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87-889: Paleo-orthodoxy attempts to see the essentials of Christian theology in the consensus of the Great Church before the schism between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church (the East–West Schism of 1054) and before the separation of Protestantism from the Roman Catholic Church (the Protestant Reformation of 1517), described in the canon of Vincent of Lérins as " Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus " ("What [is believed] everywhere, always and by everyone"). Adherents of paleo-orthodoxy often form part of

174-644: A certain authority over the bishops of the province. But it also recognized the existing supra-metropolitan authority of the sees of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, and granted special recognition to Jerusalem. Constantinople was added at the First Council of Constantinople (381) and given authority initially only over Thrace . By a canon of contested validity, the Council of Chalcedon (451) placed Asia and Pontus , which together made up Anatolia , under Constantinople, although their autonomy had been recognized at

261-598: A formal representation of the concept of the Trinity , i.e., that God exists as one "substance" but three "Persons": The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Tertullian also discussed how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 and later the First Council of Constantinople in 381 then formalized these elements. In 451, all the bishops of

348-515: A lasting expansion of the formal link between the church and the Byzantine emperor, since areas outside the Byzantine Empire's political and military control set up their own distinct churches, as in the case of Bulgaria in 919. Justinian I , who became emperor in 527, recognized the patriarchs of Rome , Constantinople , Alexandria , Antioch , and Jerusalem as the supreme authorities in

435-575: A single millet headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Westerners who set up Crusader states in Greece and the Middle East appointed Latin (Western) patriarchs and other hierarchs, thus giving concrete reality and permanence to the schism. Efforts were made in 1274 ( Second Council of Lyon ) and 1439 ( Council of Florence ) to restore communion between East and West, but the agreements reached by

522-639: A unified entity until the Great Schism and its formal division with the mutual excommunication in 1054 of Rome and Constantinople. The empire finally collapsed with the Fall of Constantinople to the Islamic Ottoman Turks in 1453. The obliteration of the empire's boundaries by Germanic peoples and an outburst of missionary activity among these peoples, who had no direct links with the empire, and among Pictic and Celtic peoples who had never been part of

609-629: A variety of ways: as the catholic church , the orthodox church , the imperial church , the Roman church , or the Byzantine church , although some of those terms are also used for wider communions extending outside the Roman Empire. The Eastern Orthodox Church , Oriental Orthodoxy , and the Catholic Church all claim to stand in continuity from the Nicene church to which Theodosius granted recognition. Earlier in

696-821: A very rigid interpretation of Christianity that excluded many who had abandoned the faith during the Diocletianic Persecution, created a crisis in the western empire . A synod was held in Rome in 313 , followed by another in Arles in 314 . These synods ruled that the Donatist faith was heresy and, when the Donatists refused to recant, Constantine launched the first campaign of persecution by Christians against Christians, and began imperial involvement in Christian theology. However, during

783-508: Is not like the rulers and governors of other regions". Following the schism between the Eastern and Western churches, various emperors sought at times but without success to reunite Christendom , invoking the notion of Christian unity between East and West in an attempt to obtain assistance from the pope and Western Europe against the Muslims who were gradually conquering the empire's territory. But

870-595: Is questioned by modern historians. Roger E. Olson (1999) uses the term to refer to the Great Church at the time of the Council of Chalcedon (451) when the Patriarch of Constantinople and Bishop of Rome were in fellowship with each other. The term is contrasted with Jewish Christians who came to be more and more clearly separated from the Great Church. Wilhelm Schneemelcher and others writing on New Testament Apocrypha distinguish writings as being sectarian or from

957-520: Is reputed to have instigated, and in 313, Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan , granting to Christians and others "the right of open and free observance of their worship". Constantine began to utilize Christian symbols such as the Chi Rho early in his reign but still encouraged traditional Roman religious practices including sun worship . In 330, Constantine established the city of Constantinople as

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1044-481: Is the first recorded reference to the existence of a "Church" with a core set of shared beliefs as opposed to the ideas of dissident groups. Irenaeus states: The Church, though dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ... As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout

