Watching a video clip on Pastor Mensa Otabil, teaching his congregation about Church history, I took great interest in what he was going to say.
The most important point Pastor Mensa Otabil left out in the beginning of his lectures was how the Church became Catholic. I know that this word, Catholic, irritates most Protestants, that even some have removed the word from the Apostles’ Creed. But the truth can never be denied.
The Catholic Church is the only Church founded by Jesus Christ. If Protestants today will contest this fact, and spread falsehood that Catholicism was founded by Constantine, then we can also say that Christianity did not originate from Christ. These are the facts.
The early Church members were first called disciples or brethren and the Church was called The Way, which may come from Isaiah 40:3, “A voice proclaims: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”
Then about ten years later, in Antioch in the AD 40’s the members of the Way Church were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). So, if the Catholic is said to have no links with Christ, because the Church was initially not called Catholic, then Christians and Christianity, has no link with Christ, because that was not how the followers were called, immediately after Christ.
During those early days, some other groups proclaiming to be followers of Christ, went about proclaiming ideologies alien to the teachings of Christ and the apostles. Paul in his Second Letter to Timothy, 2 Tim. 4:3-4, talked about people without sound doctrine. Peter in his letter, 2 Peter 2, warned against false teachers and John in 1 John 4: 1-6, instructed that spirits must be tested to see whether they come from God, because many false prophets and teachers had gone into the world.
The false prophets and teachers continued spreading falsehood in the Name of Christ. Then, again in Antioch, in 110 AD, St. Ignatius, a protégé of St John the Evangelist, through the Holy Spirit, gave the name, Catholic to the Church to further differentiate it from the false Christian churches.
In chapter eight of his letter to the Smyrnaeans he stated this: “See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
In Matthew 16: 18-19, Jesus Christ pronounced that He will build His Church and in Matthew 28: 18-20, specifically in verse 19a, He commanded that the Church should be Catholic, Katholikosor simply Universal, when He said “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.”
In summary, Christ established His Church and on the day of Pentecost, it was brought forth and outdoored and called the Way. In the 40 ADs, its members were first called Christians and in 110 AD, the Way became the Holy Catholic Church made up of Christians, in accordance with Christ’s command, in Matthew 28: 19a.
This was how Jesus’ Church was known as the Holy Catholic Church, from 110 AD. During those days, Christians were under persecution. The Elders of Israel were after them, because of their belief in a Triune God while the Law of Moses talked about the One Indivisible God.
The Roman authorities were also hunting down Christians for worshiping an alien God, whose followers, did not believe in the multiple gods of the Romans and they go ahead to partake in the consumption of His Body and Blood, which to the Romans, was cannibalism.
The members of the Holy Catholic Church, worshipped in secret and if any of them was caught and executed, they died joyously, much to the astonishment of the Romans.
According to Tertullian, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. This was because of the willingness of the Christians to die for their faith which led to conversion of more people.
Two hundredyears later, in AD 313, the Roman emperor, Constantine, made Christianity, the national religion. Christians no longer worshipped in secret. This was after Constantine had won a battle with the Cross as his staff, as instructed in a vision.
As Pastor Mensa Otabil said, Constatine assembled the Church leaders in the Council of Nicaea to proclaim what the Church’s belief and faith were. The results of Council of Nicaea, are, the Condemnation of Arianism, which questioned the Divinity of Jesus Christ, stating that He was subordinate to God the Father;
Affirmation of Christ’s Divinity that Jesus Christ is “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, Begotten, not made, of One Being with the Father; ”the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that continues to be used in many Christian denominations; Establishment of Ecumenical Precedent, a precedent for future ecumenical councils, setting a standard for addressing theological disputes within the Church and shaping the course of Christian doctrine;
Practical Implications: the council also addressed practical matters, such as guidelines for the appointment of bishops and the resolution of disputes within the Church, contributing to the unity and stability of the early Christian communities and the Significance for Western Civilization, impacting both religious doctrine and the development of Western culture.
The Church was One Holy Catholic Church, from AD 110, centuries before Constantine was born. And it was so united until a schism which separated the Church into the Western Church and the Eastern Church. This was due to these three major reasons, The Filioque Clause:
The Western Church’s professed that the Holy Spirit proceeded from “the Father and the Son,” but the Eastern Church believed the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father; Papal Authority: The Western Church asserted the Pope’s authority over all Christians, while the Eastern Church maintained a more decentralized structure with the Patriarch of Constantinople as the primary leader and, Ritual and Practice Differences:
Divergences in practices like celibacy for clergy, the use of leavened bread in communion, and the timing of Easter also contributed to the growing divide. Even after that divide, the Church founded by Jesus Christ was still called Catholic and was in a way, One, just as Jesus and God are One (John 17:21).
Then in 1517, the Protestant Reformation led by a Catholic priest, Martin Luther broke up that divine unity in Christianity and founded the Lutheran Church. Due to some malfeasance going on within the Church hierarchy, Luther sought for transformation, but ended up dividing the Church that Jesus Christ founded.
There were certain practices going on which were not Christlike, like the selling of indulgences. An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. Conditions for receiving an indulgence, are sincere repentance, sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, prayer for the Pope’s intentions and for the Church and the complete detachment from sin.
Selling of indulgences, which are freely given by God could not be said to be righteous and Martin Luther had the right to oppose it. However, we have today, something worse going on in some other churches which attack the Catholic Church on this practice. Blessings are being advertised and sold. The more one offers, they more blessings they will be told they will receive from God. This can range from $1,000.00 to $5,000.00. If this is divine, then can the poor be saved?
There were other reasons for the reformation but one thing that resulted was that the body of Christians were more divided and kept dividing. So, by the time of the death of Martin Luther in 1546, instead of having the Holy Catholic Church and one united Protestant Church, it is stated in some religious media pages that over 240 different churches broke away from the Lutheran Church to form independent churches. And today, we have over 45,000 different denominations under the protestant movement. As it is, Jesus’ Will, That all may be One, no longer holds in Christianity.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
