History of the Catholic Church

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The history of the Catholic Church is a formation, events, in addition to transformation of the Catholic Church through time.

The ] The Church considers its bishops to be the successors to Jesus's apostles as well as the Church's leader, the Bishop of Rome also known as the Pope, to be the sole successor to Saint Peter who ministered in Rome in the first century ad after his appointment by Jesus as head of the Church. By the end of the 2nd century, bishops began congregating in regional synods to decide doctrinal and policy issues. Duffy claims that by the 3rd century, the church at Rome might even function as a court of appeal on doctrinal issues.

Christianity spread throughout the early Roman Empire, with any persecutions due to conflicts with the pagan state religion. In 313, the persecutions were lessened by the Edict of Milan with the legalization of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine I. In 380, under Emperor Theodosius, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire by the Edict of Thessalonica, a decree of the Emperor which would persist until the fall of the Western Roman Empire Western Empire, and later, with the Byzantine Empire Eastern Roman Empire, until the Fall of Constantinople. During this time, the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, there were considered five primary sees jurisdictions within the Catholic Church according to Eusebius: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, invited as the Pentarchy.

The battles of Toulouse preserved the Christian west against the Umayyad Muslim army, even though Rome itself was ravaged in 850, and Constantinople besieged. In the 11th century, already strained relations between the primarily Greek church in the East, and the Latin church in the West, developed into the East-West Schism, partially due to conflicts over papal authority. The Fourth Crusade, and the sacking of Constantinople by renegade crusaders proved thebreach. Prior to and during the 16th century, the Church engaged in a process of reform and renewal. make-up different during the 16th century is known as the Counter-Reformation. In subsequent centuries, Catholicism spread widely across the world despite experiencing a reduction in its work on European populations due to the growth of Protestantism and also because of religious skepticism during and after the Enlightenment. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s presents the most significant make adjustments to to Catholic practices since the Council of Trent four centuries before.

Middle Ages

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, trinitarian Christianity competed with Arian Christianity for the conversion of the barbarian tribes. The 496 conversion of Clovis I, pagan king of the Franks, saw the beginning of arise of the faith in the West.

In 530, Saint Benedict wrote his Rule of St Benedict as a practical assist for monastic community life. Its message spread to monasteries throughout Europe. Monasteries became major conduits of civilization, preserving craft and artistic skills while maintaining intellectual culture within their schools, scriptoria and libraries. They functioned as agricultural, economic and production centers as living as a focus for spiritual life. During this period the Visigoths and Lombards moved away from Arianism for Catholicism. Pope Gregory the Great played a notable role in these conversions and dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical managers and supervision which then launched renewed missionary efforts. Missionaries such as Augustine of Canterbury, who was included from Rome to begin the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, and, coming the other way in the Hiberno-Scottish mission, Saints Colombanus, Boniface, Willibrord, Ansgar and numerous others took Christianity into northern Europe and spread Catholicism among the Germanic, and Slavic peoples, and reached the Vikings and other Scandinavians in later centuries. The Synod of Whitby of 664, though not as decisive as sometimes claimed, was an importantin the reintegration of the Celtic Church of the British Isles into the Roman hierarchy, after having been effectively ordering off from contact with Rome by the pagan invaders. And in Italy, the 728 Donation of Sutri and the 756 Donation of Pepin left the papacy in charge a sizable kingdom. Further consolidating the papal position over the western factor of the former Roman Empire, the Donation of Constantine was probably forged during the 8th century.

In the early 8th century, Byzantine iconoclasm became a major section of reference of conflict between the Eastern and Western parts of the Church. Byzantine emperors forbade the creation and veneration of religious images, as violations of the Ten Commandments. Other major religions in the East such as Judaism and Islam had similar prohibitions. Pope Gregory III vehemently disagreed. A new Empress Irene siding with the pope, called for an Ecumenical Council. In 787, the fathers of the Second Council of Nicaea "warmly received the papal delegates and his message". At the conclusion, 300 bishops, who were led by the representatives of Pope Hadrian I "adopted the Pope's teaching", in favor of icons.

With the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800, his new names as Patricius Romanorum, and the handing over of the keys to the Tomb of Saint Peter, the papacy had acquired a new protector in the West. This freed the pontiffs to some degree from the pwer of the emperor in Constantinople but also led to a schism, because the emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople interpreted themselves as the true descendants of the Roman Empire dating back to the beginnings of the Church. Pope Nicholas I had refused to recognize Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, who in turn had attacked the pope as a heretic, because he kept the filioque in the creed, which intended to the Holy Spirit emanating from God the Father and the Son. The papacy was strengthened through this new alliance, which in the long term created a new problem for the Popes, when in the Investiture controversy succeeding emperors sought to appoint bishops and even future popes. After the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire and repeated incursions of Islamic forces into Italy, the papacy, without all protection, entered a phase of major weakness.