History of the Catholic Church A 2,000-Year Journey

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Why Study Church History?

• To come to know Jesus better through his

Church and its teachings

• To gain a better sense of our identity as

Catholic Christians

• To be able to address many of the common

errors and inaccuracies about the Church

and its history

• To learn how best to express God’s Word in

today’s world

Course Outline

I. Definition of the Church

II. Mission of the Church

III. Models of the Church

IV. Church History

V. U.S. Catholic Church

VI. Roles and Responsibilities of the

Baptized

In the Beginning…

• Eternal Triune God

• The Word, Wisdom Incarnate, through Whom all is created

• Judaea Christian view of time

• Catholic Sacramental perspective of History

• The Word was made flesh- The Incarnation

• The Annunciation - “Mary's obedience unties the knot of Eves disobedience” St Irenaeus

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Definition of the Church

• CCC 751 The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a convocation or an assembly. Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people. By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly.

• 752 In Christian usage, the word "church" designates the liturgical assembly, but also the local community or the whole universal community of believers.

Church Mission • 849 CCC The missionary mandate. "Having been

divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men": "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age.“

Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

• Modern science was born in the Catholic Church

• Catholic priests developed the idea of free-market economics five hundred years before Adam Smith

• The Catholic Church invented the university

• The Church great patron of the Arts

• Western law grew out of Church canon law

• The Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life

Models of the Church, Cardinal Avery Dulles

• Institution • Mystical Communion • Sacrament • Herald • Servant • Community of Disciples

Understanding the Past

“…it is impossible

to understand the

past unless we

understand the

things for which the

men of the past

cared most.”

-Christopher

Dawson

(Catholic Historian

From a historical perspective, we realize that the Church is…

• Based on the life and

teachings of an historical

person, Jesus of Nazareth

from Gospels

• The story of the relationship of

Jesus and the believers

• A mystery filled with God’s

presence throughout history

History of the Catholic Church

Part 1 The Early Church- 1st Century (30 – 330 AD)

Early Christians • Church born at Pentecost

• Founded by Christ, authority given to Peter, Apostles formed as leaders, and to last till end of time

• New life in dying and rising with Christ in Baptism

• Acts of the Apostles describes early Church as;

- Sharing goods in common

- Charitable

- Eucharistic

- Apostolic

- Missionary

* “The Way”

Influence: Jewish Sources • Early Church thoroughly Jewish: Jesus, Apostles,

first followers were all Jewish

• NT writers (Luke possible exception) were all

Jews

• Church is considered the New Israel

Christ called: the New Law; the New Adam; the

New Moses; the Son of David

• OT prophecies central to NT: Matthew cites OT 41

times – “it might be fulfilled.”

• Jesus Christ would make no sense without the OT

roots

• Pius XI: “Spiritually, we are all Semites.”

Paul

The Beginnings: Roman Sources

• Roman Empire at its material peak when Jesus

is born (Pax Romana) from Spain to Persia,

from Egypt to Scotland

• Effectiveness of communication and

transportation not exceeded until the invention

of the telegraph & railroad

• Culture, architecture, arts, laws, language –

homegrown & borrowed from others (Greeks)

• Rome created an atmosphere in which

missionary could activity flourished

• Romans tolerant of established religions;

considered early Christian activity Jewish

Pax Romana

The Domestic Church (2nd – 3rd centuries)

• They also met in private homes for the “breaking

of the bread” and the prayers. Eventually some

houses were specifically designated for worship.

• A house-church in Dura-Europos [Iraq]

was built c. 250 A. D. and still stands.

Persecutions

• Jewish

• Nero (64-67) – Peter & Paul

• Domitian (95-96) – Clement I 1

• Trajan to Hadrian (112-138) – Ignatius of Antioch; Polycarp

• Marcus Aurelius (161) – Cecilia; Justin

• Septimus Severus (202) – Perpetua; Felicity; Irenaeus

• Maximin of Thrace (235) – Popes Pontian and Antherus

• Decius (249-251) – Fabiran; Agatha- Libellus

• Diocletian- most brutal

• Romans were scandalized by the Cross

• Roman religion was civil religion- goal was political unity

Graffiti – “Alexamenos worships his God”

Why Christians Were So Disliked?

