For many people, church history is a sort of fuzzy subject.
Jesus founded the church, there were crusades, people built huge cathedrals, Protestants
broke away and started their own churches, and then the Mass was changed into English.
More or less, right?
Over the course of 2,000 years, there have been popes, councils, saints, and sinners
that have greatly influenced the life of the Church.
We've dealt with heresies and wars, growth and decline, innovations and adaptations.
To have a grasp of it all is beyond even the most learned of scholars.
But that doesn't mean that we can't understand the basics.
Even if we can't name every pope or explain every event, every Catholic should have a
general understanding of how the Church has progressed from period to period.
So what are the major epics of the Church, and why is it important to study today?
This is Catholicism in Focus.
INTRO
A few notes before we begin.
First, 15 minutes is nowhere close to enough time to cover even the basics.
There will be important things left out.
I apologize.
Second, history is not an exact science.
In choosing what to include and exclude, weaving together events into coherent narratives,
there is an implicit bias on the part of the historian.
What I'm sharing is not the dogmatic telling of Church history, because such a task is
impossible.
Meaning, finally, I hope you will take this as your first resource, not your last.
It's a basic introduction, not a definitive conclusion.
Okay.
Start the clock.
We begin our study with the Early Church, a time often referred to as the Patristic
period after the Fathers of the Church.
It's a time of growth and fervent faith, but also of bloodshed and turmoil.
While the Church eventually reached all corners of the earth, it began as a small sect within
Judaism.
The early Christians were Jewish in culture and did not see themselves as a part of a
new religion.
They continued temple worship and kept Jewish law.
As people like St. Paul began evangelizing non-Jews, though, this raised a controversial
question.
How are converts to be received?
Some argued that they must be circumcised and follow Jewish purity laws, while others
claimed that Jesus abolished the need for such works.
Thus, the first major decision in the Church.
In the year 48, leaders met for a council in Jerusalem, where a compromise was struck.
New converts need not be circumcised, but they were not to eat meat sacrificed to idols,
could not consume blood, and must refrain from illicit sexual intercourse, arguably
the most important core of the Jewish law.
Some rigorous continued to protest these concessions, but there was no going back.
Paul's missionary efforts, now made easier, flourished across the Mediterranean, transforming
Christianity into a largely Gentile religion.
There was a sense of urgency in the early years that Jesus would be returning immediately,
and so missionary work took priority over forming the domestic Church.
As the decades passed, however, it became clear that structures were necessary to organize
the Church.
This includes three developments.
1.
The clergy, the institution of bishops, presbyters, and deacons to serve as permanent leaders
of worship and service.
2.
The New Testament, developing an authoritative list of apostolic writings for use in catechesis
and worship.
3.
And finally, the Creed, the codification of core beliefs for teaching and correcting
the faith.
Unfortunately, the Church at this time was seen as a major threat to the Roman Empire,
resulting in various forms of persecution.
Figures like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus wrote defenses of the faith, converting some, but
also fanning the flames at times.
Christians made it clear that they were never going to worship the Roman gods.
The worst of this was under the Emperor Diocletian, who tried to destroy all places of worship,
forced Christians to turn over religious books, and denied their right to assembly.
Because of this, Christians spent the first few centuries celebrating their two core
rituals, baptism and Eucharist, at the direct hand of the bishop, largely within house churches,
often in secret, and remained small relative to the wider world.
This all changed quite rapidly in the 4th century with the rise of Constantine to power,
ushering in our second period, one that I'll refer to as the institutionalization of the
Church.
In 313, after winning a battle that he attributed to the Christian god, Constantine issued the
Edict of Milan, officially legalizing the Christian faith.
A decade later, in 325, he made it the official religion of the Empire.
This very well may be the most significant event in Church history, irreparably changing
the place of the Church in the world.
For starters, it immediately saw the influx of new converts.
Some no longer afraid of persecution, others looking for political advancement, meaning
that the way of worship had to change significantly.
House churches were replaced first by large Roman halls, but these too served to be inadequate
in size.
Before long, the bishop was unable to serve all of his people at one time, and so presbyters
were deputized to celebrate the sacraments in the bishop's name in satellite places
of worship named parishes.
Figures like John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuesta, Ambrose of Milan, and Cyril of
Jerusalem emerged as central catechetical leaders, forming programs and rituals to initiate
converts on a large scale.
