Christians started the church in Rome almost certainly by AD Paul visited the well-established church in AD The Roman Catholic Church can trace its roots all the way back to the original Christian church in Rome. This fact may be confusing to you, because you are probably aware that the Roman Catholic Church today is very far from holding to biblical Christianity, with its popes, vestments, sacraments, incense, celibate priests, nuns, church calendar and much more.
The Roman Catholic Church is clearly a very corrputed version of Christianity. Nevertheless, it is a historical fact that the church in Rome can literally trace its roots in a more or less uninterrupted line to the time of the apostles. Of course, Catholics, like Orthodox Christians, are very proud of their historical roots. My suggestion is that you not argue with this claim because it is true. The Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal and other denominations cannot claim what the Roman Church can claim historically.
Of course, genaeology does not equal truth and the fact that a particular group cannot trace its history back to Pentecost does not mean that they are not true Christians, but the facts of history are the facts of history. Having said that, you should not be intimidated by the facts of history. The facts of history show that gradually, over several hundred years, the early church, and especially the church in Rome added many man-made traditions to the simple truth of Christianity.
Eventually, the Catholic Church invented false teachings and practices such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Purgatory, indulgences, celibate priests papal infallibility and the like. Ben Davis January 23, When was the Catholic Church founded and by whom? How did the Catholic Church begin? When did Catholic church start? Was the Catholic Church the first church? Is Catholic the true church? Roughly one in two Christians are Roman Catholics, and one out of every seven people worldwide.
In the United States, about 22 percent of the population identifies Catholicism as their chosen religion. Roman Catholicism itself maintains that the Roman Catholic Church was established by Christ when he gave direction to the Apostle Peter as the head of the church.
This belief is based on Matthew , when Jesus Christ said to Peter:. This time marked the consolidated of lands controlled by authority of the pope, and thus the church's power, into what would later be known as "the Papal States. After the ascension of Jesus Christ , as the apostles began to spread the gospel and make disciples, they provided the beginning structure for the early Christian Church.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the initial stages of the Roman Catholic Church from that of the early Christian church. Simon Peter, one of Jesus' 12 disciples, became an influential leader in the Jewish Christian movement. Later James, most likely Jesus' brother, took over leadership. These followers of Christ viewed themselves as a reform movement within Judaism, yet they continued to follow many of the Jewish laws. At this time Saul, originally one of the strongest persecutors of the early Jewish Christians, had a blinding vision of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and became a Christian.
Adopting the name Paul, he became the greatest evangelist of the early Christian church. Paul's ministry, also called Pauline Christianity, was directed mainly to Gentiles. In subtle ways, the early church was already becoming divided.
Another belief system at this time was Gnostic Christianity , which taught that Jesus was a spirit being, sent by God to impart knowledge to humans so that they could escape the miseries of life on earth.
In addition to Gnostic, Jewish, and Pauline Christianity, many other versions of Christianity were starting to be taught. Pope Gregory I c. Gregory was from an ancient senatorial family, and worked with the stern judgement and discipline typical of ancient Roman rule. Theologically, he represents the shift from the classical to the medieval outlook; his popular writings are full of dramatic miracles, potent relics, demons, angels, ghosts, and the approaching end of the world.
Gregory the Great: Pope Gregory I c. The Byzantine Papacy was a period of Byzantine domination of the papacy from to , when popes required the approval of the Byzantine Emperor for episcopal consecration, and many popes were chosen from the apocrisiarii liaisons from the pope to the emperor or the inhabitants of Byzantine Greece, Byzantine Syria, or Byzantine Sicily. Justinian I conquered the Italian peninsula in the Gothic War — and appointed the next three popes, a practice that would be continued by his successors and later be delegated to the Exarchate of Ravenna.
With the exception of Pope Martin I, no pope during this period questioned the authority of the Byzantine monarch to confirm the election of the bishop of Rome before consecration could occur. From the late-6th to the late-8th century there was a turning of the papacy to the West and an escape from subordination to the authority of the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople. This phase has sometimes incorrectly been credited to Pope Gregory I who reigned from to CE , who, like his predecessors, represented to the people of the Roman world a church that was still identified with the empire.
Unlike some of those predecessors, Gregory was compelled to face the collapse of imperial authority in northern Italy. As the leading civil official of the empire in Rome, he was compelled to take over the civil administration of the cities and negotiate for the protection of Rome itself with the Lombard invaders threatening it.
Another part of this phase occurred in the 8th century, after the rise of the new religion of Islam had weakened the Byzantine Empire and the Lombards had renewed their pressure in Italy. The popes finally sought support from the Frankish rulers of the West and received from the Frankish king Pepin The Short the first part of the Italian territories later known as the Papal States.
This attack spawned the protracted civil and ecclesiastical strife in Germany and Italy known as the Investiture Controversy. At issue was who, the pope or the monarchs, had the authority to appoint invest local church officials such as bishops of cities and abbots of monasteries. The conflict ended in , when Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II agreed on the Concordat of Worms, which differentiated between the royal and spiritual powers and gave the emperors a limited role in selecting bishops.
However, the emperor did retain considerable power over the Church. Both these efforts, although ultimately unsuccessful, greatly enhanced papal prestige in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Such powerful popes as Alexander III r. Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages, popes struggled with monarchs over power. Christian monasticism, which consists of individuals living ascetic and often cloistered lives that are dedicated to Christian worship, became popular during the Middle Ages and gave rise to several monastic orders with different goals and lifestyles.
Christian monasticism is the devotional practice of individuals who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives that are dedicated to Christian worship. Monasticism became quite popular in the Middle Ages, with religion being the most important force in Europe.
Monks and nuns were to live isolated from the world to become closer to God. Monks provided service to the church by copying manuscripts, creating art, educating people, and working as missionaries. Convents were especially appealing to women. It was the only place they would receive any sort of education or power.
It also let them escape unwanted marriages. From the 6th century onward most of the monasteries in the West were of the Benedictine Order. He then attracted followers with whom he founded the monastery of Monte Cassino, between Rome and Naples, around He established the Rule, adapting in part the earlier anonymous Rule of the Master Regula magistri , which was written somewhere south of Rome around , and defined the activities of the monastery, its officers, and their responsibilities.
Early Benedictine monasteries were relatively small and consisted of an oratory, a refectory, a dormitory, a scriptorium, guest accommodation, and out-buildings, a group of often quite separate rooms more reminiscent of a decent-sized Roman villa than a large medieval abbey.
A monastery of about a dozen monks would have been normal during this period. Medieval monastic life consisted of prayer, reading, and manual labor. Apart from prayer, monks performed a variety of tasks, such as preparing medicine, lettering, and reading. These monks would also work in the gardens and on the land. They might also spend time in the Cloister, a covered colonnade around a courtyard, where they would pray or read. Some monasteries held a scriptorium where monks would write or copy books.
When the monks wrote, they used very neat handwriting and would draw illustrations in the books. As a part of their unique writing style, they decorated the first letter of each paragraph. The monasteries were the central storehouses and producers of knowledge. The next wave of monastic reform after the Benedictines came with the Cistercian movement. The keynote of Cistercian life was a return to a literal observance of the Benedictine Rule, rejecting the developments of the Benedictines.
The most striking feature in the reform was the return to manual labour, and especially to field work.
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