1131-589: Is used in the historiography of early Christianity to mean the period of about 180 to 313, between that of primitive Christianity and that of the legalization of the Christian religion in the Roman Empire , corresponding closely to what is called the Ante-Nicene Period . "It has rightly been called the period of the Great Church, in view of its numerical growth, its constitutional development and its intense theological activity." The Great Church, also called

1218-605: The Byzantine Papacy . The early Muslim conquests of the 7th–9th centuries would begin a process of converting most of the then-Christian world in the Levant , Middle East , North Africa , regions of Southern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula to Islam , severely restricting the reach both of the Byzantine Empire and of its church. Christian missionary activity directed from the capital of Constantinople did not lead to

1305-575: The Convergence Movement , though paleo-orthodoxy is not exclusive to the movement. Paleo-orthodox Protestants have different interpretations of the early Church's teachings. The dominant figure of the movement, United Methodist theologian Thomas C. Oden of Drew University , published a series of books not only calling for a return to "classical Christianity" but also providing the tools to do so. The 2002 collection of essays in honor of Oden, Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in

1392-544: The Council of Chalcedon in 451, and called the adherents of the imperially-recognized church " Melkites ", from Syriac malkâniya ("imperial"). In Western Europe , Christianity was mostly subject to the laws and customs of nations that owed no allegiance to the emperor in Constantinople. While Eastern-born popes appointed or at least confirmed by the emperor continued to be loyal to him as their political lord, they refused to accept his authority in religious matters, or

1479-423: The First Council of Nicaea as the official state religion , reserving for its followers the title of Catholic Christians and declaring that those who did not follow the religion taught by Pope Damasus I of Rome and Pope Peter of Alexandria were to be called heretics : It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to profess that religion which

1566-578: The School of Edessa , a city at the edge of the empire, to break with the imperial church (see Nestorian schism ). Persecuted within the Roman Empire, many Nestorians fled to Persia and joined the Sassanid Church (the future Church of the East ). The Second Council of Ephesus upheld the view of Eutyches, but was overturned two years later by the Council of Chalcedon , called by Emperor Marcian . Rejection of

1653-440: The catholic (i.e., universal) Church, has been defined also as meaning "the Church as defended by such as Ignatius of Antioch , Irenaeus of Lyons , Cyprian of Carthage , and Origen of Alexandria and characterized as possessing a single teaching and communion over and against the division of the sects, e.g., gnosticism , and the heresies ". By the beginning of the fourth century, the Great Church already formed about 15% of

1740-575: The imperial group, followers of the emperor (in Syriac, malka ). This schism resulted in an independent communion of churches, including the Egyptian, Syrian, Ethiopian and Armenian churches, that is today known as Oriental Orthodoxy . In spite of these schisms, however, the Chalcedonian Nicene church still represented the majority of Christians within the by now already diminished Roman Empire. In

1827-497: The liturgy longer than in the provinces, abandoned Greek. Jerome 's Vulgate had begun to replace the older Latin translations of the Bible. The 5th century would see the further fracturing of Christendom. Emperor Theodosius II called two synods in Ephesus , one in 431 and one in 449, the first of which condemned the teachings of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, while

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1914-467: The theological and christological doctrines of Arianism , Nestorianism , Miaphysitism , and Dyophysitism . In the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire decayed as a polity ; invaders sacked Rome in 410 and in 455 , and Odoacer , an Arian barbarian warlord, forced Romulus Augustus , the last nominal Western Emperor, to abdicate in 476 . However, apart from the aforementioned schisms,

2001-433: The 21st Century (Kenneth Tanner, Christopher Alan Hall, eds., ISBN   978-0830826544 ) offers a glimpse into the work of some of the theologians active in this area: Robert Jenson , Christopher Hall , Amy Oden, Bradley Nassif, David Mills , Robert Webber , Geoffrey Wainwright , Carl Braaten , Stanley Grenz , John Franke, Alan Padget, Wolfhart Pannenberg , Richard John Neuhaus , et al. Similar approaches emerge in

2088-622: The 4th century, following the Diocletianic Persecution of 303–313 and the Donatist controversy that arose in consequence, Constantine the Great had convened councils of bishops to define the orthodoxy of the Christian faith and to expand on earlier Christian councils. A series of ecumenical councils convened by successive Roman emperors met during the 4th and the 5th centuries, but Christianity continued to suffer rifts and schisms surrounding

