of the pivotal part played in the Reformation on these islands by King Henry VIII, who reigned early in the 16th century (e.g. he abolished the monasteries and abbeys in the late 1530s).

Pope Paul VI died in early August 1978 after 15 years in office; three weeks later John Paul I was elected, but lived only another 33 days; his successor John Paul II (who took the same name in homage, but was originally Karol Woytyla) then reigned for 27 years, including throughout the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe (under which he had lived himself as a Polish citizen), and died in 2005.

Pope Benedict XVI (previously Josef Ratzinger) resigned with effect from the end of February 2013; the last time such a thing had happened was in 1415, almost 500 years beforehand and a century before the Reformation.