Church History

Why Church history? C.S Lewis said, the growth of the Church is like a long conversation.  If the conversation started at 10 AM and if we joined the conversation at 3 P.M, we would hardly follow the discussion unless someone updates us.  To fully grasp where we fit...

It is generally believed that the birth of the Church was on the day of Pentecost; Fifty days after our Lord’s Ascension to Heaven.  However, I would like to take this opportunity and go back to the Old Testament and point out couple of historical events.  Our Church...

From 54 A.D to 68 A.D emperor Nero was ruling Rome.  His mother was the great granddaughter of the emperor Augustus.  When he became the emperor, he was guided by his mother and senate.  Nero, however, was not happy about the restrictions imposed by his mother and the...

While Emperor Nero was still alive, Peter was accepted as the leader of the apostles.  Our Lord, in Matthew 16:18, assigned Church leadership to Peter. Peter and the apostles were performing miracles and performing plenty of good deeds in addition to spreading the...

While the apostles were making inroads in evangelization, there was a pharisee called Saul of Tarsus who was working against them.  Tarsus is in present day Turkey.  He was also a Roman citizen.  He was from a wealthy family.  His dad was a tent maker.  He studied...

I ended last week’s article with a question why the Jewish scriptures were translated to Greek.  Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world, taking the Greek language with him. Around the same time because of persecution, Jewish Christians fled to other...

Last week we saw why and how the Greek Translation of the Scriptures were done.  I pointed outed out that we should not view ancient historical events with the same expectations as reading present day history.  There is another reason that is of interest regarding the...

Because the early Church in Jerusalem was growing at a rapid pace, the apostles were being stretched thin by preaching, praying, administering the money and land given to them, and distributing necessities to those in need. In Acts 6:2, the apostles say: “It is not...

Towards the end the article published on August 28th we saw St. Paul proposing that Gentiles can become Christians without first converting to Judaism.  Apostles, who were all Jews, were shocked. Circumcision was required to become a Jew.  On the one hand the apostles...

After the council of Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas had a difference of opinion and they parted ways.  From this point on, Timothy became Paul’s closest companion. His remarkable missionary journeys, which had already begun before the council of Jerusalem with visits to...

Bartholomew, according to a non-Biblical document “Martyrdom of Bartholomew”, was martyred in Armenia by King Astyages.  Historian Eusebius who lived in the 4th century has recorded that Bartholomew preached in India too.  His remains are currently located at the...

According to tradition, St. Linus was appointed by St. Peter and St. Paul as the successor of St. Peter.  In 2 Timothy 4:21 St. Paul writes about a Linus passing on his greetings to Timothy.  It is generally believed that the Linus that Paul writes about is the same...

In last week’s article we saw one of the internal issues that the early Church fathers had to address was Christianity’s relationship with Judaism.  While reflecting on the disputes between different group of Christians on various practices and interpretations of...

The Church in the second century was made up of local communities from the Mediterranean Sea to the Middle East.  They had a strong sense of unity even though they were loosely organized.  This is when another controversy arose.  This controversy is called Gnosis. ...

Around A.D 285 Diocletian became the Roman emperor.  He realized that the empire had grown too large to be governed by one person.  He divided the kingdom into two (East and West).  He kept the ultimate power and appointed governors and assistants.  In the West, they...

In my last article on Nov 6th bulletin, we had reached a point in the Church history where emperor of Rome, Constantine had made Christianity as an official religion of Rome.  For Emperor Constantine, to become a Christian was one thing, but to deal as an emperor with...

Last week I introduced a priest from Alexandria, Egypt named Arius.  Arius taught that God was wholly singular and beyond human comprehension.  He was suggesting that Jesus, Son of God, was less than the God the Father and not equal to Him.  In other words, he was...