2175-669: The 5th century, the Western Empire rapidly decayed and by the end of the century was no more. Within a few decades, Germanic tribes , particularly the Goths and Vandals , conquered the western provinces. Rome was sacked in 410 and 455 , and was to be sacked again in the following century in 546 . By 476, the Germanic chieftain Odoacer had conquered Italy and deposed the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus , though he nominally submitted to

2262-542: The Byzantine Empire came to an end, Poland also, Hungary and other central European peoples were part of a church that in no way saw itself as the empire's church and that, with the East-West Schism , had even ceased to be in communion with it. With the defeat and death in 751 of the last Exarch of Ravenna and the end of the Exarchate, Rome ceased to be part of the Byzantine Empire. Forced to seek protection elsewhere,

2349-552: The Byzantine Empire in 1453, to merge psychologically with it to the extent that its bishops had difficulty in thinking of Nicene Christianity without an emperor. The legacy of the idea of a universal church carries on in today's Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Church of the East . Many other churches, such as the Anglican Communion , claim succession to this universal church. Before

2436-422: The Christian world ideally headed by the emperor and the patriarch of the emperor's capital. Also under the influence of the imperial model of governance of the state church, in which "the emperor becomes the actual executive organ of the universal Church", the pentarchy model of governance of the state church regressed to a monarchy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Rashidun conquests began to expand

2523-546: The Council of Chalcedon led to the exodus from the state church of the majority of Christians in Egypt and many in the Levant, who preferred Miaphysite theology. Thus, within a century of the link established by Theodosius between the emperor and the church in his empire, it suffered a significant diminishment. Those who upheld the Council of Chalcedon became known in Syriac as Melkites ,

2610-686: The Eastern Orthodox world (the Byzantine patriarchates presided over by the hierarch of the Church of Constantinople together with the Slavic Orthodox churches); and, on the other side, the Western Catholic Church, presided over by the hierarch of the Church of Rome." Lawrence S. Cunningham, and separately, Kugel and Greer state that Irenaeus 's statement in Against Heresies Chapter X 1–2 (written c.  180 AD )

2697-658: The Emperor in Constantinople encouraged missionary expeditions to nearby nations including the Muslim caliphate, and the Turkic Khazars . In 862 he sent Saints Cyril and Methodius to Slavic Great Moravia . By then most of the Slavic population of Bulgaria was Christian and Tsar Boris I himself was baptized in 864. Serbia was accounted Christian by about 870. In early 867 Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople wrote that Christianity

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2784-473: The Great Church were ordered to attend the Council of Chalcedon to discuss theological issues that had emerged. This turned out to be a turning point at which the Western and Eastern churches parted ways based on seemingly small Christological differences, and began the fracturing of the claim to the term Great Church by both sides. Official Catholic publications, and other writers, sometimes consider that

2871-593: The Great Church. Gabriele Waste (2005) is among German scholars using similar references, where the "Große Kirche" ("Great Church") is defined as "Ecclesia ex gentibus" (Church of the Gentiles) in comparison to the "Ecclesia ex circumcisione" (Church of the Circumcision). In the anglophone world, Bruce J. Malina (1976) contrasted what he calls "Christian Judaism" (usually termed " Jewish Christianity ") with "the historically perceived orthodox Christianity that undergirds

2958-471: The Muslim Empire could be accepted as Muslims simply by declaring a belief in a single deity and reverence for Muhammad (see shahada ). As a result, the peoples of Egypt, Palestine and Syria largely accepted their new rulers and many declared themselves Muslims within a few generations. Muslim incursions later found success in parts of Europe, particularly Spain (see Al-Andalus ). During the 9th century ,

3045-582: The Nicene Creed of Nicaea, but was baptized on his deathbed by the Eusebius of Nicomedia , a bishop with Arian sympathies. His successor Constantius II supported Arian positions: under his rule, the Council of Constantinople in 360 supported the Arian view. After the interlude of Emperor Julian , who wanted to return to the pagan Roman/Greek religion, the west stuck to the Nicene Creed, while Arianism or Semi-Arianism

