Do tell, in what year did the Roman Catholic Church first exist?
Marco Polo
You asked about the beginning of the Roman Catholic church. Well the first church established by the apostles began in Palestine, Galilee and Judea. After Jesus came and died and was resurrected, the church center was in Jerusalem. Paul tells us there was no church established in Rome until around 56 A.D. The first council of the church was held in Jerusalem and Paul, James and Peter were there. James was the Bishop of the Church there. James, Peter and John were considered “Pillars of the church” according to Scripture.
Churches in Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Thessaloníki, Ephesia and in other places began to appear as the apostles traveled throughout the region. Paul eventually made it to Rome and established a church there. But Rome was not the first and was not the headquarters of Christianity. Jerusalem was. In addition, there is no evidence whatever that Peter ever made it to Rome and was not the first Bishop there. Check your Bible and you won’t find it.
When Constantine became Emperor of Rome in 312, he began to transfigure the Roman Empire into the Holy Roman Empire. He began this in 324. He was not in Rome and called the new city he built: Constantinople. He envisioned it as the center of the world. Problem was, the state church of Rome was pagan and Constantine introduced many pagan rites, rituals and ceremonies into the Christian Church, as well as insisting Christians worship certain pagan principles. Worship of Mary was required because the Pagans had a “Mary type” person they worshiped. He instituted the worship of idols and images, because that was paganistic as well. He had the church to follow certain pagan rituals.
It was a short time after this that an attempt was made to make the Bishop of Rome, in charge of the entire church, but that was rejected by most early church fathers. Of course Rome was killing them *** as martyrs anyhow and eventually all the opposition died out. Some of the later fathers still refused to accept a papacy because it was not Biblical and Christ is the Head of the Church, not the Pope, at least according to the Bible.
Shortly thereafter, the Bibles were locked away from the common man and you could not own one. You were subject to death if you did or even read one without approval of the priests. This was a Catholic practice for hundreds of years.
It was people like Martin Luther who consulted the original texts they had that changed the English versions of the Bible. Martin Luther translated from the original Greek and then later King James authorized and English translation. He insisted on translating the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in the original Greek however. He did not use the Septuagint or the Latin translation. He refused to do so and refused to include the Apocryphal books. After a great deal of pressure from Catholic Bishops however, he listed them but listed them as good for reading and historical values but not to be used for matters of faith or morals. The same type listing the King James Bible gave them.
But do your own studying of RCC history. You won’t be able to find Peter in Rome in the Bible, so he couldn’t have been the first bishop. Paul appointed Bishops there, not Peter. You wont find that there was ever a pope until the 4th or 5th century either. You also won’t find anything in Scripture about the Assumption of Mary, the perpetual virginity of Mary, purgatory, penance, praying to the dead or anything about several other things you have been taught to believe.
May God guide you in yor studies…
