** What proof do you have that all these churches recognized that they were part of one church? **
The fathers testify that there was only one, universal church over the whole world. This happened within a couple decades of the writing of these letters. There is one Christ, One Baptism, One Faith, One Church.
Old Scholar;3263670 said:
** If they were, why was it necessary for God to have to have messages sent to
them all individually? Wouldn’t one have sufficed?**
They were in different cities. Yes, one suffices, they were all included in the book of Revelation together.
** You know the ECF taught that the bishop was head of the church and the next one to Christ. They did not teach that another bishop was over all the churches. That fabrication came much later.**
You have a secularized and power based concept of leadership. Jesus concept was that of service, not “rulership”. The sucessor of Peter has always been, as he was, the servant of the servants of God. Christ has always been, and always will be, the Head of the Church. Unity is found in adherance to right doctrine, embraced by all the bishops.
** Revelation should prove that there were multiple churches, instead you attempt to refute it with no proof.**
All these communities were part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Ignatius writes to the Ephesians on his way to martyrdom in Rome.
Chapter 3. Exhortations to unity.
I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person. For though I am bound for the name [of Christ], I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as fellow-disciples with me. For it was needful for me to have been stirred up by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that you would all run together in accordance with the will of God. For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the [manifested] will of the Father;** as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds [of the earth], are so by the will of Jesus Christ.**
Chapter 4. The same continued.
Wherefore it is fitting that you should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also you do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And do ye, man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and
taking up the song of God in unison, you may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that you are indeed the members of His Son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus you may always enjoy communion with God.
Chapter 5. The praise of unity.
For if I in this brief space of time, have enjoyed such fellowship with your bishop —I mean not of a mere human, but of a spiritual nature—how much more do I reckon you
happy who are so joined to him as the Church is to Jesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ is to the Father, that so all things may agree in unity! Let no man deceive himself: if any one be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two possesses Matthew 18:19 such power,
how much more that of the bishop and the whole Church! He, therefore, that does not assemble with the Church, has even by this manifested his pride, and condemned himself. For it is written, “God resists the proud.” Let us be careful, then, not to set ourselves in opposition to the bishop, in order that we may be subject to God.
The bishops were not isolated from one another, but all in unity together, over the whole world. One.