3132-498: The Roman Catholic Church identifies itself as the continuation of the Great Church, which in turn was the same as the early Church founded by Jesus Christ . Because of this, it identifies itself as the " one true church ". The unbroken continuity of the Great Church is affirmed also by the Eastern Orthodox Church : "Orthodoxy regards the Great Church in antiquity (for most of the first millennium) as comprising, on one side,

3219-452: The Roman Empire, fostered the idea of a universal church free from association with a particular state. On the contrary, "in the East Roman or Byzantine view, when the Roman Empire became Christian, the perfect world order willed by God had been achieved: one universal empire was sovereign, and coterminous with it was the one universal church"; and the church came, by the time of the demise of

3306-449: The Roman state religion In the year before the Council of Constantinople in 381, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians as the Roman Empire's state religion . Historians refer to the Nicene church associated with emperors in

3393-501: The Western Church. Early Muslim conquests of the territories of the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, most of whose Christians were in any case lost to the orthodox church since the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon, left in effect only two patriarchates, those of Rome and Constantinople. In 732, Emperor Leo III 's iconoclast policies were resisted by Pope Gregory III . The Emperor reacted by transferring to

3480-528: The authority of Constantinople. The Arian Germanic tribes established their own systems of churches and bishops in the western provinces but were generally tolerant of the population who chose to remain in communion with the imperial church. In 533, Roman Emperor Justinian in Constantinople launched a military campaign to reclaim the western provinces from the Arian Germans, starting with North Africa and proceeding to Italy. His success in recapturing much of

3567-435: The authority of such a council as the imperially convoked Council of Hieria of 754. Pope Gregory III (731–741) was the last Bishop of Rome to ask the Byzantine ruler to ratify his election. With the crowning of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 as Imperator Romanorum , the political split between East and West became irrevocable. Spiritually, Chalcedonian Christianity persisted, at least in theory, as

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3654-507: The bishop of Rome have constituted its hierarchy"; or, as the Catholic Church itself has expressed it, "This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church , which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure." Thus,

3741-653: The church as an institution persisted in communion , if not without tension, between the East and West . In the 6th century, the Byzantine armies of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I recovered Italy and other regions of the Western Mediterranean shore. The Byzantine Empire soon lost most of these gains, but it held Rome, as part of the Exarchate of Ravenna , until 751, a period known in church history as

3828-454: The church leaders addressed human needs better than their rivals. In 301, the Kingdom of Armenia , nominally a Roman client kingdom but ruled by a Parthian dynasty, became the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion , with the possible exception of Osroene in 201. In 311, with the Edict of Serdica the dying Emperor Galerius ended the Diocletianic Persecution that he

3915-544: The cohesive element across cultural zones. In 313, the Edict of Milan ended the persecution of Christians, and by 380 the Great Church had gathered enough followers to become the State church of the Roman Empire by virtue of the Edict of Thessalonica . In Contra Celsum 5.59 and 5.61 the Church Father Origen mentions Celsus ' late 2nd century use of the terms "church of the multitudes" or "great church" to refer to

4002-619: The concept of the "Great Church" can be found already in the Epistles of Paul , such as in "This is my rule in all the churches" ( 1 Corinthians 7:17 ) and in the Apostolic Fathers such as the letters of Ignatius of Antioch . Exegesis has even located the ecclesia magna in the Latin Vulgate translations of the "great congregation" ( kahal rab ) of the Hebrew Bible . This interpretation

4089-425: The council of 381. Rome never recognized this pentarchy of five sees as constituting the leadership of the church. It maintained that, in accordance with the First Council of Nicaea, only the three " Petrine " sees of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch had a real patriarchal function. The canons of the Quinisext Council of 692, which gave ecclesiastical sanction to Justinian's decree, were also never fully accepted by

4176-426: The dominant faith in some of them. Christians accounted for approximately 10% of the Roman population by 300, according to some estimates. Christianity then rapidly grew in the 4th century - Rodney Stark estimated that Christians accounted for 56.5% of the Roman population by 350. According to Will Durant , the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine and because

4263-468: The early use of the "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" formula which appeared as part of Christian Creeds, writing in Against Heresies ( Book I Chapter X ): The Church… believes in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit. Around 213 AD in Adversus Praxeas ( chapter 3 ) Tertullian provided

