The Church

The most distinctive characteristic of Roman Catholicism has always been its theology of the church (its ecclesiology). The church's role in mediating salvation has been emphasized more than in other Christian traditions. Supernatural life is mediated to Christians through the sacraments administered by the hierarchy to whom obedience is due. The church is monarchical as well as hierarchical since Christ conferred the primacy on Peter, whose successors are the popes. Pre - Vatican II theology taught that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of Christ, since it alone has a permanent hierarchy (which is apostolic) and primacy (which is Petrine) to ensure the permanence of the church as Christ instituted it. All other churches are false churches insofar as they lack one of the four properties possessed by the Roman Catholic Church: unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

The most important document of Vatican II, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, transformed rather than revolutionized the church's ecclesiology. The traditional emphasis on the church as means of salvation was supplanted by an understanding of the church as a mystery or sacrament, "a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God" (Paul VI). The conception of the church as a hierarchical institution was replaced by a view of the church as the whole people of God. To the traditional understanding of the church's mission as involving (1) the proclamation of the gospel and (2) the celebration of the sacraments, the council added (3) witnessing to the gospel and (4) service to all in need. The Tridentine emphasis on the church universal was supplemented by an understanding of the fullness of the church in each local congregation.

In the Decree on Ecumenism the council recognized that both sides were at fault in the rupture of the church at the Reformation, and it sought the restoration of Christian unity rather than a return of non - Catholics to "the true Church." For the church is greater than the Roman Catholic Church: other churches are valid Christian communities since they share the same Scriptures, life of grace, faith, hope, charity, gifts of the Spirit, and baptism.

Further, the traditional identification of the kingdom of God with the church, into which everyone must therefore be brought or salvation will elude them, is replaced by an understanding of the church as the sign and instrument by which God calls and moves the world toward his kingdom.

Great Ecumenical Councils

Nicea (325)—Prompted by Constantine; 318 bishops present; denounced Arius and affirmed the full deity of Jesus Christ.

Constantinople (381)—Attended by 150 bishops; affirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesus (431)—More than 200 bishops attended; presided over by Cyril of Alexandria; defined the personal unity of Christ and declared Mary the Mother of God (theotokos) against Nestorius; also condemned Pelagius.

Chalcedon (451)—Attended by 150 bishops; defined the two natures in Christ (divine and human) against Eutyches.

Other important church councils include the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Council of Trent (1545–63), First Vatican Council (1869–70), and Second Vatican Council (1962–65).

Dates to Remember

313—The Edict of Milan officially ended persecution of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

1054—The official date for the East–West schism; Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox split ways.

1095—Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade.

1378—The Great Papal Schism led to three different popes vying for supremacy; it launched a forty-year crisis of authority.

1517—Luther posted his 95 Theses and the Protestant Reformation began.

1534—King Henry VIII was declared “the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England” by the English Parliament.

1545—The Council of Trent began, responding to the Protestant Reformation; it defined the essence of Roman Catholicism until Vatican II.

1948—The World Council of Churches was founded.

1962—Vatican II began and brought changes to the Roman Catholic Church; an era of open dialogue with Protestants and people of other faiths was inaugurated.

How Old Is Your Church?

If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex- monk of the Catholic Church, in the year 1517.

If you belong to the Church of England, your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.

If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded by John Knox in Scotland in the year 1560.

If you are a Protestant Episcopalian, your religion was an offshoot of the Church of England founded by Samuel Seabury in the American colonies in the 17th century.

If you are a Congregationalist, your religion was originated by Robert Brown in Holland in 1582.

If you are a Methodist, your religion was launched by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.

If you are a Unitarian, Theophilus Lindley founded your church in London in 1774.

If you are a Mormon (Latter Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your religion in Palmyra, N.Y., in 1829.

If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1605.

If you are of the Dutch Reformed church, you recognize Michaelis Jones as founder, because he originated your religion in New York in 1628.

If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.

If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year in which your religion was born and to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy as its founder.

If you belong to one of the religious organizations known as 'Church of the Nazarene," "Pentecostal Gospel." "Holiness Church," "Pilgrim Holiness Church," "Jehovah's Witnesses," your religion is one of the hundreds of new sects founded by men within the past century.

If you are Catholic, you know that your religion was founded in the year 33 by Jesus Christ the Son of God, and it is still the same Church.

Four Marks of the Church

by Kenneth D. Whitehead

We can show how the Church of the apostles resembles in all essentials the Church of today by showing how the early Church already bore the marks, or "notes," of the true Church of Christ which are still professed today in the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed declares the Church to be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

Thus, the Church of the apostles was definitely one: "There is one body and one spirit," Paul wrote, "just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all" (Eph. 4:4-5). Paul linked this primitive unity to the Church's common Eucharistic bread: "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread" (1 Cor. 10:17). Jesus had promised at the outset that "there would be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16).

