Nuttiest Things Non-Catholics Have Said or Done Around You Because You're Catholic

[Wannano]

Are you sure you are not just aiding this thread?

If you are referring to me Darryl, I guess I must be naive because I don’t know what you mean.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

Names, names, names don’t change things, they are just identifiers, they do not change the nature of that being identified.

And I believe here, the identifier is Jesus, and those who chose to follow him.

What I hear from Catholics on this forum is that the emphasis is on ‘Catholic Church’ - as the originator and writers of the Bible, as a unified institution that Jesus specifically created, as the only seat of all authority from the time of the New Testament.

It makes my head spin. I would say that many followers of Christ, east and west, Catholic and non, scholars and historians, would take umbrage with that. It isn’t accurate. Many before me have explained how it isn’t accurate, so I won’t do a thesis here. But I do hope that such statements can be brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and early Christianity.

 

[Darryl_B]

And I believe here, the identifier is Jesus, and those who chose to follow him.

What I hear from Catholics on this forum is that the emphasis is on ‘Catholic Church’ - as the originator and writers of the Bible, as a unified institution that Jesus specifically created, as the only seat of all authority from the time of the New Testament.

It makes my head spin. I would say that many followers of Christ, east and west, Catholic and non, scholars and historians, would take umbrage with that. It isn’t accurate. Many before me have explained how it isn’t accurate, so I won’t do a thesis here. But I do hope that such statements can be brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and early Christianity.

The identifier is the Church because of her relationship to Jesus Christ and his relationship to she. Some people call that the One Body, which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Therefore Catholic Church is perfectly acceptable as to the authorship of the NT. I can understand the sensitivity that might produce for some, but the disassociation is self imposed not demanded.

I think you want it brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and latter Christianity.

 

[josie_L]

The identifier is the Church because of her relationship to Jesus Christ and his relationship to she. Some people call that the One Body, which is nothing to be ashamed of.

Therefore Catholic Church is perfectly acceptable as to the authorship of the NT. I can understand the sensitivity that might produce for some, but the disassociation is self imposed not demanded.

I think you want it brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and latter Christianity.

I think St. AUGUSTINE said it best:

“There are many other things which most justly keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church …no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion…. For my part I should not believe the gospel except the authority of the Catholic Church moved me. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichæus, how can I but consent? Take your choice. If you say, Believe the Catholics: their advice to me is to put no faith in you; so that, believing them, I am precluded from believing you — If you say, Do not believe the Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichæus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed the gospel.” (Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, 4-5)

 

[Wannano]

And I believe here, the identifier is Jesus, and those who chose to follow him.

What I hear from Catholics on this forum is that the emphasis is on ‘Catholic Church’ - as the originator and writers of the Bible, as a unified institution that Jesus specifically created, as the only seat of all authority from the time of the New Testament.

It makes my head spin. I would say that many followers of Christ, east and west, Catholic and non, scholars and historians, would take umbrage with that. It isn’t accurate. Many before me have explained how it isn’t accurate, so I won’t do a thesis here. But I do hope that such statements can be brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and early Christianity.

Indeed, I identify with the head spinning. I find it intriguing that the first of the ten Commandments is:“thou shalt have NO other gods before me.” To put our Church, our conversion experience, speaking in tongues or any other manifestation, or early church fathers and latter church father’s including the reformers before God (Jesus) is idolatry.

 

[Puppy_Jack]

I think you will find many disagree. They may have called themselves followers of ‘the Way’ or even a follower of Jesus or a ‘saint’, but the writers were still very much Jewish. Even Paul. None of the early disciples even used the term Christian.

Please read Acts 11:26. “…So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2011:26

Why would you think they called themselves ‘Catholic’ as an identifier?

Please take a look at the following URL:

ewtn.com/faith/teachings/churb3.htm

I think the following 3 paragraphs, written by Kenneth Whitehead, speak directly to the question that you asked.

Very early in post-apostolic times, however. the Church did acquire a proper name–and precisely in order to distinguish herself from rival bodies which by then were already beginning to form. The name that the Church acquired when it became necessary for her to have a proper name was the name by which she has been known ever since-the Catholic Church.

