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Categories |The church is the body of believers of Jesus. Its history is full of periods of struggle and renewal. Initially, the early Christians spread the good news of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire and small congregations of Christians sprang up in many towns. Rome soon became the geographical centre of the church. In the early centuries, controversies about the nature of God caused great debates, however the church mostly stayed unified until a major rift finally occurred between the Church in Greece and the one in Rome (it had slowly developed over centuries) culminating in a schism in 1054 AD. In the Middle Ages, people in Christian lands formed armies to "defend" the Holy Lands of Israel from Islamic control. In the mid second millenium, there was a renewal of awareness of the Bible spawning the Reformation, with Christians in northern Europe splitting from the Roman Catholic Church. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, missionary activity has spread the gospel around the world. Today there seems to be a bewildering array of denominations. Some of the larger ones include Roman Catholicism, the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches and the wide variety of Protestant churches.
Christianity began among a relatively small number of Jews who knew and followed Jesus.
The Chuch expands: Jerusalem to Rome
Acts 2 tells the story of Pentecost where 3,000 Jews converted to Christianity on one day. Later in Acts 10, the conversion of the Gentile Roman Centurion Cornelius and his family is told. Following the acceptance of Gentiles by the church, Christianity spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire.
Persecution of the early church
For about the next 250 years Christians suffered from persecutions for various reasons, including their refusal to worship the Roman Emperor, considered treasonous and punishable by execution. There were persecutions under Nero, Domitian, Trajan and the other Antonines, Maximinus Thrax, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian and Galerius. Many Christians were willing to die for their faith. The first martyr known of was the apostle Stephen who was stoned by the Jewish religious leaders - the story is told in Acts 7.
In February of 313 a joint proclamation was made by the Western emperor Constantine I and the Eastern emperor Licinius. The proclamation - called the Edict of Milan - established religious toleration for Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.
By 391, under the reign of Theodosius I, Christianity had become the state religion of the Eastern Roman empire.
Christianity was not restricted to the Mediterranean basin and its hinterlands however. The Apostle Thomas traditionally is believed to have taken Christianity to Kerala in southern India, and today many southern Indians are Saint Thomas Christians. Christianity also spread to other regions like Ethiopia and Armenia.
Heresies and Councils and Creeds
Disputes of doctrine began early on in church history. The newly organized church organized meetings, or councils, to discuss these matters of faith and develop a unified church position. Councils representing the entire church were called Ecumenical Councils. These councils especially discussed various Christological controversies, examining questions like, "was Christ divine?" It was at was one of these councils (The Council of Chalcedon) that the Eastern Oriental Churches split from the wider church community over a disagreement regarding the nature of Christ.
Western and Eastern Drift
Initially all the churches were considered equal, and tended to elect one elder in authority over all the other church members. This elder was called the ruling bishop. As the number of churches grew, local churches were grouped in divisions, and authority over the entire division was given to the bishop of the largest church in the largest city. Leaders began promoting the belief that the apostles had given special authority to certain churches and their leaders - a concept known as Apostolic Succession. In the fourth and fifth centuries the bishops of Rome began to claim primacy among all bishops - "first among equals". They declared that the Bishop of Rome was the successor of the apostle Simon Peter, who they believed was given a unique mandate from Christ. The churches of the East (in Greece and the Middle East) never recognized this claim. Leo I in the fifth century was the first bishop of Rome to be given the title pope, meaning father.
Developing Beliefs
Throughout this time, beliefs about the seven sacraments, baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, purgatory, the veneration of saints, the observance of Christmas, and the naming of Mary as mother of God and queen of Heaven became widespread in the church. In this ways, many of the peripheral doctrines of the church became unrecognizable to that of the very early church.
Islam Enters
In the eighth and ninth century, Islam spread through the the Middle East and northern Africa. An Arabian man named Muhammad founded the new faith after he claimed to have been given the word of God by an angel of God. These words are now found in the Quran. His followers were known as Muslims, and they formed a powerful army that spread Islam with the sword. The rise of Islam greatly reduced numbers in the churches of the East.
Missionaries to Russia
In the late ninth century, two Greek Orthodox Christians were sent to Russia as missionaries upon the invitation of the Prince of Moravia. They had a profound influence on the population, bringing writing and the alphabet along with Christianity. The Christians of Russia remain linked today within the union of the Orthodox churches.
The 1054 split
In 1054 AD the formal split (called the Great Schism) between the church of Rome (the Roman Catholic Church) and the eastern churches (the Greek and other Orthodox churches) occurred. The split had been gradually coming over previous centuries but a number of specific issues finally led to the split, where the Roman Pope excommunicated the Orthodox Patriarch, and vice-versa. The main issue causing the split was opposing views to rather abstract question of "Did the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son, or from the Father alone?" Other issues included marriage of bishops, the requirement of bishops to have beards, the correct time to observe Easter, and the requirement of the bishop of Constantinople to recognize the pope as the highest authority.
Crusades
In the years following this and as Islam and its influence spread, the members of the Church turned their attention to the growing perceived threat of Islam. A series of bloody and futile wars were fought with Christian crusaders invading the newly acquired Muslim territory in the name of the Cross. In 1453 AD, the city of Constantinople fell in battle to the Muslim Turkish army greatly weakening the temporal power of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
During the Middle Ages, a group of Christians called the Waldenses arose. They rejected the final authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Instead they preached a personal faith in Jesus was essential, with authority resting on the Bible, and encouraged each member of the Church to hear or read the Bible in his own language. This group was heavily persecuted by the Roman Church. In 1229 AD, the Roman Synod forbid lay people to have Bibles in their native languages.
