ECT CATHOLICS ARE THE ORIGINAL CHRISTIANS: A Documented Fact of Ecclesiastical History

[jamie]

There were two Churches prior to Luther. The Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt is older than either of those two.

 

[False Prophet]

Justinian started the Catholic Church in 538.

 

[False Prophet]

Justinian put the Pope in power in 538. The pope ruled for 1260 years, then one day in 1798 the French banged on the door of the Vatican to kick the pope out of office. Now the Pope is a joke!

 

[jgarden]

CATHOLICS ARE THE ORIGINAL CHRISTIANS: A Documented Fact of Ecclesiastical History

From a European perspective the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were the major standard bearers until the rise of Protestantism in the 1500's.

Constantinople, the center of the Orthodox Church, was captured by the Moslems and the Catholic Church in Rome survived a number of invasions after the fall of the Roman Empire.

There are other smaller Churches in Africa, the Near and Middle East, India, etc. so it would be a bit presumptuous to conclude that the Catholics are the only original Christians.

 

[Cruciform]

The OP contains a very pretty piece of digital art containing the opinions of a man. As such, there is nothing to be debated.

Already decisively answered (Post #38).

Your OP stands as nothing more than an opinion of a man who lived some 110 years after the deciples.

...and who was himself a personal disciple of John the Apostle. Thanks for proving my point.


Again, if you disagree with the OP, simply go ahead and disprove its content. If you can't, then the OP stands exactly as posted.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[Totton Linnet]

You missed the quote where Ignoratias commands that the bishop was to be obeyed as though he were Christ....the beginning of the Catholic usurpation.

Ignatias founded the Catholic church then commited suicide.

 

[SabathMoon]

The Church was undivided until Martin Luther and company separated from it in the 16th century.

It was divided into Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Latin Orthodox snicker, and Syrian Orthodox. Stop lying; it will only hurt you to lie. Ignatius was a disciple of Polycarp, not John the apostle, fool.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Already decisively answered (Post #38).


...and who was himself a personal disciple of John the Apostle. Thanks for proving my point.


Again, if you disagree with the OP, simply go ahead and disprove its content. If you can't, then the OP stands exactly as posted.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

Your kind of dense sometimes. The OP is and op-ed piece, nothing more.

 

[Cruciform]

Justinian started the Catholic Church in 538.

Proof, please.

 

[Cruciform]

You missed the quote where Ignatius commands that the bishop was to be obeyed as though he were Christ....the beginning of the Catholic usurpation. Ignatius founded the Catholic Church then commited suicide.

You've been decisively answered---and thoroughly refuted---on these claims in previous posts on this forum. No sense bothering to post such utterly unsubstantiated assertions here. You're only embarrassing yourself.

 

[Cruciform]

Your kind of dense sometimes. The OP is and op-ed piece, nothing more.

Post #45

 

[brewmama]

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt is older than either of those two.

They are all of the same origin and history.

 

[brewmama]

It was divided into Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Latin Orthodox snicker, and Syrian Orthodox. Stop lying; it will only hurt you to lie. Ignatius was a disciple of Polycarp, not John the apostle, fool.

Wow, you should talk. They were not divided. St. Ignatius was most certainly a student of the Apostle John. You should heed your own words and stop lying.

 

[brewmama]

You missed the quote where Ignoratias commands that the bishop was to be obeyed as though he were Christ....the beginning of the Catholic usurpation.

Ignatias founded the Catholic church then commited suicide.

So now holy martyrs of the church "committed suicide" in your book? Would you willingly go to your death for Christ? You should really be ashamed.

 

[brewmama]

Before you start throwing around words like "ridiculous," at least do so over something actually said. Did anybody ever say there were only seven churches in the world? Entirely non-sequitur. Don't try to put words in my mouth.

Oh, sorry, then please explain what you meant by saying YOUR WORDS "no church at Rome even considered worth a mention by the Lord, of the seven churches in Revelation. It's all a huge fraud."?

Also, try grasping the point for a change, which I realize is challenging, given Roman Catholicism's inability to grasp so much clear scripture and obey, but the point is Rome is not mentioned, as in was never a preeminent church body to the Lord Jesus or anybody else, right through the close of the Bible. And a Bible that condemns adding anything to the word of God or taking away from the word of God.