4350-412: The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Constantinople in 740 the territories in Greece , Illyria , Sicily and Calabria that had been under Rome (see map), leaving the bishop of Rome with only a minute part of the lands over which the empire still had control. The Patriarch of Constantinople had already adopted the title of "ecumenical patriarch", indicating what he saw as his position in the oikoumene ,

4437-476: The emerging consensus traditions among Christians at the time, as Christianity was taking shape. In the 4th century, as Saint Augustine commented on Psalm XXII, he interpreted the term to mean the whole world, writing: "The great Church, Brethren, what is it? Is a scanty portion of the earth the great Church? The great Church means the whole world." Augustine continued to expound on how various churches all considered themselves "the great Church," but that only

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4524-445: The end of the 6th century . By the time the Byzantine missions to central and eastern Europe began, Christian western Europe, in spite of losing most of Spain to Islam, encompassed Germany and part of Scandinavia, and, apart from the south of Italy, was independent of the Byzantine Empire and had been almost entirely so for centuries. This situation fostered the idea of a universal church linked to no one particular state. Long before

4611-517: The end of the 1st century, the Roman authorities recognized Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism . The distinction, perhaps already made in practice at the time of the Great Fire of Rome in the year 64, was given official status by the emperor Nerva around the year 98 by granting Christians exemption from paying the Fiscus Iudaicus , the annual tax upon the Jews. Pliny the Younger , when propraetor in Bithynia in 103, assumes in his letters to Trajan that because Christians do not pay

4698-408: The entry in Liddell & Scott , the term orthodox first occurs in the Codex Justinianus : "We direct that all Catholic churches, throughout the entire world, shall be placed under the control of the orthodox bishops who have embraced the Nicene Creed." By the end of the 6th century the church within the Empire had become firmly tied with the imperial government, while in the west Christianity

4785-445: The followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with

4872-514: The ideology of the emergent Great Church." In francophone scholarship, the term Grande Église (Latin: Ecclesia magna ) has also been equated with the "more hellenized " as opposed to " Judaizing " sections of the early church, and the Bar Kokhba revolt is seen as a definitive stage in the separation between Judaism and the Christianity of the "Grande Église" . Those stressing this binary view of early Christianity include Simon Claude Mimouni and François Blanchetière . Christianity as

4959-425: The liturgical commemoration in Russian churches of the Byzantine emperor on the grounds that he was "emperor (βασιλεύς) and autokrator of the Romans, that is of all Christians ". According to Patriarch Antony, "it is not possible among Christians to have a Church and not to have an emperor. For the empire and the Church have great unity and commonality, and it is not possible to separate them", and "the holy emperor

5046-402: The new capital of the Roman Empire. The city would gradually come to be seen as the intellectual and cultural center of the Christian world . Over the course of the 4th century the Christian body became consumed by debates surrounding orthodoxy , i.e. which religious doctrines are the correct ones. In the early 4th century, a group in North Africa , later called Donatists , who believed in

5133-456: The participating eastern delegations and by the emperor were rejected by the vast majority of Byzantine Christians. In the East, the idea that the Byzantine emperor was the head of Christians everywhere persisted among churchmen as long as the empire existed, even when its actual territory was reduced to very little. In 1393, only 60 years before the fall of the capital, Patriarch Antony IV of Constantinople wrote to Basil I of Muscovy defending

5220-438: The period of the Western Crusades against the Muslims had passed before even the first of the two reunion councils was held. Even when persecuted by the emperor, the Eastern Church, George Pachymeres said, "counted the days until they should be rid not of their emperor (for they could no more live without an emperor than a body without a heart), but of their current misfortunes". The church had come to merge psychologically in

5307-426: The popes turned to the Franks and, with the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800, transferred their political allegiance to a rival Roman emperor. Disputes between the see of Rome, which claimed authority over all other sees, and that of Constantinople, which was now without rival in the empire, culminated perhaps inevitably in mutual excommunications in 1054. Communion with Constantinople

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5394-424: The population of the Roman Empire and was ready, both numerically and structurally, for its role as the church of the empire, becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire in 380. Roger F. Olson says: "According to the Roman Catholic account of the history of Christian theology, the Great Church catholic and orthodox lived on from the apostles to today in the West and all bishops that remained in fellowship with