Of course, the legalization of the religion presented an uncomfortable problem of what
to do with those who renounced the faith out of fear of persecution just a decade earlier.
Could they be readmitted?
Did they need to be rebaptized?
Were the sacraments of traitors even valid?
In short, thanks to St. Augustine, yes, no, and yes.
This controversy, known as Donatism, was only one of many that the Church faced as the religion
grew, requiring the declaration of creeds and pronouncements of dogmas.
Ecumenical councils in Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon were held to define
the nature of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the relationship with the Father, and general
order of the Church, ultimately defining and combating heresies like Docetism, Montanism,
Adoptionism, Sabellianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, and Gnosticism.
The institutionalization of the Church in this time made it easy for the religion to
increase its footprint across the ancient world, allowing for five major hubs of authority
to develop—Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople.
For a few centuries, the leaders of each represented diversity in ritual and spirituality, but
maintained communion with one another.
Unfortunately, as the political world in the region began to change, so too did the
relationship between these five metropolitans, ushering in a third period of Church history,
that of a kingdom in isolation.
Over the course of the 5th and 6th centuries, the secular power of the Roman Empire weakened,
fell, and moved to Constantinople in the east, leaving a political vacuum in the west.
The Church, now prominent and established on the world stage, filled that role.
Popes like Leo the Great and Gregory the Great began to assert the papacy into worldly matters.
Leo famously had a standoff with Attila the Hun, saving the city of Rome from attack,
and Gregory, a master administrator and fundraiser, almost single-handedly cared for the poor
and maintained the public works of Rome in the absence of a working government.
It didn't take long for popes to be seen as holding an office akin to emperors and
kings, wielding temporal authority over its land.
They negotiated with foreign rulers, commanded armies, and influenced governments.
The Church in the east did not experience the same development.
As society crumbled in the west, it thrived in the east, allowing for trade and communication
between the remaining four metropolitans to continue, fostering communal authority rather
than an absolute monarchy.
It is here that we see the seeds of division begin to grow.
While many will look to 1054 as the moment of schism between the two churches, tensions
had existed for centuries prior.
As the two became more and more isolated from one another, diverging language, theology,
liturgy, culture, and governance began to develop.
But little communication that remained was fraught with confusion, at times falling
apart over mere mistranslations.
The Church in the west, seeing itself as the first among these great cities, tried to assert
itself into the spiritual matters of the east, claiming authority over all of Christendom.
By the year 800, it began to assert temporal authority as well, when Pope Leo III crowned
Charlemagne as the emperor of the newly formed Holy Roman Empire.
Isolated from one another, it eventually reached a point that the only communication between
the two seemed to be miscommunications and excommunications.
Unsurprisingly, as the Church grew in worldly power, so too did the clericalism and abuse
within it.
Greater emphasis was placed on clerical state, making clearer distinctions between clergy
and lay in the liturgy.
Monasteries grew as powerful empires within the empire, amassing wealth and land.
And given how much power bishops and priests held in the world, controversies arose as
to how bishops were chosen and where priests were assigned.
Unlike today, there were no seminaries at this time, and the Church didn't always
have control over who was elected the bishop.
Symony flourished in this time, allowing local secular leaders to appoint worldly and untrained
men to church positions, treating holy orders as mere political positions.
Add this to the fact that culture itself had declined since the fall of Rome, limiting
trade, travel, education, communication, and cultural advancement, and what you get is
the beginning of the so-called Dark Ages.
Like any period of history, though, this would not last.
By the middle of the 11th century, the Church and world entered a new period, one of rebirth.
In 1059, Pope Nicholas II set about reforming how the Church was governed, decreeing that
only cardinals elected the pope, excluding emperors and nobles.
The Church was to be led by the Church alone, not secular authorities.
In 1075, Pope Gregory VII made yet another important leap, issuing the decree Dictatus
Pape, regaining spiritual authority over all bishops.
They were not temporal princes, but spiritual shepherds, and as such were to be appointed
by and serve the pope, not the local monarch.
By the beginning of the 12th century, it was finally the assertion and common practice
of the Church that the clergy, not secular rulers, appointed and invested bishops with
spiritual authority.
As easy it is to blame the Church for what some of its bishops and priests did in the
early Middle Ages, the reality is that many of them weren't, in fact, actually chosen
by or working for the Church directly.