Oh, so sarcastic, so arrogant, and so ignorant! Do you feel good now?
Even though your post makes so little sense? So Jesus didn't "mention" certain churches, that of course weren't even founded until years after his ascension? That means (to you) that the major Patriarchates of the early Church don't count, because Jesus didn't mention them to John in Revelation? I stand by my statement of even more than ridiculous.

Roman Catholicism never had any authority from God, rather appointed itself, and at the time Constantine decided to try and hijack Christianity, corrupting scripture and adding its own corrupt doctrines and laws, fabrications, to create a bloody, murderous, political monster. (Who's the father of murder, and lies, by the way? Whose nature is this?) The Catechism is filled with fabrications of man, lies.

Funny how, one way or another, Rome just went on killing Christians. What a coincidence. Seems Satan's chain was unbroken, thanks to all things Rome. By the way, your new boy, Francis, is spouting doctrines of demons half the time he opens his mouth, is trying to eviscerate the faith of Jesus Christ and the apostles, trying to create a bastard ecumenical religion from hell that can save nobody. The Lord rebuke him, and shame on him!

Please put words in somebody else's mouth. All the repetitious Roman Catholic arguments that get down to "because we say so" have become a bore, all these non-sequitur attacks you always use, to change the focus and deflect answers you don't have, and hundreds of years after the Reformation. Bible believers existed then, and you viciously tortured and murdered them, burned their scripture, the very word of God, but we still exist now, in huge numbers. At this point, at this very late date, you may try getting over it.

Tell you what's truly ridiculous, and it is that you're all still at war with Martin Luther, oblivious that a large body of Christianity moved on a very long time ago, and for good. You're irrelevant. You may be surprised, but my church never talks about you, out of sight and out of mind. I know I have no need to hear you repeat the same, worn diatribe Luther rejected, ten thousand more times. Get a life, that is in the gospel of the Holy Bible.

I am embarrassed for you because you are so ignorant, and not really worthy of a response, but I will do a final one before going to bed. First of all, I'm not even Roman Catholic, so all your vitriol and spewed hatred was wasted. You know nothing of the ancient Church, yet that doesn't keep you from spouting absolute nonsense. This thread is not about the current Roman Church, so you are hijacking the thread with your flaming hateful accusations. Second, the only folks I see being "at war" and consumed with all manner of vile emotions and taunts against fellow Christians are some of the Protestants on this board; you seem to be one of the most vociferous. Do you think the Roman Church is consumed with you or other Protestants? YOU really need to get a life, meet some Catholics and Orthodox, and learn some history. Or don't, because we don't really care. And if you think the first and second largest Christian bodies on earth are "irrelevant", then your ignorance and hatred have consumed you to the point of irrationality.
The original OP stands as factual, as history easily proves, all your lies notwithstanding. If you don't want to be part of an Apostolic Church, that's your own loss, we don't care, so get over it.

 

[oatmeal]

Actually, you have it backwards.

Many of the early Christians, like those in Rome, did not fully forsake their pagan ways.

Those that succumbed to return to the worshiping of pagan gods and idols eventually formed the Roman Catholic church.

So, although the RCC does use a Bible, it is deeply distracted by old time pagan fundamentalism.

 

[Arsenios]

At Antioch the disciples were first named Messianists. Apart from the name, most people miss out on a very important fact, it was the disciples.

Disciple means someone who learns from and in this case they had learnt from Messiah. The same applies today. We are disciples who have and are learning from Messiah.

I don't think Christ ever went to Antioch, did He?

Christians fled to there during the Jewish persecutions, and even all the way to Damascus, but the Biblical evidence in Acts suggests that it was Paul and Barnabus who first discipled Christians in Antioch...

The Church at Antioch, in the ensuing 2000 years of world history, moved to Damascus, Syria, where it is headquartered to this day and hour in great tribulations and persecutions from the civil war going on there... Muslims are permitted refugee status, but not Christians... Assad, who rules with an iron fist, has protected Christians from Muslim predations... With the civil war, the killing of Christians has resumed as a part of Jihad...

This is my Church...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Me thinks Ignatius wrote of the "Universal" Church, not the Roman Catholic Church.

