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The history of the Catholic Church is the formation, events, and historical development of the Catholic Church through time.. According to the tradition of the Catholic Church, it started from the day of Pentecost at the upper room of Jerusalem; [1] the Catholic tradition considers that the Church is a continuation of the early Christian community established by the Disciples of Jesus.
The Catholic Church considers that major divisions occurred in c. 144 with Marcionism, [2] 318 with Arianism, 451 with the Oriental Orthodox, 1054 to 1449 (see East–West Schism) during which time the Orthodox Churches of the East parted ways with the Western Church over doctrinal issues (see the filioque) and papal primacy, and in 1517 with ...
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.28 to 1.39 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2024. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 9 ] It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization .
San Miguel Mission, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, established in 1610, is the oldest church in the United States.. The Catholic Church in the United States began in the colonial era, but by the mid-1800s, most of the Spanish, French, and Mexican influences had demographically faded in importance, with Protestant Americans moving west and taking over many formerly Catholic regions.
After the start of the Protestant Reformation, the Reformation Papacy and Baroque Papacy led the Catholic Church through the Counter-Reformation. The popes during the Age of Revolution witnessed the largest expropriation of wealth in the church's history, during the French Revolution and those that followed throughout Europe.
The first use of the term "Catholic Church" (literally meaning "universal church") was by the church father Saint Ignatius of Antioch in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans (circa 110 AD). [1] Ignatius of Antioch is also attributed the earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός ) in 100 AD [ 2 ] He died in Rome ...
The Catholic faith also became integrated in the industrial and post-industrial middle class as it developed, in particular through the lay movements created following the 1891 Rerum novarum encyclical enacted by Pope Leo XIII, and which insisted on the social role of the Roman Catholic Church. [45]
During this period, the Church was also a major patron of engineering for the construction of elaborate cathedrals. Since the Renaissance, Catholic scientists have been credited as fathers of a diverse range of scientific fields: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) pioneered heliocentrism, René Descartes (1596-1650) father of analytical geometry and co-founder of modern philosophy, Jean-Baptiste ...