The name appears in Christian literature for the first time around the end of the first century. By the time it was written down, it had certainly already been in use, for the indications are that everybody understood exactly what was meant by the name when it was written.

Around the year A.D. 107, a bishop, St. Ignatius of Antioch in the Near East, was arrested, brought to Rome by armed guards and eventually martyred there in the arena. In a farewell letter which this early bishop and martyr wrote to his fellow Christians in Smyrna (today Izmir in modern Turkey), he made the first written mention in history of “the Catholic Church.” He wrote, “Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church” (To the Smyrnaeans 8:2). Thus, the second century of Christianity had scarcely begun when the name of the Catholic Church was already in use.

Incidentally, Saint Ignatius of Antioch was a student of the Apostle John.

 

[Jose045]

Ahem. It was written by Jews (with the jury still out on Luke).

The New Testament was indeed written by Catholics. Jesus had already resurrected and established the Church-the CATHOLIC Church, so yes, the NT was written by Catholics.

 

[Jose045]

No, I think perhaps you have things a bit confused. I have heard the Nativity statue example cited before (a LOT actually) and it confuses me why anyone would think it is the same. Figures they are, yes. So the classification of having Biblically forbidden idols or images in a holy place is parallel (a good Puritan would NEVER bring in images). So today, a Protestant/Reformed Christian/non-Liturgical Christian would happily stand and admire a Nativity scene, but kneel and pray in front of it? I highly doubt it. Or pray to Mary and Joseph? I highly doubt that too. Just as they would never pray to the Santa they have in their front yard.

So I do wish that particular example would be quietly retired.

Comparing praying to Mary and the saints to praying to Santa is simply disingenuous at best. Now, if you’re trying to insinuate the silliness of Protestant/Deformed “Christian” manmade doctrines, then I understand-otherwise, the statement you made should be quietly retired.

 

[Hawkmaid]

Girl at work: “So, how’s that graven image worship?” Rolled my eyes at her…really.

Hahaha! You should’ve told her you don’t know, you’re still waiting to get that goat from UPS to perform the whole ceremony…

 

[Jose045]

And I believe here, the identifier is Jesus, and those who chose to follow him.

What I hear from Catholics on this forum is that the emphasis is on ‘Catholic Church’ - as the originator and writers of the Bible, as a unified institution that Jesus specifically created, as the only seat of all authority from the time of the New Testament.

It makes my head spin. I would say that many followers of Christ, east and west, Catholic and non, scholars and historians, would take umbrage with that. It isn’t accurate. Many before me have explained how it isn’t accurate, so I won’t do a thesis here. But I do hope that such statements can be brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and early Christianity.

With 30,000+ denominations-and growing-all descendants of the personal opinion and rebellion of a man who turned Judas against the Church, removed from and added to the bible, created his own religion, was an anti-Semite, stated we can murder a thousand times a day and remain saved, and said Jesus committed adultery with the woman at the well, I can certainly understand that your head is spinning.

Biblical and early Christianity is Catholic. This may be an inconvenient fact when it comes to justifying the chaos and rebellion of the deformation, but it is a fact.

I personally take umbrage at the attempt to define the deformation as some good thing-when it was in fact something inspired by Satan-especially when the attempt is to undermine and usurp the Church .

If you would like to make a thesis, however, please feel free-just make sure you address how it occurred 1500 years after the Church was already in existence and about 1200 years after the bible was canonized. Also please address how 30,000+ and growing conflicting denominations coincide with Jesus’ prayer for unity, how its founder added to and removed from the bible, hated Jews, said Jesus committed adultery, etc. And also explain how Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, and OSAS-all unknown or rejected as heresy by early Christians (Catholics) can be used as qualifiers for “biblical Christianity”.

Thanks

 

[phil19034]

I think you will find many disagree. They may have called themselves followers of ‘the Way’ or even a follower of Jesus or a ‘saint’, but the writers were still very much Jewish. Even Paul. None of the early disciples even used the term Christian. Why would you think they called themselves ‘Catholic’ as an identifier?

