Orthodoxy claims no founder and no founding date. How the Christian world came to be divided between East and West, and why 1054 misleads.
Category: Church History
Discover the rich history of Christianity, from the early church fathers to the Reformation and modern era. Learn how historical events and figures have shaped the faith we practice today.
Where Did the Catholic Church Come From?
The church began as local congregations with no legal standing. This traces how it became the religion of the empire and then claimed authority over every ruler in Christendom.
What Are the Seven Deadly Sins?
The list is not in Scripture. It runs from Evagrius in the Egyptian desert through John Cassian to Gregory the Great, who reduced eight vices to seven.
Why Easter Moves: The Computus Controversy and the Synod of Whitby
Easter moves because a Nicene rule ties it to the moon, and rival tables for predicting that moon divided the church until Whitby in 664.
The Renaissance Made the Reformation Inevitable
The Reformation is often narrated as a sudden theological rupture, as though Martin Luther's protest in 1517 sprang from doctrine alone. The narrower truth is more interesting and more instructive. By the time Luther posted his theses, the intellectual and technological preconditions for a movement of that scale and durability were already in place, and...
Who Gets to Select? The Problem of Selective Patristic Citation
Selective citation of the Church Fathers borrows the prestige of antiquity without accepting the accountability that antiquity demands.
The Discipline of Studying Church History Honestly
Most people study church history to prove what they already believe. That approach guarantees self-deception. The real goal of studying church history is to discover when doctrines and practices actually appear in the historical record -- and to be honest about what you find.
The Black Death and the Fracturing of Feudal Authority
The mortality that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1351 is remembered first as a demographic catastrophe, and rightly so. Within four years the pestilence that later generations named the Black Death killed somewhere between a third and a half of the continent's population.1 Yet to read the plague only as a body count is...