Soc, as I promised, here are the names of the men that built each respective non-Catholic church up until the 1900’s, at which point you can give me the name and I will give you the founder; there are just too many of them for this post. Still waiting on Eds reply as well as yours regarding the architect of the C.C., whenever you get the chance, of course. Hopefully I’ll get your answer before the thread ends.
33 A.D.
The Catholic Church, (which eventually moved to Rome, headed by Peter after he fled Jerusalem) - was founded by the God-man, Jesus Christ. He said to just one man: "Thou art Cephas, and upon this Cephas I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Clearly the the second rock refers DIRECTLY back to the first rock, just as would be the case if Jesus said this instead:
Martin Luther, But what about you?" he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Martin Luther answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Martin Luther, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Cephas and on this Cephas, I will build my church. If this were in the bible, Lutherans would have no problem believing as do Catholics; rest assured, and I too would belong to the one Lutheran church; but first we would have to decide which one to follow: the one that believes as does the C.C. and Martin Luther, or the one who does not believe in the true presence.
In the following passages, Cephas is given as the nickname of the apostle better known as Simon Peter. The Greek word is transliterated Kephas. This eliminates the silly petra/petros argument, abandoned by almost all protestant scholars.
John 1:42
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He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John, you shall be called Cephas", which is translated 'Peter'.
1 Corinthians 1:12
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"But I say that each of you says "I am of Paul", or "I am of Apollos", or "I am of Cephas", or "I am of Christ".
Galatians 1:18
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Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days...
Jesus’ church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets. However, Jesus never said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and that is why I belong to the C.C. as opposed to the E.O.C., which also can trace their lineage all the way back to the apostles and prophets; not that that has happened with the EOC. Jesus said to Simon Peter and Simon Peter alone that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church built on Simon’s new nickname Kephas, which means: immovable Rock. And of course Jesus is the Godly (I Am) - Rock, guiding His earthly church until the end of time.
Peter knew that he would one day die, and in what way, so he passed the baton to a successor, to do as he did, knowing that the gates would never prevail against Jesus’ established church built on “this” immovable rock, (regardless of the weeds growing within the wheat) - until the end of time. That is why succession from this first century immovable rock to the present day immovable rock, is so important, regardless of the few bad rocks in this successive lineage. It seems like everyone would want to belong to the church built by Jesus on this immovable Rock to which the gates of hell could not prevail, thanks to Jesus’ protection/guardianship.
Every Church suffers occasionally because of the weaknesses of human nature. But I believe that regardless of these temporary weaknesses of human nature that take place in Jesus’ Church, abandoning His Church is not an option. Jesus was more forgiving and understanding of human nature. When Jesus was arrested, His chosen Apostles were guilty of such weaknesses. Judas had betrayed Him, Peter denied him three times, and the remaining apostles ran away, even after all the miracles they witnessed. If Jesus supported and anointed their apostolic role even after some of their human failings/shortcomings, shouldn’t we all, regardless of the century that this human weakness/shortcoming takes place, as long as the deposit of faith stays unchanged! After all, our faith is in the Church established by Jesus, not in any one person involved in the Church. Of course problems in the Church must be addressed and corrected, but the faith and Church established by Jesus should never be denied or abandoned.