Our History

Chapter 1
The Early Church and the Great Schism

While the division of Christendom into two great categories, Protestant and Catholic, is familiar to all, fewer people are aware of the jurisdictional (administrative) and disciplinary divisions within the universal Churches. 

Since the earliest times of Christianity, the local bishop determined local liturgical practices. Periodically local synods (convocation of bishops) were called by local bishops to determine larger issues of beliefs and disciplines. 

Christianity and the Roman Empire

In 313 AD, the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and ended the persecution of Christians. Shortly thereafter he moved the empire's capital from Rome to Constantinople (today's city of Istanbul in Turkey). To decide questions of dogma and ensure uniformity of faith in the Christian Church, Constantine and his successors would occasionally call together bishops from across the Empire. These included the five Patriarchs, who were the senior bishops responsible for other bishops within a large territory. 

The Patriarchs of the time were the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople.  Constantinople had its own Patriarch in recognition of it being the capital of the empire. At these gatherings of bishops (called 'General Councils'), all the Patriarchs were equal in jurisdiction. 

This acceptance of equality among the Patriarchs began to break down after 395 AD. In that year the Roman Empire split into two separate empires, East and West.  The Western Empire was ruled from Rome and the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, from Constantinople.  

The Eastern Empire included the jurisdictions of four of the five Patriarchs of the Church.  In the Western Empire, however, there was only one Patriarch, the bishop of Rome, who therefore became de facto head of the Church in the Western Empire.

Conflict between the Western and Eastern Church

Besides geopolitical and cultural tensions, questions of theology and Church administration also began to cause friction between East and West. In 440 AD, the Patriarch of Rome, Leo the Great, became the first to declare that the Roman See had jurisdiction over all Christendom, not just the Western Church. 

In 1054 AD, matters between East and West came to a head when the Western Church (today known as the Roman Catholic Church) and the Eastern Churches (today known as the Orthodox Churches) each declared the other in schism and excommunicated each other. This was the first of many divisions within Christ's Church.

Emperor Constantine I
(271? AD - 337 AD)

 

Before the schism of 1054, despite war and religious turmoil, saintly people did great things in the Lord's name. Besides spreading the Gospel, they made advances in spirituality, social ministry, scholarship and theology.   Here are a few of the heroes of this time:

In the East, St. Basil the Great introduced religious communities (as opposed to solitary hermitages).  He also founded a hospital for the poor, a school to teach job skills to the unskilled, and a homeless shelter.

In the West, St. Benedict of Nursia founded the Benedictine Order of monks.  St. Benedict's monastic rule was original in its focus on spiritually improving those who follow it.  Today there are Benedictine communities in the Roman, Orthodox, Old Catholic, Anglican, and even Lutheran Churches.

In the East, St. Nina preached the Gospel to the people of what is today the Republic of Georgia in Eastern Europe.  When she cured the King of the Georgians of his blindness he, in gratitude, converted to Christianity and made it the official religion.  Today the Georgian Orthodox Church honors her as its founder and as an "equal to the Apostles".

In both the East and West, St. Jerome translated the entire Bible into Latin and the New Testament books into Greek.  This enabled more people to read Holy Scripture.  In his dedication to accuracy, he would meet with rabbis to better understand the Old Testament.  St. Jerome also wrote commentaries on the Bible.

What is "Catholic"?

In the Nicene Creed we declare our belief in "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church." This is the creed of the Anglican, Episcopalian, Oriental, Eastern Orthodox and Old Catholic Churches, as well as the Roman Catholic Church.  Although we often use the word "Catholic" as short-hand for Roman Catholics, the word used in the Creed actually has a profound and non-sectarian meaning. 

While each of the sister churches has distinctives that make it Roman, Anglican, Episcopalian, Orthodox, Oriental, or Old Catholic, they are all Catholic in that they are part of the universal Church, sharing the common faith that comes to us from the Church's time of unity.

 

St. Vincent of Lérins How are the faithful to discern what is truly Catholic? St. Vincent of Lérins defined the means of doing that. "... [T]hat faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.. is truly and in the strictest sense 'Catholic'..."
St. Vincent was a French monk and theologian of the fifth century, a time when Christ's Church was still united.  His most famous work was Commonitory on the Catholic Faith, which he wrote in Latin under the pseudonym Peregrinus.  In it he writes how true Catholic faith may be discerned.  In Chapter 2 is his famous statement, often cited by theologians of most Catholic churches: "Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense 'Catholic,' which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent." "We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses;" "antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers;" "consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors."
For the translated full text of Communitory on the Catholic Faith, click here.

Next:  Chapter 2 "Beginnings of the Old Catholic Movement"