In the following centuries, their arose a terrible environment of fear and torture. The Inquisition was established in which thousands of Christians were tortured and executed for believing or practising differently from the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
During this time, the practice of buying indulgences became prominent in the Roman Catholic Church. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century had taught that Christians could merit forgiveness of sins through penance or giving money to the Church. Through this the Christian could avoid some of the punishment awaiting him in purgatory. A number of prominent Christians questioned the teaching of purgatory and indulgences, culminating in 1517 AD, when a German named Martin Luther circulated his 91 Theses disputing the sale of indulgences. This marked the start of the Reformation and the Protestant Church, which was adopted in Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The ideas behind the Reformation in Germany were quickly taken up by Christian leaders around Europe with the formation of the Swiss Presbyterian Church, the Church of England, and the Scottish Presbyterian Church. In the Netherlands, the Anabaptist Church predominated which advocated believer's baptism, pacifism and separation of church and state and in France one-sixth of the population became Huguenot Protestants.
The Protestant Churches taught that the Bible had sole absolute authority in matters of faith, that every believer could come to God the Father through Christ without the need for a priest, and that justification was through faith alone.
To counteract the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church called a Council at Trent. Here it affirmed traditional Catholic beliefs, including Bible and tradition having equal authority, justification through faith plus works plus the sacraments administered by priests, and that the Roman Church had sole authority to interpret Scripture and matters of faith.
In the century following the Reformation, there was bloody persecution and wars between Protestant and Catholic Christians. With the peace treaty ending the 30 Year War in 1648, most persecution ended. Northern Europe remained largely Protestant and southern Europe mostly Catholic. The Orthodox churches of South-East Europe and the Middle East had not been involved in this conflict.
Christianity came to America with its European colonization. Where the Spanish and Portuguese invaded and settled in South and central America, Roman Catholicism became predominant. A mixture of local superstitions blended into Catholic teaching producing a unique South American style of Catholicism with the veneration of Mary and saints particularly noticeable today. In North America, the British brought the Anglican and Baptist churches. Other Protestant Christians journeyed to Northern Europe forming Lutheran and Mennonite Anabaptist congregations.
In the nineteenth century, with this new religious freedom in northern Europe and North America, many new Christian movements developed. William Booth founded the Salvation Army in England, a Protestant denomination with an emphasis on social justice. The Gideons were founded in 1899 and became a world-wide organization to distribute free Bibles.
Along with the development of these Christian organizations came a growing belief, especially in evangelical Christians in Britain, that it was their duty to call sinners throughout the world to Christ. A few generations previously, Christians had been calling for an end to slavery of Africans. Now they were calling for missionaries to go to the homes of those people who had been made slaves and to preach the Gospel. Missionaries went throughout the the colonies of the European powers and Christianity was adopted by large numbers of people in Africa, and smaller numbers of people in India and South East Asia.
The start of the twentieth century was marked by the beginning of the charismatic or Pentecostal movement. On December 26 in 1900, a small group of Christians in the United States who had been praying and reading the Bible came away from their meeting saying they had been filled with the Holy Spirit and had spoken in tongues. This movement rapidly spread throughout both the United States and the developing world, spawning hundreds of Pentecostal denominations, the largest being the Assemblies of God. Though initially separate from the traditional churches, since the 1960's there has been an enthusiastic permeation of the charismatic movement into many Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches.
In Eastern Europe and Russia, Christians were heavily persecuted by communist dictatorships. With the fall of communism, the Eastern Orthodox churches have begun to openly flourish again. In Western Europe, interest in Christianity and personal faith with Christ has fallen and it has become perhaps the most secular region in the world, with most people Christian in name only. In the Third World the number of Christians has been growing exponentially. For the first time in history, there are more Christians in Africa and Asia than in traditionally Christian countries. Significant numbers of Roman Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal churches have all been established in these continents, and numerous independent churches also continue to be formed.
There has been a growing spirit of ecumenism within many mainstream denominations in the later half of the century. Numerous Protestant churches have joined together (e.g. forming the Uniting Church in Australia), and the Catholic and Orthodox churches have been meeting and discussing the possibility of restoring their link. However, despite a growing hope of unity, the doctrinal differences have also been growing. In the nineteenth century various teachings have become official Roman Catholic dogma including papal infallibility and the immaculate conception and sinlessness of Mary extending the gulf between Rome, the Orthodox churches and the Protestant churches. Within the Protestant churches there is also growing gaps between liberal and conservative Biblical beliefs.
In 1962, the pope called the Second Vatican Council. There were some sweeping changes brought about by this council including allowing and encouraging the laity to read the Bible and permitting the Mass to be conducted in the vernacular. However, much of the core teaching of the Catholic church was reaffirmed.
In the later half of the century, the Protestant churches began to divide on several issues causing a split into conservative evangelical congregations and liberal congregations. These issues have included allowing women to become church ministers, divorce, sexual immorality and homosexuality. Underlying these issues is trust in the authority of the Bible as God's word today. Many Protestant churches have allowed women to become pastors. The most liberal churches have been emphasizing tolerance and some are now allowing sexual relations outside marriage and promoting homosexual priests. Many of these congregations are diminishing in size but becoming increasingly vocal. Conservative evangelical churches continue to grow rapidly, and emphasize biblical teaching and obedience to God's word. The gap between these two fields of thought widens yearly.
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