• 2 forms of early Christian literature explains 1. Martyrologies

2. Apologies

• Claims of Incest and Cannibalism

Justin Martyr, in his Letter to Diogenes, explained:

• Christians “marry as men do and beget children, but they do not practice abortion. They share tables but not beds. They live in the flesh, but not according to the flesh…” “The world suffers nothing from Christians but hates them because they reject its pleasures.”

• Neighbors often denounced Christians out of sheer dislike, or for greed for their property

Constantine’s Rise to Power

• Diocletian forced to resign

• Constantine Battle of

Milvian Bridge (312)

• Constantine, was told in a

vision to use a Christian

symbol during the battle

• His victory effectively gave

him control of the Empire

Constantine at Milvian Bridge

The Peace of Constantine • In 313 through the Edict of Milan

• Constantine legalized Christianity, granting religious freedom to everyone, built Churches, instituted humane laws, gave Church and Bishops place of honor, Sunday Sabbath.

• Constantine reunited the Empire used the Church as a means to achieve that unity.

• 1st Christian Emperor.

Catholic Culture: Early Debate Christians faced problems in a pagan world:

• How to educate their children?

• Could classical culture be assimilated or should it be rejected in favor of a new culture based solely on Scripture and the Fathers?

• Tertullian believed in the latter: “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens…the Church with the academy, the Christian with the heretic?”

• Clement of Alexandria held opposite view: since God is source of all truth, the many truths found in Greek philosophy, arts and sciences were not to be rejected. A well-educated Christian can better receive and defend the truths of the Faith

Early Heresies & Schisms • The Great Heresies [313-476 A.D.] • Gnosticism. Secret Knowledge- false Gospels

• Arians. Opposed by Nicaea in 325. “There was a

time when he was not.” homoiosios (similar)

versus homoosios ( true teaching, same nature

or substance)

• Apollinarians. Condemned 1st Constantinople, 381. Christ had a human body and a human sensitive soul, but no human rational mind, the Divine Logos taking its place.

• Nestorians. Condemned by Ephesus, 431. Mary shouldn’t be called “Mother of God,” since she’s mother only of the human side of Jesus

Augustine refuting heretic

Great Heresies Continued…

• Monophysites. Condemned by Chalcedon in 451. Jesus really has only one nature, a divine nature, which supplanted his human nature.

• Donatist. Condemned local Council of Arles in 314. Repeated errors of Novatianism and Montanism regarding sinners; held that sacraments administered by clergy in state of mortal sin are invalid.

• Pelagians. Condemned by Council of Ephesus in 431. British monk, Pelagius, denied existence of original sin; possible to achieve salvation solely through reason and free will, without necessity of grace or the Church.

Pelagius

Councils – Explaining Our Faith • Doctrine developed in the

face of controversy and

persecution

• Clarification and expression

of church teachings

• Followed Apostolic model,

and must be convened or

recognized by the Pope

Germanic Migrations and The Huns • Rome didn’t fall in one catastrophic

event (410-476)

• Last Roman Emperor (Romulus Augustulus) deposed in 476 by Odoacer

These Germanic (or Gothic) peoples attacked

• Forced Romans and Visigoths to form an alliance (451) which held Attila at the Battle of Chalons – so he headed south…toward Rome

• Cooperation of Romans, barbarians and Church would form the foundation of a new future

Changing the Face of Europe • West deteriorates into multitude of

barbarian kingdoms • The Church was the only organized

institution • Even where barbarians did not

destroy the Empire’s infrastructure, they had no clue how to maintain it

• Cities eventually disappeared • Although pagan barbarians

adopted Christianity, their ignorance and low morals actually lowered society’s standards

• Conversion of Frankish king, Clovis, leads to conversion of barbarians – common religion brought some unity

The “Dark Ages”

• Historical revisionists claim Christianity rejected classical civilization – even sought to destroy it – and thus inaugurated the Dark Ages

• Truth: Christianity not the cause of the decline of late Roman culture

• Last flowering of classical literary culture – largely the work of Church Fathers

• The Church’s monasteries alone saved classical civilization from the total eclipse it would otherwise have suffered

Impact of Monasticism Rise of Monasticism in the West founding of Montecassino by St. Benedict-His Rule

Western monasticism became the major carrier of Western civilization during the early Middle Ages “The Irish saved Western Civilization”