5481-400: The rank of patriarch in 1346, a rank maintained until after the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks. No Byzantine emperor ever ruled Russian Christendom. Expansion of the church in western and northern Europe began much earlier, with the conversion of the Irish in the 5th century , the Franks at the end of the same century, the Arian Visigoths in Spain soon afterwards, and the English at

5568-412: The rank of patriarchate, an autonomy recognized in 927 by Constantinople, but abolished by Emperor Basil II Bulgaroktonos (the Bulgar-Slayer) after his 1018 conquest of Bulgaria. In Serbia, which became an independent kingdom in the early 13th century, Stephen Uroš IV Dušan , after conquering a large part of Byzantine territory in Europe and assuming the title of Tsar, raised the Serbian archbishop to

5655-405: The reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate , the Donatists, who formed the majority party in the Roman province of Africa for 30 years, were given official approval. Christian scholars and populace within the empire were increasingly embroiled in debates regarding christology (i.e., regarding the nature of the Christ ). Opinions ranged from belief that Jesus was entirely human to belief that he

5742-417: The same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. Cunningham states that two points in Irenaeus' writing deserve attention. First, that Irenaeus distinguished the Church singular from "the churches" plural, and more importantly, Irenaeus holds that only in the larger singular Church does one find

5829-436: The same time, surrounding areas of Rome had over 60 bishops. But the Great Church of the 3rd century was not monolithic, consisting of a network of churches connected across cultural zones by lines of communication which at times included personal relationships. The Great Church grew in the 2nd century and entered the 3rd century mainly in two empires: the Roman and the Persian , with the network of bishops usually acting as

5916-463: The second supported the teachings of Eutyches against Archbishop Flavian of Constantinople . Nestorius taught that Christ's divine and human nature were distinct persons, and hence Mary was the mother of Christ but not the mother of God. Eutyches taught on the contrary that there was in Christ only a single nature, different from that of human beings in general. The First Council of Ephesus rejected Nestorius' view, causing churches centered around

6003-439: The state-sponsored Chalcedonian church apparatus (see the Pentarchy ). However, Justinian claimed " the right and duty of regulating by his laws the minutest details of worship and discipline, and also of dictating the theological opinions to be held in the Church". In Justinian's day, the Christian church was not entirely under the emperor's control even in the East: the Oriental Orthodox Churches had seceded, having rejected

6090-408: The sway of Islam beyond Arabia in the 7th century, first clashing with the Roman Empire in 634. That empire and the Sassanid Persian Empire were at that time crippled by decades of war between them. By the late 8th century the Umayyad caliphate had conquered all of Persia and much of the Byzantine territory including Egypt , Palestine , and Syria . Suddenly, much of the Christian world

6177-455: The tax, they are not Jews. Since paying taxes had been one of the ways that Jews demonstrated their goodwill and loyalty toward the empire, Christians had to negotiate their own alternatives to participating in the imperial cult . Their refusal to worship the Roman gods or to pay homage to the emperor as divine resulted at times in persecution and martyrdom. Church Father Tertullian , for instance, attempted to argue that Christianity

6264-605: The theology of Marva Dawn (a Lutheran ); Alister McGrath (a Church of England Reformed evangelical); Andrew Purves (a Presbyterian ); Timothy George (Baptist); and Christopher Hall (an Episcopalian ); J. Davila-Ashcraft (Evangelical Episcopal Communion); and Emilio Alvarez (founding Archbishop of the Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches ). Among Oden's works, either as writer or editor, in support of paleo-orthodoxy are: Works by other authors: Great Church The term " Great Church " ( Latin : ecclesia magna )

6351-453: The truth handed down by the apostles of Christ. At the beginning of the 3rd century the Great Church that Irenaeus and Celsus had referred to had spread across a significant portion of the world, with most of its members living in cities (see early centers of Christianity ). The growth was less than uniform across the world. The Chronicle of Arbela stated that in 225 AD, there were 20 bishops in all of Persia , while at approximately

