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| Christianity Explained |
God, Jesus Christ, The Trinity, The Bible, Prayer, Worship, The Church
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| What is 'The Church'? | ||||||||
Many people use the expression 'The Church' to meas a building in the town or village where people meet to worship. It can be used to mean that, but it's more helpful to use it to mean the body or community of people themselves. The place where they meet is 'the church building'. (Return to Top)
The English word 'church' comes from the Old English 'cirice', which comes from the German 'kirika', which in turn comes from the Greek 'kuriakē' meaning 'of the Lord'. However, many other languages use a form of the Greek word 'Ecclesia' meaning 'gathering' or 'congregation'. (Return to Top) |
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| The First Christian Church | ||||||||
 At the end of Jesus' ministry here on earth, after his ascension back into heaven, the Bible describes the way in which his followers came together to worship God and to provide mutual support for each other - the first church. At first, 'Christianity' was restricted to Jews, so they met in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and worshipped in the Jewish style. But in addition, they celebrated what we now call 'Holy Communion' in each other's homes, and shared everything they owned between themselves, so that everyone had their spiritual and human needs met (see the Bible, 'Acts' of the Apostles chapter 2, verses 42-47). (Return to Top)
However, quite quickly two events happened that widened their approach to include everyone. (i) Paul, who was a very devout Jew, had been persecuting the new Christians on behalf of the Jewish authorities. He had a vision on his way to the town of Damascus where he was going to persecute the Christians there. In that vision he met Jesus and Paul was miraculously converted to Christianity with the special role of taking the Christian message to everyone, especially non-Jews (Gentiles) around the Mediterranean region (see Acts 9). (ii) Peter, who acted as the chief Apostle, had a vision in which he saw a sheet full of every type of creature, not just those acceptable under Jewish food laws, and God told him to eat from it. From that he realised that the Christian message was meant for everyone, not just for Jews (see Acts 10:9-35). (Return to Top) |
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| The Church Begins to Grow | ||||||||
 During his human lifetime, Jesus had trained his 12 special followers to be 'Apostles' (Apostle' = Greek for 'Messenger'). After Jesus' return to heaven, the Apostles now took the message out to the world as Jesus had intended. Wherever the Apostles travelled, they preached the message of Jesus and created (often at first very small) congregations who worshipped God and supported each other, much as the first church had done in Jerusalem - 'The Church' had begun to grow. (Return to Top)
In the same way that people today continue to take an interest in things they've started but moved on from, so the Apostles continued to take an interest in the churches they'd created. They revisited them to offer support whenever they could, and if that wasn't possible they communicated by letter, sometimes to answer a query they'd received about the Christian faith, and sometimes to admonish them when they'd heard that the church was doing things wrongly. (Return to Top) Several of those letters (known as 'Epistles') are included in the Bible in the second part, the New Testament. They come after the account of Jesus and his ministry (the four 'Gospels') and the actions of the early church (the 'Acts' of the Apostles). They're useful to us today because they're an interpretation of Jesus' teaching by either those who heard Jesus for themselves, or who knew someone who had. (Return to Top) |
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| The Church is Persecuted | ||||||||
 The church continued to grow such that it came to the notice of the ruling authorities. The Roman Empire was beginning to experience difficulties, which eventually led to its downfall. Christians (along with other 'minorities') were blamed for the problems, not least because Christians advocated only one God compared to the Roman practice of worshipping several gods, and Christians declined to recognise the Roman Emperor as a God, which the authorities saw as a destabilising threat. This came to a head in 64AD after a great fire, in which three quarters of Rome was destroyed or damaged. The Roman Emperor, Nero, blamed the Christians, who became fair game for persecution, including being fed to the lions or involved in gladiator fights in the Roman 'games' in the Coliseum. (many historians now suggest Nero may have started the fire himself). (Return to Top)
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| The Church becomes 'Institutionalised' | ||||||||
 In 313AD the Roman Emperor Constantine, who had become a Christian, declared Christianity the only religion of the Roman Empire, so the persecution of Christians stopped. Christianity now came under the auspices of the Roman authorities. It's from this time that we trace the three-fold structure of Bishops, Priests and Deacons and the wearing of black by priests, because Christian priests became Roman civil servants, and Roman civil servants wore black. (Return to Top)