Monasteries provided islands of learning and culture and Faith

Benedictines ran nearly 2,000 hospitals throughout Europe, schools, science in agriculture, copied scripture and pagan wisdom

New Threat of Islam on Christendom

Saving Europe – Charlemagne at Tours

Islam on the move – armies of Arabs on jihad

devastated North Africa

Mediterranean under Muslim control

Moors (Arab/Berbers) stormed into France

Pepin’s son, Charles Martel scraped together a

Frankish army to meet the Moors as they rode

north Clash at Tours a turning point in European

history –

Franks soundly defeated the Moors and turned

them back from Europe

Battle of Tours

The Holy Roman Empire • Christmas Day, 800, Pope St. Leo III

crowned Charles as Roman Emperor

• Coronation represents two important

developments:

1. Restoration of the Western Roman Empire –

dream of European unity under a Catholic ruler

would survive the empire’s demise

2. Shift in geographical focus of Western

civilization – from Mediterranean (Mare

nostrum) to the North

Henri Pirenne: “Had there been no Mohammed, there would have been no Charlemagne

1,000 A.D. – A New Sprit The early springtime of

Christendom

• Invasions has ceased (except for Norman raids)

• Badly needed reforms had begun in the Church

• Nations were being organized under competent Christian kings

• Standard of living on the rise

• Church architecture reflected these changes

East West Schism • Effects of various Eastern heresies and the

consequent rise of national churches

• Iconoclast Crisis

• Leavened vs unleavened bread

• Filoque

• Deeper level – opposing cultures & views on

the nature and structure of the Church

• Resentment arose – sense that West dictated

to East

The Schism • In 1043 the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael

Cerularius, began a major anti-Roman campaign, closing Latin-rite churches and attacking the papacy

• Pope Leo IX sent delegates to Constantinople without success.

• On July 16, 1054 Michael Celularius was solemnly excommunicated

• Celularius responded by calling an Eastern synod and excommunicated the Pope and the entire Latin Church

• This began the schism that still divides the East from Rome

• In 1964 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras met in Jerusalem and lifted the mutual excommunication orders of 1054. Dialogue continues

Michael Cerularius

Discussion Questions 1. Which of Avery Cardinal Dulles’ models of the Church listed below, do you relate to most and why? Avery Cardinal Dulles’ Models of the Church • Church as Institution • Church as Mystical Communion • Church as Sacrament • Church as Herald • Church as Servant • Church as School of Discipleship 2. Throughout the Church’s history there have been many difficult times. How do we relate to those in the past who have struggled to hand on the faith? What do you believe keeps the Church going?

Church History: Part 2

Remote Causes of the Crusades • 1095 Turks attacked Constantinople,

Byzantine Emperor Alexios asked Pope to help.

• The Crusades finally began nearly five centuries after Muslim armies had set out to conquer the Christian world

• By the time the Crusades began (1095), Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world-

• The Crusades began: – 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered – 453 years after Egypt was taken – 443 years after Italy was first plundered – 380 years after Spain was conquered – 363 years after France was attacked – 249 years after Rome was sacked – Only after centuries of church burnings, killings,

enslavement and forced conversions of Christians

The Seven Crusades • 1st Crusade – 1095 – Pope Urban II

• 2nd Crusade – 1147 -- Pope Eugene III

• 3rd Crusade – 1190 – Richard

Lionhearted

• 4th Crusade – 1202 – Sack of

Constantinople

• 5th Crusade – 1217-1221 – Lateran

Council

• 6th Crusade – 1248 1248) –St. Louis IX

• 7th Crusade – 1270 – St. Louis IX

The Good, • Crusades played a providential role in the life of the

Church

• Revealed the extraordinary spirit of faith that prevailed throughout Christendom in the Middle Ages

• At the Pope’s request, hundreds of thousands left all they had to face danger and death in distant lands in a noble effort

• Crusades brought West back into contact with the East’s science, literature and art, opening up new worlds of thought for Western scholars

• Opened trade routes to the Orient, stimulated commerce

• Preserved the Church in the West from Islamic conquest, allowing Christian medieval culture time to develop in peace

The Bad and the Ugly • 1000s died during the Siege of Jerusalem, many

innocents, including Jews

• Yes there were Crusader atrocities; no excuse but they too were on the receiving end of atrocities by Muslims,

• If Christians couldn’t pay the dimiti tax, eldest son made Muslim slave (holy warrior against Christians)

• Lack of unified command to restrain

• Lack of education reflected in “Children's Crusades” and bigotry towards Jews

• Western Crusaders sacked Constantinople (who West went to help), fought against Eastern Christians

Inquisitions • We must distinguish between the facts of the

Inquisition and the fiction. • #’s exaggerated closer to 2,000 -3,000 victims • Church/State component and nature of

heresies against good of society. • Church didn’t invent practice but regulated

existing judicial practices to soften harshness of secular powers.

