The Christian Church is a term used by some to refer to the whole group of people belonging to the Christian religious tradition throughout history. In this understanding, which is generally used by Protestants, "Christian Church" does not refer to a particular Christian denomination,
but to the body of all believers. Others believe the term "Christian
Church" or "Church" applies only to a specific historic Christian
institution (e.g., the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Oriental Orthodoxy).
Thus, some Christians (particularly Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and
Oriental Orthodox churches) identify the Christian Church to be a visible structure, while others (generally Protestants) understand the Church to be an invisible reality,
not identified with any earthly structure or individual denomination.
Others equate the Church with particular groups that share certain
essential elements of doctrine and practice, though divided on other
points of doctrine and government (such as the branch theory as taught by some Anglicans).
Most English translations of the New Testament generally use the word "church" as a translation of the Ancient Greek term "ἐκκλησία" (transliterated as "ecclesia") found in the original Greek texts, which generally meant an "assembly".[1] This term appears in two verses of the Gospel of Matthew, twenty-four verses of the Acts of the Apostles, fifty-eight verses of the Pauline Epistles (including the earliest instances of its use in relation to a Christian body), two verses of the Letter to the Hebrews, one verse of the Epistle of James, three verses of the Third Epistle of John, and nineteen verses of the Book of Revelation.
In total, ἐκκλησία appears in the New Testament text 114 times,
although not every instance is a technical reference to the church.[2]
In the New Testament, the term ἐκκλησία is used for local communities as well as in a universal sense to mean all believers.[3] Traditionally, only orthodox
believers are considered part of the true church, but convictions of
what is orthodox have long varied, as many churches (not only the ones
officially using the term "Orthodox" in their names) consider themselves
to be orthodox and other Christians to be heterodox.
The Four Marks of the Church first expressed in the Nicene Creed are unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.[4]
Etymology
The Last Supper, by Jacopo Bassano
The Greek word ekklēsia,
literally "called out" or "called forth" and commonly used to indicate a
group of individuals called to gather for some function, in particular
an assembly of the citizens of a city, as in Acts 19:32-41, is the New Testament term referring to the Christian Church (either a particular local group or the whole body of the faithful). Most Romance and Celtic languages use derivations of this word, either inherited or borrowed from the Latin form ecclesia.
The English language word "church" is from the Old English word cirice, derived from West Germanic *kirika, which in turn comes from the Greek κυριακή kuriakē, meaning "of the Lord" (possessive form of κύριος kurios "ruler" or "lord"). Kuriakē in the sense of "church" is most likely a shortening of κυριακὴ οἰκία kuriakē oikia ("house of the Lord") or ἐκκλησία κυριακή ekklēsia kuriakē ("congregation of the Lord").[5] Christian churches were sometimes called κυριακόν kuriakon (adjective meaning "of the Lord") in Greek starting in the 4th century, but ekklēsia and βασιλική basilikē were more common.[6]
The word is one of many direct Greek-to-Germanic loans of Christian terminology, via the Goths. The Slavic terms for "church" (Old Church Slavonic црькꙑ [crĭky], Russian церковь [cerkov’], Slovenian cerkev) are via the Old High German cognate chirihha.[citation needed]
Use by early Christians
An icon depicting Constantine I, accompanied by the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325), holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.
In using the word ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia, "church"), early Christians
were employing a term that, while it designated the assembly of a Greek
city-state, in which only citizens could participate, was traditionally
used by Greek-speaking Jews to speak of Israel, the people of God,[7] and that appeared in the Septuagint in the sense of an assembly gathered for religious reasons, often for a liturgy; in that translation ἐκκλησία stood for the Hebrew word קהל (qahal), which however it also rendered as συναγωγή (synagōgē, "synagogue"), the two Greek words being largely synonymous until Christians distinguished them more clearly.[8]
The term ἐκκλησία appears in only two verses of the Gospels, in both cases in the Gospel of Matthew.[7] When Jesus says to Simon Peter, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church",[9]
the church is the community instituted by Christ, but in the other
passage the church is the local community to which one belongs: "If he
refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church."[10]
The term is used much more frequently in other parts of the New
Testament, designating, as in the Gospel of Matthew, either an
individual local community or all of them collectively. Even passages
that do not use the term ἐκκλησία may refer to the church with other
expressions, as in the first 14 chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, in which ἐκκλησία is totally absent but which repeatedly uses the cognate word κλήτοι (klētoi, "called").[11] The church may be referred to also through images traditionally employed in the Bible to speak of the people of God, such as the image of the vineyard used particularly in the Gospel of John.[8]
The New Testament never uses the adjectives "catholic" or "universal"
with reference to the church, but does indicate that the local
communities are one church, that Christians must always seek to be in
concord, that the Gospel must extend to the ends of the earth and to all
nations, that the church is open to all peoples and must not be
divided, etc.[7]
The first recorded application of "catholic" or "universal" to the church is by Ignatius of Antioch
in about 107 in his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, chapter VIII. "Wherever
the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ
is, there is the Catholic Church." [12]
Church Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Cyprian held to the view that the Christian Church was a visible entity, not an invisible body of believers.
History
Main article: History of Christianity
The Sermon on the Mount, by Carl Heinrich Bloch. The New Testament depicts Jesus as regularly preaching to his disciples and large crowds.
The early church originated in Roman Judea in the first century AD, founded on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth who is believed by Christians to be the Son of God and Christ the Messiah. It is usually thought of as beginning with Jesus' Apostles. According to scripture Jesus commanded them to spread his teachings to all the world.
