The monograph is the first comprehensive study in Russian scientific literature of the phenomenon of pagan opposition to the Christianization of the Roman Empire during late antiquity. Based on a wide body of sources (works of pagan and Christian historians, monuments of the oratory tradition, works of the Church Fathers, hagiographic literature, late Roman legislation, as well as epigraphy and papyrology data), the author analyzed the social composition of the opposition in the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire, revealed the reasons for the formation of the opposition, the main stages of its activity.