• Not punished for simply believing a heresy. The crime was teaching it, leading others astray.

Intellectual Life in the High Middle Ages - Scholasticism

• Rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle (Byzantine, Jewish, & Arabic sources)

• Foundation of independent Universities in Bologna (1088), Paris (1150), Oxford (1167), Cambridge (1208), Salamanca (1218), etc.

• Establishment of four separate faculties: theology, philosophy, law, and medicine

• St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure

Western Schism- Papacy

• The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1377, during which seven successive Popes resided in Avignon rather than Rome due to conflict with French Kings.

• September 13, 1376, Gregory XI abandoned Avignon and moved his court to Rome, officially ending the Avignon Papacy.

• The schism ended in 1417 at the Council of Constance.

• Culturally damaged the view of the authority of the Pope irreparably

• Followed by the Bubonic Plague which devastated Europe, new period of political and philosophical turmoil-apocalyptical

The Renaissance – 1500- 1800 AD

• Societal change

• City life

• Rediscovery of classical culture

• Humanism

• Growth in royal power also undermined papal authority

Clerical abuses weakened influence of church

Trade & Economic changes created a more a independent middle class

Luther : Protestant Reformation

Luther’s life as a Augustian monk dominated by a sense of his own unworthiness and terror - was he damned? Answer found in Letter of St. Paul to the Romans Sola fide

• protest against sale of indulgences sparks reformation - Luther’s “Ninety-Five Theses”

papacy also taxing German states and appointing foreigners to key ecclesiastical posts

June 15, 1520 Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther

A Revolution is Sparked

• John Calvin- France

• John Knox- Geneva to Scotland

• Henry VIII- England

• Huldreich Zwingli- Switzerland

Counter Reformation • Spiritual renewal in Church began before

Protestants

• Many new religious orders and lay groups devoted to renewal –ex. Jesuits &Oratory of Divine Love

• Baroque period-Catholic cultures answer to ascetic iconoclast Protestants

The Council of Trent 1545-1563

• Reaffirms Churches beliefs against Protestant doctrines

• Reformed Liturgy

• Canon of Scripture confirmed again

• Addressed abuses esp. Simony

• Reformed Bishops

• Brought intellectual renewal

Tridentine Spirituality

• Justification- stressed good works, striving for virtue balanced by need for grace, Sacraments

• Meditation • Mission oriented- Church growth in New World and

Asia • Saints -Loyola, Theresa, Francis de Sales, Vincent de Paul • Question: How did the three Schisms effect the Church

today? What was the negative and positive effects that came from them?

The Enlightenment- 1650’s-1780’s

• Scientific Revolution

• The rise of modernity/secularism – new man centric worldview

• Viewed man as naturally good and reason could solve all ills.

• New religion of humanity, science, and progress

• Descartes- critical rationalism (doubt)

• Churches response reactionary

French Revolution- 1789-1789 • Catholic Church considered part of Old Regime • Assembly took to “reforming” the Church but state grab for

power over the Church • Civil Constitution of the Clergy splits clergy • Dechristianization campaign, the new religion • The Reign of Terror and persecution of Catholics • Napoleon, Pope Pius VI, Pope Pius VII • The Congress of Vienna- restored old order • Revolution hurts Church but liberates Church from State

influences

Church torn within and from without • Between 1700’s and 1900’s, Europe experienced

tremendous intellectual activity. In the political arena the freeing of governments from ecclesiastical dominance had two consequences for church thinkers.

1. They became subject to challenge by their contemporaries, such as Darwin in evolution, Hume and Hegel in philosophy, Marx and Engels in political social thought. 2. From Within- Jansenism and Gallicanism

The Biblical Movement and Liturgical Movement (1833–1969)

• Historical criticism – Biblical Movement

• Liturgical movement focused mainly on a recovery of Gregorian chant and polyphony.