Springing out of Second Temple Judaism, from Christianity's earliest days, Christians accepted non-Jews (Gentiles) without requiring them to fully adopt Jewish customs (such as circumcision).[Acts 10-15][13] The parallels in the Jewish faith are the Proselytes, Godfearers, and Noahide Law, see also Biblical law in Christianity. Some think that conflict with Jewish religious authorities quickly led to the expulsion of the Christians from the synagogues in Jerusalem[14] (see also Council of Jamnia and List of events in early Christianity).
The Church gradually spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, gaining major establishments in cities such as Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa.[15][16][17] It also became a widely persecuted religion. It was condemned by the Jewish authorities as a heresy (see also Rejection of Jesus). The Roman authorities persecuted it because, like Judaism, its monotheistic teachings were fundamentally foreign to the polytheistic traditions of the ancient world and a challenge to the imperial cult.[18] The Church grew rapidly until finally legalized and then promoted by Emperors Constantine and Theodosius I in the 4th century as the state church of the Roman Empire.
Already in the 2nd century, Christians denounced teachings that they saw as heresies, especially Gnosticism but also Montanism. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of that century and Irenaeus at the end saw union with the bishops as the test of correct Christian faith. After legalization of the Church in the 4th century, the debate between Arianism and Trinitarianism, with the emperors favouring now one side now the other, was a major controversy.[19][20]
Christianity as Roman state religion (380 AD)
On February 27, 380, the Roman Empire officially adopted the Trinitarian version of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire. Prior to this date, Constantius II (337-361) and Valens (364-378) had personally favored Arian or Semi-Arian forms of Christianity, but Valens' successor Theodosius I supported the Trinitarian doctrine as expounded in the Nicene Creed from the 1st Council of Nicea.
On this date, Theodosius I decreed that only the followers of Trinitarian Christianity were entitled to be referred to as Catholic Christians, while all others were to be considered to be heretics, which was considered illegal.[21] In 385, this new legal situation resulted, in the first case of many to come, in the capital punishment of a heretic, namely Priscillian, condemned to death, with several of his followers, by a civil tribunal for the crime of magic.[22] In the centuries of state-sponsored Christianity that followed, pagans
and "heretical" Christians were routinely persecuted by the Empire and
the many kingdoms and countries that later occupied the place of the
Empire,[23] but some Germanic tribes remained Arian well into the Middle Ages[24] (see also Christendom).
The Church within the Roman Empire was organized under metropolitan sees, with five rising to particular prominence and forming the basis for the Pentarchy proposed by Justinian I. Of these five, one was in the West (Rome) and the rest in the East (Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria).[25]
Even after the split of the Roman Empire the Church remained a relatively united institution (apart from Oriental Orthodoxy
and some other groups which separated from the rest of the Church
earlier). The Church came to be a central and defining institution of
the Empire, especially in the East or Byzantine Empire,
where Constantinople came to be seen as the center of the Christian
world, owing in great part to its economic and political power.[26][27]
Once the Western Empire fell to Germanic incursions in the 5th century, the (Roman) Church became for centuries the primary link to Roman civilization for medieval Western Europe[28] and an important channel of influence in the West for the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, emperors. While, in the West, the so-called orthodox
Church competed against the Arian Christian and pagan faiths of the
Germanic rulers and spread outside what had been the Empire to Ireland,
Germany, Scandinavia, and the western Slavs, in the East Christianity spread to the Slavs in what is now Russia, south-central and eastern Europe.[29] The reign of Charlemagne
in Western Europe is particularly noted for bringing the last major
Western Arian tribes into communion with Rome, in part through conquest
and forced conversion.
Starting in the 7th century the Islamic Caliphates rose and gradually began to conquer larger and larger areas of the Christian world.[29] Excepting North Africa and most of Spain,
northern and western Europe escaped largely unscathed by Islamic
expansion, in great part because richer Constantinople and its empire
acted as a magnet for the onslaught.[30]
The challenge presented by the Muslims would help to solidify the
religious identity of eastern Christians even as it gradually weakened
the Eastern Empire.[31] Even in the Muslim World, the Church survived (e.g., the modern Copts, Maronites, and others) albeit at times with great difficulty.[32][33]
Great Schism of 1054
Although there had long been frictions between the Bishop of Rome (e.g. the patriarch of the Catholic Church proper) and the eastern patriarchs within the Byzantine Empire, Rome's changing allegiance from Constantinople to the Frankish king Charlemagne set the Church on a course towards separation. The political and theological divisions would grow until Rome and the East excommunicated each other in the 11th century, ultimately leading to the division of the Church into the Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Eastern Orthodox) Churches.[29] In 1448, not long before the Byzantine Empire collapsed, the Russian Church gained independence from the Patriarch of Constantinople.[34]
As a result of the redevelopment of Western Europe, and the gradual fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Arabs and Turks (helped by warfare against Eastern Christians), the final Fall of Constantinople
in 1453 resulted in Eastern scholars fleeing the Moslem hordes bringing
ancient manuscripts to the West, which was a factor in the beginning of
the period of the Western Renaissance there. Rome was seen by the Western Church as Christianity's heartland.[35] Some Eastern churches even broke with Eastern Orthodoxy and entered into communion with Rome (the "Uniate" Eastern Catholic Churches).
Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
The changes brought on by the Renaissance eventually led to the Protestant Reformation
during which the Protestant Lutheran and the Reformed followers of
Calvin, Hus, Zwingli, Melancthon, Knox, and others split from the
Catholic Church. At this time, a series of non-theological disputes also
led to the English Reformation which led to the independence of the Church of England. Then, during the Age of Exploration and the Age of Imperialism, Western Europe spread the Catholic Church and the Protestant and Reformed churches around the world, especially in the Americas.[36][37] These developments in turn have led to Christianity being the largest religion in the world today.[38]
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