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" when it looked as if all the civilized world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius"

Arianism IS Christianity. All that is required to be a Christian is to believe that Christ was the son of God, that he's the sacrfice for your sins, that you accept that sacrifice, and that he rose from the grave. That's it. NOWHERE in the New Testament is there a Trinitarian test.The earliest Christians were not Trinitarians... Christ certainly never taught the doctrine... and Arius' point was merely "Look, the scriptures don't say what you're claiming they do". You might as well accuse any denomination of heresy on that point, because the very reason there are different denominations is because we disagree with each other on what the scriptures say.

Northern Europe was more or less Arian until Catholicism eliminated it, at times by force. Arius himself was murdered by other "Christians", by poisoning. And Constantine... the man that brought Christianity to Rome officially... was baptized as an Arian.

Saying that Arius wasn't a Christian or that he taught a meld of paganism (that's rich, coming from some people whom Greek philosophy is as much an influence on their religious doctrine as the scriptures themselves.) is just as bad as saying "Those Catholics, they aren't real Christians". Some protestants believe in "Sola Scriptura". Arians (and today's non-Trinitarian denominations) are simply taking the Bible at it's word, in their view.

-—. NOWHERE in the New Testament is there a Trinitarian test.——

Where did you get the idea that every religious truth must be explicitly stated in the Bible? At the very least, this idea should appear in the Bible.

Your rejection of the Trinity is the logical consequence of Luther’s doctrine of “the Bible ALONE.”

The focus of Arius was on the person of Christ, The Catholic Encyclopedia gives this summary on Arius' view of Christ

The drift of all he advanced was this: to deny that in any true sense God could have a Son; as Mohammed tersely said afterwards, "God neither begets, nor is He begotten" (Koran, 112). We have learned to call that denial Unitarianism. It was the ultimate scope of Arian opposition to what Christians had always believed. But the Arian, though he did not come straight down from the Gnostic, pursued a line of argument and taught a view which the speculations of the Gnostic had made familiar. He described the Son as a second, or inferior God, standing midway between the First Cause and creatures; as Himself made out of nothing, yet as making all things else; as existing before the worlds of the ages; and as arrayed in all divine perfections except the one which was their stay and foundation. God alone was without beginning, unoriginate; the Son was originated, and once had not existed. For all that has origin must begin to be.

As his reference to Mohammed implies, Arius’ view of the relationship between Father and Son was very like that of Mohammed. Which is one reason why Islam made such quick headway among the lands of north Africa and Spain overrun by the Muslims after 632.

"Arianism IS Christianity. All that is required to be a Christian is to believe that Christ was the son of God..."

I'm very sorry, friend. This first statement about Arianism being Christianity is simply false. Arius taught that Jesus was not co-eternal, but created at a finite point in chronos time. In Arius' own words, "There was a time when the Son was not." This contradicts the words of Christ, as recorded in the 8th chapter of the Gospel According to St. John, when he answered the Pharisees, "...before Adam was even born, I AM."

"The earliest Christians were not Trinitarians..."

Again, I'd point you to the Gospels, this time that of St. Matthew, 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

So, I offer to you the words of Jesus Christ on these matters.