• Liturgical Reform: Benedictines-Dom Proper Gueranger 1833 & Dom Lambert Beauduin

• US- Dom Virgil Michel in Collegeville, Mn.

Vatican I (1869- 1870)

• Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) “Syllabus of Errors (1864) • Addressed - Condemnation of contemporary errors Liberalism - Papal Primacy & Infallibility - Catholic doctrine on the Church of Christ * Lamennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert, 1854 –wanted to catholicize liberalism • Interrupted by Franco-Prussian War

Church after VC I

• Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) and Rerum novarum (1891): the Church and Industrial Society

• Pope Pius X (1903-1914) and Modernism

• The Missions in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (African/Asian)

• Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922) and World War I

• The Church in Europe between the Wars (Pius XI)

• Pius XII (1939-1958) – World War II and After

Vatican II

(1962-1965) • Renewal of the Church

• Sixteen Documents • Role of the Laity • Ecumenism • 1) Background: technological progress and terrible war • 2) Pope John XXIII (1958-63) and Pope Paul VI (1963-78) • 3) Aggiornamento • 4) Constitution on the Liturgy (1963) • 5) Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964): Universal Call to Holiness;

Salvation is offered to all. • 6) Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965): Scripture and Tradition • 7) Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965) • 8) Dramatic Changes: Vernacular in the Liturgy, Communion under Both Kinds,

Lay Ministry • 9) Reaction to Vatican II (ongoing)

U. S. Catholic Church

• Colonial days – Maryland: under the Vicar Apostolic of London • John Carroll: the first bishop of Baltimore (1789) • 1815: Sees in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Bardstown • By 1829: 500,000 Catholics in U.S. • Nativism (“Know-nothings”) anti immigrant Catholic persecutions • Civil War • Baltimore Catechism • Catholic Schools and Nuns • Immigration: English (MD), Germans, Irish, Slavs, Italians, Latinos, Asians • Cardinal James Gibbons (d. 1921) – kept the church on side of working class • “Americanism”

Archdiocese of Atlanta • in 1733. Spanish priests came to Georgia in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries seeking to convert Native Americans. • Illegal to be Catholic in GA Colony. Catholics would not find

acceptance in Georgia until the American Revolution (1775-83). • It was in 1850 that Catholics in Georgia and parts of Florida

became a new diocese, the Diocese of Savannah • The first Catholic church in Atlanta, the Immaculate Conception,

built in 1848, was used as a hospital during the Civil War. • The Diocese of Atlanta was established in 1956 when the

northern 71 counties of Georgia were separated from the Diocese of Savannah and assigned to the new diocese giving the state two dioceses.

• 1962 became Archdiocese • Today a total of 101 parishes and missions , while the Catholic

population of the Archdiocese has risen to over 1,000,000.

USCCB & Church Documents

• Councils are legally convened assemblies of ecclesiastical dignitaries and theological experts for the purpose of discussing and regulating matters of church doctrine and discipline.

• A legally convened meeting of members of the hierarchy for the

purpose of carrying out their judicial and doctrinal functions, by means of deliberation in common resulting in regulations and decrees invested with the authority of the whole assembly.

• In 1917 the bishops of the U.S. formed the National Catholic War Council (NCWC) to enable U.S. Catholics to contribute funds and commit personnel to provide spiritual care and recreation services to servicemen during World War I.

Roles & Responsibilities of the Baptized

• 900 Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth. This duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ. Their activity in ecclesial communities is so necessary that, for the most part, the apostolate of the pastors cannot be fully effective without it.433The participation of lay people in Christ's priestly office

• 901 "Hence the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit may be produced in them. For all their works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit - indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born - all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord. And so, worshipping everywhere by their holy actions, the laity consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives."

Discussion Questions

• 1 . How does having knowledge of our Catholic Church history help you in your ministry as a catechist?

• 2. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church

is a plan born in the Father’s heart. (see below) How does this mystery impact how your view of the Church?

• CCC759 “The eternal Father, in accordance with the utterly

gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom and goodness, created the whole universe and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine life,”(150) to which he calls all men in his Son. “The Father... determined to call together in a holy Church those who should believe in Christ.” (151) This “family of God” is gradually formed and takes shape during the stages of human history, in keeping with the Father’s plan.”