The Catholic Church even today is still very Jewish (in terms of how Jews worshiped in the Temple before it was destroyed).

I’ve heard of several Jewish Rabbis say to Catholic Priests “you are more Jewish that we are” when they learn about the roots of Catholic Worship.

 

[phil19034]

I think you will find many disagree. They may have called themselves followers of ‘the Way’ or even a follower of Jesus or a ‘saint’, but the writers were still very much Jewish. Even Paul. None of the early disciples even used the term Christian. Why would you think they called themselves ‘Catholic’ as an identifier?

“The Way” is the Catholic Church.

St. Ignatius of Antioch coined the term “Catholic.” He was a disciple of the Apostles and was living during the time the New Testament was written.

The Apostles and all the early Church Fathers were all Catholic. All honest historical research provides this.

It’s not a religious believe, but a historical fact.

 

[phil19034]

And I believe here, the identifier is Jesus, and those who chose to follow him.

What I hear from Catholics on this forum is that the emphasis is on ‘Catholic Church’ - as the originator and writers of the Bible, as a unified institution that Jesus specifically created, as the only seat of all authority from the time of the New Testament.

It makes my head spin. I would say that many followers of Christ, east and west, Catholic and non, scholars and historians, would take umbrage with that. It isn’t accurate. Many before me have explained how it isn’t accurate, so I won’t do a thesis here. But I do hope that such statements can be brought back into the larger picture of Biblical and early Christianity.

Every Eastern Church was part of the Catholic Church when the New Testament was written (and some Eastern Churches still are part of the Catholic Church).

The main disagreement between the Latin Church and the Eastern Churches is which group is the true successor. All Eastern Churches claim to be the one Catholic Church.

The question between the Latin Church and the Eastern Churches not in communion with Rome is simply who is in schism from whom. We say they are in schism from us, while they say we are in schism from them. But they would never claim that Catholic Christians didn’t write the New Testament.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

Scholars in early church history have written extensively on the diversity of Christian thought and assemblies. There was no unified church. There was no unified theology. There was no unified sense of ‘catholicity’. There were communities of believers throughout the east and the west. There were diverse clusters of Christians even in the same region, each believing different things and espousing different authorities. Justin Martyr, Valentines and Marcion all lived together in Rome, teaching very different ideas about Jesus. Those in Jerusalem or those in Antioch, practiced differently than Christians in Greece or Rome. Why do we have such a strong split between the eastern church today and the west? It has always been radically different.

I am not saying that in the west, the Roman Church hadn’t gained temporal power and authority. Of course it did. But that power did not always exist. And it seems perplexing to have those in the RCC today say that the Roman Church existed as it does now from the beginning and that it only existed in one form. The Christian community has existed in its many forms from the beginning.

Read the scholars: Michael White, Dom Crosson, Wayne Meeks, Elaine Pagels, Henry Chadwick.

‘Christianity, or one would rather say “Christianities,” of the second and third centuries were a highly variegated phenomenon. We really can’t imagine Christianity as a unified coherent religious movement. Certainly there were some religious organizations… There were institutions developing in some Christian churches, but only in some.’ Holland Lee Hendrix, Union Theological Seminary

‘We tend to think of the success of Christianity in the second and third centuries just on the eve on really when it becomes the prominent religion in the Roman Empire as if it were just one form of religiosity, when in fact the opposite is true. Christianity was extremely diverse during this period, and we probably ought to think of it as a kind of regional diversity; that is, the Christianity of Rome was different than Christianity in North Africa in certain ways, and that was different from what we find in Egypt, and that different from what we find in Syria or back in Palestine. We have, in effect, different brands of Christianity living often side by side, even in the same city. So, it’s a great deal of diversity.’ L Michael White

 

[phil19034]

Scholars in early church history have written extensively on the diversity of Christian thought and assemblies. There was no unified church. There was no unified theology. There was no unified sense of ‘catholicity’. There were communities of believers throughout the east and the west. There were diverse clusters of Christians even in the same region, each believing different things and espousing different authorities. Justin Martyr, Valentines and Marcion all lived together in Rome, teaching very different ideas about Jesus. Those in Jerusalem or those in Antioch, practiced differently than Christians in Greece or Rome. Why do we have such a strong split between the eastern church today and the west? It has always been radically different.

