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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.
Byzantine image depicting Jesus as Christ pantocrator. 4 BC: Nativity of Jesus.According to the Gospel of Luke, his birth occurred in the town of Bethlehem during the reigns of King Herod the Great of Judaea and the Roman Emperor Augustus, and he was the son of the Virgin Mary, who conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. [1] It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. [2] Debated by medieval theologians, it was not defined as a dogma until 1854, [3] by Pope Pius IX in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus. [4]
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 .
In a supernatural event called the Incarnation, Catholics believe God came down from heaven for our salvation, became man through the power of the Holy Spirit and was born of a virgin Jewish girl named Mary. They believe Jesus' mission on earth included giving people his word and example to follow, as recorded in the four Gospels. [90]
Concerning the doctrine on creation, Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma identifies the following points as essential beliefs of the Catholic faith ("De Fide"): [74] All that exists outside God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God. God was moved by His Goodness to create the world.
The Catholic Church allows for a variety of interpretations, as long as the doctrines of creation ex nihilo, human monogenism, original sin, and the Imago Dei are maintained. Genesis 2 records a second account of creation. Chapter 3 introduces a talking serpent, which many Christians believe is Satan in disguise.
In Christian theology, the incarnation is the belief that the pre-existent divine person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, and the Logos (Koine Greek for 'word') was "made flesh," [1] "conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary," [2] also known as the Theotokos (Greek for "God-bearer" or "Mother of God").