Similarly, the Church of the apostles was holy. When we say that, we mean among other things that it had the all-holy God himself as author. We do not mean that all of its members have ceased to be sinners and have themselves become all-holy. On the contrary, the Church from the beginning, on her human side, has been composed of sinners: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15). The Church was founded for no other reason than to continue Christ's redemptive and sanctifying work with them in the world.

One of the things implicit in the appellation "holy" as applied to the Church, then, is that the Church from the beginning has been endowed with the sacramental means to help make holy the sinners who are found in her ranks. The Church has been given the sacraments along with the word precisely in order to be able to help make sinners holy.

It was in this sense that Paul was able to write, "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27). The holiness of the Church, of which the creed properly speaks, has always had reference to her divine Founder and to what the Church was founded by him with the power and authority to do, not with the condition of her members.

The third great historic mark or note of the one true Church was that this Church was Catholic. "Catholic" means "universal." It refers as much to the fullness of the faith which it possesses as it does to the undeniable extension in both time and space which has characterized it virtually from the beginning. At the very beginning, of course, it was no doubt difficult to see how the "little flock" (Luke 12:32) of which the Church then consisted could by any stretch of the imagination qualify as "universal." Still, just as the embryo contains in germ the whole human being, so the Church already contained the universality that would quickly begin to manifest itself.

It is not without significance that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Church at Pentecost at a time when "there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5). It was to them that the Holy Spirit temporarily enabled the apostles to speak in the languages of all these various nations--a powerful sign that the Church was destined for all men everywhere, represented at that first Pentecost in Jerusalem by those of many nations who had come there from afar. Many accepted the faith then and there and presumably began forthwith carrying "the Catholic Church" back to the four corners of the earth.

The Catholicity of the Church in any case resides as much in the fact that the Church is for everybody at all times as it does in the fact that it was indeed destined to spread everywhere throughout the whole world. Within a few years of the foundation of the Church, Paul was writing that "the word of truth . . . in the whole world . . . is bearing fruit and growing" (Col. 1:5-6).

Finally, the Church that issued from the commission of Christ to the apostles was necessarily apostolic. Christ founded the Church upon the apostles and in no other way: "Did I not choose you, the twelve?" he asked them (John 6:70). The apostles of all people understood perfectly well that they did not set themselves up in their own little community, as we sometimes today see "gospel churches" set up in store fronts or in the suburbs. The New Testament teaches, "One does not take the honor upon himself" (Heb. 5:4).

Nothing is clearer, then, that the Church started out as "apostolic." The question is whether the apostles had the power and authority to pass on to others what they had received from Christ. We have already seen that they very definitely did have this power and authority; the New Testament evidence is clear about that. The subsequent historical evidence is equally clear that they did pass it on to successors (the bishops). Indeed there are already references in the New Testament itself to the appointment of bishops by the apostles, as well as to the appointment of further bishops by them (Titus 1:5-9).

When we ask where, if anywhere, is to be found the same Church which the New Testament tells us Christ founded, we have to reformulate the question to ask: What Church, if any, descends in an unbroken line from the apostles of Jesus Christ (and also, not incidentally, possesses the other essential notes of the true Church of which the creed speaks)?

Further, to introduce a point we have not dwelt upon at all up to now, What Church, if any, is headed by a single recognized designated leader, just as the apostles of Jesus plainly functioned, on the evidence of the New Testament, under the headship of Peter?

To ask these questions is to answer them: Any entity or body claiming to be the Church of Christ would have to be able to demonstrate its apostolicity by demonstrating an organic link with the original apostles on whom Christ manifestly established his Church. Nothing less than this could qualify as the "apostolic" Church which Jesus founded.

As much for our instruction as for the assurance he intended to give to the apostles to whom he was actually speaking, Jesus said, "He who hears you, hears me" (Luke 10:16). Do we take these words seriously today? Do we listen to the teachings of the successors of the apostles of Jesus, the bishops, in union with and under the successor of the apostle Peter, the pope, as if these teachings were the words of Christ himself?
If we do, we are properly members of the Church which Jesus Christ founded on the apostles and which has come down to us from them. If we do not, how can we pretend that we take anything seriously that Christ said and taught?

He said nothing more solemnly and categorically than these words, in which he declared that the apostles and their successors would speak for him in the serious business of gathering in and sanctifying his people and leading them toward the salvation he offers. Jesus intended that the fullness of his grace should come to his people in a Church that, from the beginning, was what the creed still calls it today: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

(Whitehead is a Catholic writer and translator living in Falls Church, Virginia. From "The Church of the Apostles," in This Rock, March 1995.)