This is true of the Catholic Church even today. We have 24 different Catholic Churches all in communion with Rome. The largest by far is the Latin Church (or also known as the Roman Catholic Church). But the Catholic Church still has everything you list above, including different theology between the Rites and Churches which are all in communion with the Pope.

Even native to Italy, you have Roman Rite Catholics, Ambrosian Rite Catholics, and the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (which worships using the Byzantine Rite).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_rites_and_churches

I am not saying that in the west, the Roman Church hadn’t gained temporal power and authority. Of course it did. But that power did not always exist. And it seems perplexing to have those in the RCC today say that the Roman Church existed as it does now from the beginning and that it only existed in one form. The Christian community has existed in its many forms from the beginning.

No one has EVER claimed that the Roman Church (which means the Diocese of Rome) was as strong in the first century as it is now. Nor has anyone ever claimed that the Roman Church (again which means the Diocese of Rome) was founded by Jesus. It wasn’t. The Church of Rome (which means the same as Roman Church, which means Diocese of Rome) was founded by St. Peter when he went to Rome. But Jesus founded the “Catholic Church.”

The term “Roman Catholic Church” as in referring to the whole universal Church doesn’t exit. The Church is the Holy Catholic Church. “Roman Catholic” really refers to people who celebrate just the Roman Rite. It doesn’t even mean Western Catholic, as that is Latin Church, because not all Latin Catholic (Western Catholics) celebrate the Roman Rite.

However, the successor to St. Peter (meaning the one that took his place after his death) has always been viewed as the senior most Bishop. That office is the cornerstone that Jesus used to build His Church.

Read the scholars: Michael White, Dom Crosson, Wayne Meeks, Elaine Pagels, Henry Chadwick.

‘Christianity, or one would rather say “Christianities,” of the second and third centuries were a highly variegated phenomenon. We really can’t imagine Christianity as a unified coherent religious movement. Certainly there were some religious organizations… There were institutions developing in some Christian churches, but only in some.’ Holland Lee Hendrix, Union Theological Seminary

‘We tend to think of the success of Christianity in the second and third centuries just on the eve on really when it becomes the prominent religion in the Roman Empire as if it were just one form of religiosity, when in fact the opposite is true. Christianity was extremely diverse during this period, and we probably ought to think of it as a kind of regional diversity; that is, the Christianity of Rome was different than Christianity in North Africa in certain ways, and that was different from what we find in Egypt, and that different from what we find in Syria or back in Palestine. We have, in effect, different brands of Christianity living often side by side, even in the same city. So, it’s a great deal of diversity.’ L Michael White

This whole quote confirms their misunderstanding of the Catholic Church. Of course the Christianity in North Africa was different than Christianity of Rome. We celebrate that! In North Africa you had (and still do) Coptic Catholics, Ethiopian Catholics, Eritrean Catholics, and plus there were the Catholics in Carthage that used the old African Rite. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Rite

NOTE: the majority of Eastern Christians are currently not in communion with Rome, but that doesn’t mean Rome doesn’t accept the validity of their theology and Rites of Worship. Because for basically every Eastern Church not in communion with Rome, there is a group that is in Communion with Rome. Some of which have come back into full communion lately, while others (like the Maronite Catholic Church) have always been in communion with the Pope.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_liturgical_rites
ewtn.com/expert/answers/catholic_rites_and_churches.htm
ewtn.com/expert/answers/rites.htm
ewtn.com/expert/answers/churches_rites_or_sisters.htm

So yes, you had different ways of worship, different rites, etc., but they were all Catholic and they all celebrated the 7 sacraments (or mysteries). They even used different languages.