As the original Apostles died out, those remaining came to realise that Jesus wasn't going to return immediately as they'd originally thought, so they had to rethink what Jesus' teaching meant and what they believed. Centres of Christian thinking developed in Jerusalem, Antioch (in modern Turkey), Alexandria (in modern Egypt), Rome and Constantinople (now called Istanbul) which the Emperor Constantine had made the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. The great thinkers in those centres put forward competing ideas, sometimes one taking precedence, then the other, and sometimes one being accepted then rejected more than once. At this time the Christian Church was still a united whole and these great thinkers became known as 'The Early Christian Fathers'. (Return to Top) From time to time great 'Councils' were called of all the bishops to discuss various points of disagreement. One of the greatest was called in 325AD by the Roman Emperor Constantine in Nicaea (in modern Turkey) to resolve the dispute about the nature of God and Jesus. It was at this Council that the form of the Creed (statement of belief) was put forward which describes God as 'Trinity', and it's this creed, agreed when the church was still one, that we still repeat in our worship today. The Creed was confirmed at the Council of Chalcedon (also in turkey) in 451AD, except that the church in Egypt disagreed and split off - that Christian Church still exists separately and is known as the Coptic Church, with it's own head. (Return to Top) |
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| Riches, Power and Division | ||||||||
Some men and women chose to devote their life to God and set up 'houses' for that purpose. The men were known as monks and the women as nuns, so the houses they established were known as monasteries and nunneries respectively. They developed 'Rules of Life' by which to live, which set the routine for the day, including strict times for sleep, worship, study, work, etc. Principal among these were the Benedictines, Franciscans, and Augustinian's, named after their founders. Originally monks turned their back on worldly pursuits, including wealth, and followed a simple lifestyle copying Jesus Christ. Many monasteries became centres of teaching and learning and their dedication and prayer was much admired, so people left them money and property in their wills. As a result, many monasteries became rich, often with the attendant deceitfulness wealth can bring. (Return to Top) The head of a monastery is called an Abbott. Both the churches and the monasteries grew in wealth, authority and influence, bishops and abbots often acting more like Feudal Lords over the people under them. The Bishops of Rome and Constantinople became the most important in the west and east respectively and each vied to exert their authority. The Bishop of Rome claimed he was the greater because Jesus had declared "On this rock I will build my church" and the church in Rome had been started by Peter and Paul (In Greek Peter = Petros = 'rock'). (Return to Top) Not surprisingly, the bishop of Constantinople objected to this. That, together with differences in their interpretation of Christianity brought about a 'Great Schism' in 1054AD when the western and eastern churches split into the 'Roman Catholic' and 'Eastern Orthodox' churches respectively. They've remained split ever since. (Return to Top) Priests and bishops became affectation known as 'Papa' or in English became 'Pope' (From the Latin for 'Father'). Gradually this title became restricted just to the Bishop of Rome. (Return to Top) |
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| The Church Becomes Political.... and Corrupted | ||||||||
The Bible refers to the wives and mother-in-laws of the Apostles, so obviously several were married. However, by the 1st century the Roman Catholic Church had decreed that all priests and bishops should be 'Continent' - ie: refrain from all forms of sexual intercourse, which therefore implied that they couldn't marry but must remain 'celibate'. For Roman Catholics that has been the case ever since. However, Orthodox priests are allowed to marry, but Orthodox bishops can't, whilst both Protestant priests and bishops may be married. (Return to Top)
As the church grew in power, the Pope became very influential in both religious and state affairs. Succeeding Popes became involved in the affairs of European states or at least arbiters between them. In 800AD, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as head of the 'Frankish Empire' which had succeeded the Roman Empire in Western Europe, and in 960AD the Pope crowned Otto I as head of the 'Holy Roman Empire' which, with the Pope's support, managed much of Western Europe through sub-divisions of Principalities, Duchies etc, until it was dissolved in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. Those states that came under the control and close influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and consequently the Pope, became known as 'Christendom'. (Return to Top) Various Popes blessed and supported a series of military campaigns known as 'The Crusades', originally against the Muslims who had captured Jerusalem, but subsequently against several other 'enemies of the church'. (Return to Top) Power usually brings corruption and the church was no different. For instance, to help raise money for the Crusades, the church sold 'Indulgences'. This suggested that because people sin (disobey God's rules) they can't go straight to heaven when they die until they have spent time in 'purgatory' where they are made ready for heaven. The church suggested that people could shorten that time by paying priests or monks to pray for them after they'd died. Various abuses of power, including the granting of Indulgences, were the major issues that led Martin Luther, John Calvin and others to 'protest', which resulted in the 'Protestant Reformation'. (Return to Top) |
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Subsequent Roman Emperors were even more cruel, so Christians often met in secret for their own safety in the catacombs 