They were controlled by secular authorities.
And what a difference it makes when the bishop isn't under the thumb of a king that might
be motivated by entirely worldly things.
In the succeeding centuries, the Church blossomed on many fronts.
Universities were founded in Paris, Bologna, Salerno, Oxford, Cambridge, Salamanca, Padua,
and Naples, drastically improving the theological and pastoral quality of the clergy, but also
developing the riches of the Church's thought.
Coinciding with the rediscovery of Aristotle, men like Anselm, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas,
and Bonaventure helped the Church, for the first time, develop a systematic approach
to things like the Trinity, creation, incarnation, and most important of all, the sacraments.
It was also a time of immense spiritual reform, led primarily by the mendicant orders, Franciscans
and Dominicans.
Moving out of the monastery, these popular creatures lived simply, in stark contrast
to the clergy of the day, setting up missions all around Europe, caring for the poor, and
revitalizing the faith, both popularly and doctrinally.
While historically complicated, to say the least, the Crusades represent a major step
in the Church's rebirth as well, rousing a sense of mission outside of oneself, collaborating
with Christians in the East, and recapturing what was lost.
And of course, how can we forget the Renaissance itself?
The building of cathedrals, production of major paintings, advances in music, growth
of cities, and early development of the sciences.
All of this was commissioned by the Church out of a sense of wonder for God and the world.
For many, this was one of the most hopeful periods in Church history.
Unfortunately, not everything was reformed in this period.
The papacy was divided at times, warring over lands and authority.
The secular clergy remained largely uneducated.
The Black Death wiped out many of those willing to care for the poor, and those becoming unhappy
with abuses of the Church were growing in number.
By the 15th and 16th centuries, we see a Church, on the one hand, intellectually and culturally
seeking higher than it ever had before, while on the other hand, fraught with scandal and
poor catechesis at the lowest levels.
Indulgences were sold, heresies preached, abuses plagued the liturgy, and revelry and
superstition pervaded the culture.
Thus, in 1517, the Church was made to reckon for its continued issues and for the next
500 years found itself in a period defined by siege from the outside world.
Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, ushered in the Reformation with his 95 Theses, a list
of accusations against the Church.
Distracted by the reforms taking place among the Franciscans and unable to immediately
satisfy Luther's complaints, a movement soon developed and divisions increased.
Other reformers like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli appeared with their own complaints,
and soon enough, the Church was left scrambling to keep everything together.
One of the issues that allowed these reforms to flourish was the fact that the Catholic
Church had never officially codified its doctrines or practices.
Prior to this, the Church was led largely by convention, that we'd always done something
a certain way, or ad hoc decrees, specific responses to specific problems.
By now it was clear that a complete declaration of faith was necessary.
And so, in 1569, the Church met for the Council of Trent to unify and codify every aspect
of the Church.
Definitions were given to theological concepts, rules were set for common practices, and reforms
implemented.
It was here that a new liturgy was defined, replacing all other liturgies less than 200
years old, to bring absolute uniformity to the Church throughout the world.
Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, and what the Church experienced for
the next few centuries was a hostile outside world.
It was a time of great war and constant strife, first against Protestants, but eventually
against a world growing ever more secular that sought to remove religion from the public
sphere.
The Scientific Revolution, liberal philosophy, unrestricted capitalism, and democracy sought
to upend the world previously defined by the Church's authority.
More than in any other time since the early days of persecution, the outside world was
treated as dangerous and disordered, the Church the only refuge of truth and goodness, a perfect
society lacking nothing the world could provide.
A quintessential document that captures the vibe of this period is the Syllabus of Errors,
a literal list of everything wrong with the world.
Somewhat paradoxically, it was also the period of greatest missionary fervor in the Church's
history.
Motivated by a worldview that saw everything and everyone outside of the Church as damned,
missionary orders like the Franciscans, Dominicans, and the newly formed Jesuits traveled to Asia,
Africa, and the Americas, desperate to save as many people as possible.
For some today, this represents the height of Catholicism.
Meticulously ordered liturgies, clear and certain doctrinal statements, urgency and
mission, and large beautiful fortresses to keep unwanted dangers out.
There is no doubt that it was a time in history with the clearest boundaries both in mission
and identity.