6438-401: The western Mediterranean was temporary. The empire soon lost most of these gains, but held Rome, as part of the Exarchate of Ravenna , until 751. Justinian definitively established Caesaropapism , believing "he had the right and duty of regulating by his laws the minutest details of worship and discipline, and also of dictating the theological opinions to be held in the Church". According to

6525-549: The whole world could be seen as the great Church. The epoch of the Great Church witnessed the development of key theological concepts which now form the fabric of the religious beliefs of the large majority of Christians. Relying on Scripture, prevailing mysticism and popular piety, Irenaeus formalized some of the attributes of God , writing in Against Heresies Book IV, Chapter 19 : "His greatness lacks nothing, but contains all things." Irenaeus also referred to

6612-602: The whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. ... For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the son, that creature of God, is one and

6699-617: The widespread use of the Greek language in the Eastern Empire and its more limited use in the West (Greek, as well as Latin , was used in the West, but Latin was the spoken vernacular ). By the time Christianity became the state religion of the empire at the end of the 4th century, scholars in the West had largely abandoned Greek in favor of Latin. Even the Church in Rome, where Greek continued to be used in

6786-432: The will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict. In 391, Theodosius closed all the "pagan" (non-Christian and non-Jewish) temples and formally forbade pagan worship. At the end of the 4th century the Roman Empire had effectively split into two parts although their economies and the imperial-recognized church were still strongly tied. The two halves of the empire had always had cultural differences, exemplified in particular by

6873-532: Was entirely divine . The most persistent debate was that between the homoousian view (the Father and the Son are of one substance), defined at the Council at Nicaea in 325 and later championed by Athanasius of Alexandria , and the Arian view (the Father and the Son are similar, but the Father is greater than the Son). Emperors thereby became ever more involved with the increasingly divided early Church. Constantine backed

6960-711: Was accepted by the Kievan Rus' , which however was definitively Christianized only at the close of the following century. Of these, the Church in Great Moravia chose immediately to link with Rome, not Constantinople: the missionaries sent there sided with the Pope during the Photian Schism (863–867). After decisive victories over the Byzantines at Acheloos and Katasyrtai , Bulgaria declared its church autocephalous and elevated it to

7047-460: Was also offered by Pope Benedict XVI , and by Martin Luther . Dennis Minns (2010) considers that the concept of a "Great Church" was developed by polemical heresiologists such as Irenaeus . The presentation of early Christian unity and orthodoxy (see Proto-orthodox Christianity ), and counter presentation of groups such as those sects labelled " Gnostic ", by early heresiologists such as Irenaeus

7134-548: Was broken off by European Christians with the exception of those ruled by the empire (including the Bulgarians and Serbs) and of the fledgling Kievan or Russian Church, then a metropolitanate of the patriarchate of Constantinople. This church became independent only in 1448, just five years before the extinction of the empire, after which the Turkish authorities included all their Orthodox Christian subjects of whatever ethnicity in

7221-572: Was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize

7308-536: Was dominant in the east (under Emperor Valens), until Emperor Theodosius I called the Council of Constantinople in 381 , which reasserted the Nicene view and rejected the Arian view. This council further refined the definition of orthodoxy, issuing the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed . On 27 February of the previous year, Theodosius I established, with the Edict of Thessalonica , the Christianity of

7395-404: Was mostly subject to the laws and customs of nations that owed no allegiance to the emperor. Emperor Justinian I assigned to five sees, those of Rome , Constantinople , Alexandria , Antioch and Jerusalem , a superior ecclesial authority that covered the whole of his empire. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 reaffirmed that the bishop of a provincial capital, the metropolitan bishop, had

7482-400: Was not inherently treasonous, and that Christians could offer their own form of prayer for the well-being of the emperor. Christianity spread especially in the eastern parts of the empire and beyond its border; in the west it was at first relatively limited, but significant Christian communities emerged in Rome , Carthage , and other urban centers, becoming by the end of the 3rd century ,

7569-570: Was under Muslim rule. Over the coming centuries the successive Muslim states became some of the most powerful in the Mediterranean world. Though the Byzantine church claimed religious authority over Christians in Egypt and the Levant , in reality the majority of Christians in these regions were by then miaphysites and members of other sects. The new Muslim rulers, in contrast, offered religious tolerance to Christians of all sects. Additionally subjects of

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