The early Church was catholic, and wherever the faithful gathered around the Episkopos in worship, there was the catholic Church... So in his epistles, Paul writes to the Church AT Thessalonica, the Church AT Ephesus, the Church AT Rome... Such that the WHOLE Church is worshiping wherever the Bishop has his Faithful gathered together in worship.

The Latins in Roma, Italia, for the first several hundred years, were the Western Church, and it was the Wild West, and being appointed the Bishop of Rome [the Pope] was a sentence of death upon the person so appointed... It was a very holy Church due to its persecutions, much as ANY persecuted Church, like the Southern Black Baptist Church in the US prior to the Civil Rights Movement, was a very holy Church...

The Romans moved to Constantinople and the now Christian Roman Empire ruled from there for a thousand years, a great and ancient Christian civilization, flourishing while the west was slogging through its Dark Ages of superstition and violence, in which Christians were hanging on by the thinnest of threads, and had little cohesion...

Until the German Bishops took over the Papacy thinking that they were appointed to be the Vicar of Christ on earth ruling over all Christendom, and in this belief, they still function as the Roman Catholic Church of the West... Under Scholastic administration, they emerged from being persecuted to being persecutors under Scholastic Canon Law and Papal Decree... Bishops and monks became warriors... A dark time...

Arsenios

 

[Cross Reference]

The early Church was catholic, and wherever the faithful gathered around the Episkopos in worship, there was the catholic Church... So in his epistles, Paul writes to the Church AT Thessalonica, the Church AT Ephesus, the Church AT Rome... Such that the WHOLE Church is worshiping wherever the Bishop has his Faithful gathered together in worship.

The Latins in Roma, Italia, for the first several hundred years, were the Western Church, and it was the Wild West, and being appointed the Bishop of Rome [the Pope] was a sentence of death upon the person so appointed... It was a very holy Church due to its persecutions, much as ANY persecuted Church, like the Southern Black Baptist Church in the US prior to the Civil Rights Movement, was a very holy Church...

The Romans moved to Constantinople and the now Christian Roman Empire ruled from there for a thousand years, a great and ancient Christian civilization, flourishing while the west was slogging through its Dark Ages of superstition and violence, in which Christians were hanging on by the thinnest of threads, and had little cohesion...

Until the German Bishops took over the Papacy thinking that they were appointed to be the Vicar of Christ on earth ruling over all Christendom, and in this belief, they still function as the Roman Catholic Church of the West... Under Scholastic administration, they emerged from being persecuted to being persecutors under Scholastic Canon Law and Papal Decree... Bishops and monks became warriors... A dark time...

Arsenios

Show where the word"catholic" was ever used in any of titles for any of the churches? . . . anywhere!

 

[brewmama]

Show where the word"catholic" was ever used in any of titles for any of the churches? . . . anywhere!

And what difference is that supposed to make?
But anyway,

"Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch
The earliest recorded evidence of the use of the term "Catholic Church" is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 107 to Christians in Smyrna. Exhorting Christians to remain closely united with their bishop, he wrote: "Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."[11][12][13]
Of the meaning for Ignatius of this phrase J.H. Srawley wrote:
This is the earliest occurrence in Christian literature of the phrase 'the Catholic Church' (ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία). The original sense of the word is 'universal'. Thus Justin Martyr (Dial. 82) speaks of the 'universal or general resurrection', using the words ἡ καθολικὴ ἀνάστασις. Similarly here the Church universal is contrasted with the particular Church of Smyrna. Ignatius means by the Catholic Church 'the aggregate of all the Christian congregations' (Swete, Apostles Creed, p. 76). So too the letter of the Church of Smyrna is addressed to all the congregations of the Holy Catholic Church in every place. And this primitive sense of 'universal' the word has never lost, although in the latter part of the second century it began to receive the secondary sense of 'orthodox' as opposed to 'heretical'. Thus it is used in an early Canon of Scripture, the Muratorian fragment (circa 170 A.D.), which refers to certain heretical writings as 'not received in the Catholic Church'. So too Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, says that the Church is called Catholic not only 'because it is spread throughout the world', but also 'because it teaches completely and without defect all the doctrines which ought to come to the knowledge of men'."