Of course, even the best of times has its issues, and this time period is no exception.
At times, uniformity led to rigidity, even idolatry to human laws.
Certainty inhibited exploration and adaptation.
Society fostered impatience and overlooked true conversion.
And keeping everything out meant missing out on some truly good things about the world.
By the end of the 19th century, the Church had begun to look deeply at itself and question
its identity and mission in the world.
So begins the modern period.
For many, it's a period of updating, of adapting to the changes of the world.
For others, it's a period of openness and dialogue, not only with outsiders, but with
our own history.
Still more call it a time of reform, while others see nothing but the undoing of all
that is good and holy.
It's really hard to agree on anything these days, isn't it?
The fact that it's less than a hundred years old and we're still living in it, I think
the jury is still out on how this time will be remembered in history, but it's clear
that it is a time of immense change, both inside and outside of the Church.
The world of the mid-20th century looked nothing like the world of the Middle Ages.
Early efforts at humanism brought a semblance of peace between Protestants and Catholics.
Technology revolutionized travel, communication, and daily life.
The Church was no longer under attack from foreign nations or cultural revolutions, and
the world was looking, with hope, towards a more unified existence.
From the Church's perspective, research and scholarship had grown leaps and bounds.
In just the late 19th and early 20th centuries alone, significant early manuscripts had been
rediscovered.
The historical study of scripture had begun to flourish, and translations of the patristic
writers were becoming widespread.
As a result, the fields of liturgy, scripture, patristics, and ecumenism all experienced
renewed fervor from academics and the faithful alike.
The tradition, it seemed, was far more expansive and complicated than our simple formulas and
uniform liturgies had led us to believe.
An update was needed.
Enter the Second Vatican Council.
From 1962 to 1965, the Church issued constitutions calling for the complete reform of the liturgy,
redefining the nature of the Church, explaining the role and process of studying sacred scripture,
and updating the mission of the Church to the world.
No longer a fortress defending itself against the world, the Church was to be a sacrament
of salvation to it.
More than anything else, it seems, this was to be accomplished by the laity.
In almost every document, explicit focus is given, for the first time, to including, preparing,
and commissioning the non-ordained to the life of the Church.
Things like the universal call to holiness, the use of the vernacular in lay ministers
and liturgy, room for cultural adaptations to liturgy and law, the importance of scripture,
and responsibilities exclusive to lay people underpinned the spirit of the Council.
And boy did it create a major shift in culture.
On the one hand, the Church in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America flourished like never
before.
Local communities, now with more freedom to develop individually, have exploded with creativity.
What was lost in uniformity was more than made up for in depth and enculturation.
On the other hand, disunity and abuse have flourished as well.
Without the strict guidelines of before, some have gone far beyond the intentions of the
Council, undermining tradition and teaching error.
A race to the extremes has left the Church struggling to maintain unity since the Council,
leaving some to feel as if we're on the brink of another schism.
Now, this, one could argue, is more reflective of the state of dialogue in the world today
than anything the Church has done, but the problem does still exist.
While some would like to think that the Second Vatican Council appeared overnight and artificially
forced reforms on the Church, the reality is that the Council, while sweeping in its
changes, was the result of many decades of reform that was already taking place in universities
and in local church communities.
Like it or not, Vatican II itself was grounded in tradition, backed by decades of earlier
reforms, and absolutely what the Church needed.
What will its legacy ultimately be?
Time will have to tell.
But if there is one thing we can be sure of from our study of history, it is that it won't
end here.
Further reforms will be necessary in the future.
As much as the Church is founded by Christ on the unchanging truth of His resurrection,
it is an institution that is constantly changing how it expresses that truth.
Over two thousand years, our liturgy, prayer, law, formulations of doctrine, structures
of governance, and relationship with the outside world have remained in process.
This is not to say that it changes fundamentally or completely, but that it is never stagnant.
As a Church guided by the Holy Spirit, we are a living institution.
Our mission never changes, but the world around us and the people that inhabit it always do.
The reason we study history is not so that we can conform to how things were done in
the past, as if there is a singular way to be Church in any context.
It is to remember that each generation has had to determine how to live and share the
tradition in its own present time.
What was effective at expressing the truth and fostering holiness in one period may not
be the same for us.
We learn from the past, but we never forget that the Holy Spirit is with us in the present.