The name Catholic, which means Universal, doesn’t mean that we worship the same way universally across the world. However, it does mean that we universally believe in the same deposit of faith, with of diversity in worship and theology.

God Bless!

 

[josie_L]

Scholars in early church history have written extensively on the diversity of Christian thought and assemblies. There was no unified church. There was no unified theology. There was no unified sense of ‘catholicity’. There were communities of believers throughout the east and the west. There were diverse clusters of Christians even in the same region, each believing different things and espousing different authorities. Justin Martyr, Valentines and Marcion all lived together in Rome, teaching very different ideas about Jesus. Those in Jerusalem or those in Antioch, practiced differently than Christians in Greece or Rome. Why do we have such a strong split between the eastern church today and the west? It has always been radically different.

Read the scholars: Michael White, Dom Crosson, Wayne Meeks, Elaine Pagels, Henry Chadwick.

One only has to look to the fathers to know that whatever diversity there was had nothing to do with dogma/doctrine, i.e., truth is truth is truth, and that is exactly what the fathers (who provide us with the primary sources of that time) DEFENDED. Anyone outside of the confines of that Church were heretics, and clearly branded as such. And that Church, wait for it, wait for it . . . . is the Catholic Church:

St. Augustine points to the chair of St. Peter as one of the things that keeps him in the Catholic Church. He writes in AD 396:

“There are many other things which most justly keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church …no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion…. **For my part I should not believe the gospel except the authority of the Catholic **Church moved me. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichæus, how can I but consent? Take your choice. If you say, Believe the Catholics: their advice to me is to put no faith in you; so that, believing them, I am precluded from believing you — If you say, Do not believe the Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichæus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed the gospel.” (Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, 4-5)

Between 392 and 393 St. Jerome wrote:

Simon Peter the son of John, from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, brother of Andrew the apostle, and himself chief of the apostles, after having been bishop of the church of Antioch and having preached to the Dispersion — the believers in circumcision, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia — pushed on to Rome in the second year of Claudius to overthrow Simon Magus, and held the sacerdotal chair there for twenty-five years until the last, that is the fourteenth, year of Nero. At his hands he received the crown of martyrdom being nailed to the cross with his head towards the ground and his feet raised on high, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord. He wrote two epistles which are called Catholic, the second of which, on account of its difference from the first in style, is considered by many not to be by him. Then too the Gospel according to Mark, who was his disciple and interpreter, is ascribed to him. … Buried at Rome in the Vatican near the triumphal way he is venerated by the whole world. …]

In AD 251, St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage wrote:

“**There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded on the Rock [Peter] by the voice of the Lord [et cathedra una super Petrum Domini uoce fundata]. It is not possible to set up another altar or another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever gathers elsewhere, scatters.” **(Epistle 39 (43))

I’m sure that many (if not all) of the “scholars” you named are those who support your own (liberal) revisionist view of the Bible/Christian history (denying Jesus was Christ, defining the Bible as mythical rather than historical. . . .). I’ll pass, thank you, and stick to the fathers of the Church who made it clear that the only Church of Christ (with Peter as the rock upon which the Church would be built) was the Catholic Church .

calledtocommunion.com/2011/02/the-chair-of-st-peter/

 

[josie_L]

This is true of the Catholic Church even today. We have 24 different Catholic Churches all in communion with Rome. The largest by far is the Latin Church (or also known as the Roman Catholic Church). But the Catholic Church still has everything you list above, including different theology between the Rites and Churches which are all in communion with the Pope.

Even native to Italy, you have Roman Rite Catholics, Ambrosian Rite Catholics, and the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (which worships using the Byzantine Rite).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_rites_and_churches

No one has EVER claimed that the Roman Church (which means the Diocese of Rome) was as strong in the first century as it is now. Nor has anyone ever claimed that the Roman Church (again which means the Diocese of Rome) was founded by Jesus. It wasn’t. The Church of Rome (which means the same as Roman Church, which means Diocese of Rome) was founded by St. Peter when he went to Rome. But Jesus founded the “Catholic Church.”

