Originally Posted by 6387:
Ok, so this thread is about an Idea I had.
In the beginning, there was One Church, One Holy and Apostolic Church.
Then, it split, into the Eastern and Western Churches. Roman Catholics and I can agree, of the two, Roman Catholicism has it a lot more together than the Eastern Orthodox Church, which remains unchanged since the split, in a sort of stagnant state.
Eastern Orthodox stagnant? How so? If you mean the fact that they haven’t had an “ecumenical” council since the 8th century or so, I would consider this a very good thing. Councils often are convened to deal with heresy, and when not with heresy, ecclesiastical abuses. The Orthodox are blessed not to add Council upon Council to their dogmatic list.
Eastern Orthodox theology continued to flower with St. Gregory Palamas and other spiritual leaders of Mt. Athos, Novgorod, Kiev, Moscow, Varlaam, Optina.
Then there was the One Church, One Holy and Apostolic Church.
Check up on the non-Chalcedonians (Oriental Orthodox). You might be in for a surprise.
But from a Roman point of view, yes there was one Church: the churches of the increasingly Germanic Latin West and the churches of the Roman Byzantine empire in the East, agreed on the conciliar decisions of Chalcedon, Constantinople II + III and Nicaea II, notwithstanding some canonical differences. And besides the Acacian schism, there was overall fair although non-continuous communion between the various churches of the East and those of the West.
A Protestant, I would think, would not tend to see the “Church” as the visible body of communion here, but would maintain that there were true, invisible believers in the Church amidst the visible church, which ones were only known to God.
And it was Roman. This church had it much together, but then it abused the political arm of its power. It became wealthy, it began to rule over princes, it began to claim that it had the authority to sell forgiveness, and many other abuses
No, the Church didn’t have it quite together… There was great confusion prior to, surrounding and following the Councils, and there was disagreement as to which canons were to be accepted, which disciplines were legitimate, etc.
Then, it split, into the Protestant and Catholic Church. The Catholics desperately held on to their power, ran a sham council named “Trent,” and to this day has remained largely unchanged…in a sort of stagnant state…
I believe a Protestant answer to this would be that real Church, the true Church of believers, never “split.” However, the visible church, not necessarily to be equated with the true Church: this is what was visibly ruptured into the various communions.
Then there was the One Church, One Holy and Apostolic Church.
And it was the Protestants…
I believe you wrong, but you are thinking like a Catholic.
In order for the sequence you present to be true, you have to make several pressupositions. One, I believe, is that the visible Church* is* the true Church.
God has moved his church in a new direction once, whose to say He didn’t do it again?
If the Roman Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, then you have to accept the many Petrine Primacy claims. God cannot contradict himself. He cannot say one day: the Bishop of Rome is the Head of the Church. He is my Vicar. Communion with him is communion with me and keeping the faith passed down in the Church; and then another day say: Well, communion with the Bishop of Rome is not a key note of being in the Church. The Church isn’t built on Peter, much less grounded in the Church of Rome.
Isn’t it the “Trail of Blood”? 
:bigyikes: 