The term “Roman Catholic Church” as in referring to the whole universal Church doesn’t exit. The Church is the Holy Catholic Church. “Roman Catholic” really refers to people who celebrate just the Roman Rite. It doesn’t even mean Western Catholic, as that is Latin Church, because not all Latin Catholic (Western Catholics) celebrate the Roman Rite.

However, the successor to St. Peter (meaning the one that took his place after his death) has always been viewed as the senior most Bishop. That office is the cornerstone that Jesus used to build His Church.

This whole quote confirms their misunderstanding of the Catholic Church. Of course the Christianity in North Africa was different than Christianity of Rome. We celebrate that! In North Africa you had (and still do) Coptic Catholics, Ethiopian Catholics, Eritrean Catholics, and plus there were the Catholics in Carthage that used the old African Rite. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Rite

NOTE: the majority of Eastern Christians are currently not in communion with Rome, but that doesn’t mean Rome doesn’t accept the validity of their theology and Rites of Worship. Because for basically every Eastern Church not in communion with Rome, there is a group that is in Communion with Rome. Some of which have come back into full communion lately, while others (like the Maronite Catholic Church) have always been in communion with the Pope.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_liturgical_rites
ewtn.com/expert/answers/catholic_rites_and_churches.htm
ewtn.com/expert/answers/rites.htm
ewtn.com/expert/answers/churches_rites_or_sisters.htm

So yes, you had different ways of worship, different rites, etc., but they were all Catholic and they all celebrated the 7 sacraments (or mysteries). They even used different languages.

The name Catholic, which means Universal, doesn’t mean that we worship the same way universally across the world. However, it does mean that we universally believe in the same deposit of faith, with of diversity in worship and theology.

God Bless!

ComplineSanFran named two heretics, Valentines and Marcion juxtaposed with Justin Martyr (Catholic) as if they were equals, which should tell you a lot about the sources he’s using and how he thinks.

p.s. Trust me, when I tell you that his sources are liberal/revisionist views of the Bible/Christian history, that not only deny the factuality of the Bible, but deny the divinity of Christ (John Crossan, Elaine Pagels, and Michael White, look them up).

 

[ComplineSanFran]

ComplineSanFran named two heretics, Valentines and Marcion juxtaposed with Justin Martyr (Catholic) as if they were equals, which should tell you a lot about the sources he’s using and how he thinks.

p.s. Trust me, when I tell you that his sources are liberal/revisionist views of the Bible/Christian history, that not only deny the factuality of the Bible, but deny the divinity of Christ (John Crossan, Elaine Pagels, and Michael White, look them up).

Why would the fact that Valentines, Marcion, and Justin were all teaching and preaching at the same time, showing the diversity of the communities, be a threat? The point was not to show who was claimed later to be orthodox and who was heretical, but rather that there WERE different schools of thought happening simultaneously.

The scholars I named, by the way, would be rather surprised at your accusations. Denying the divinity of Christ? How did you come to that conclusion? Have you read them? Do you know them? They are all excellent and well respected scholars.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

I I’ll pass, thank you, and stick to the fathers of the Church who made it clear that the only Church of Christ (with Peter as the rock upon which the Church would be built) was the Catholic Church .

Perhaps our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox branches of the Church would disagree with you.

 

[phil19034]

Perhaps our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox branches of the Church would disagree with you.

The Eastern Orthodox do believe that there is only one Catholic Church. However, they believe that they are the that one Church.

They call themselves the “Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church” They also believe in the primacy of the Bishop of Rome but they currently believe the Bishop of Rome is only the “First Among Equals.”

However, for 1000 years, the Bishops of what is now the Eastern Orthodox Churches recognized the Bishop of Rome has having universal power. The main issue today is that the Eastern Orthodox see how the Pope operates within the Latin Church and thinks he would do the same thing across the other Churches. But that’s not how the Pope acts unless a Patriarch or Major Archbishop (who are the heads of the Eastern Churches) do something heretical, against the deposit of faith, or breaks the Canon Laws of the Eastern Church(es)