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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.
He did not make Christianity the state religion, but he did provide crucial support. Constantine called the first of seven ecumenical councils. In the fourth-century, Eastern and Western Christianity had already begun to diverge. Between 600 and 750, the constant need to defend itself in war turned the Eastern Roman Empire into the independent ...
The term catholicism is the English form of Late Latin catholicismus, an abstract noun based on the adjective catholic. The Modern Greek equivalent καθολικισμός katholikismos is back-formed and usually refers to the Catholic Church. The terms catholic, catholicism, and catholicity are closely related to the use of the term Catholic ...
With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1% [1] of all Christians as well as 16.7% of the world's population. [389] [390] [391] Catholics live all over the world through missions, diaspora, and conversions.
On the contrary, "in the East Roman or Byzantine view, when the Roman Empire became Christian, the perfect world order willed by God had been achieved: one universal empire was sovereign, and coterminous with it was the one universal church"; [18] and the church came, by the time of the demise of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, to merge ...
Over time, schisms have disrupted the unity of Christianity. 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 ...
The gradual rise of Germanic Christianity was, at times, voluntary, particularly among groups associated with the Roman Empire. From the 6th century, Germanic tribes were converted (or re-converted from Arianism) by missionaries of the Catholic Church. [4] [5] Many Goths converted to Christianity as individuals outside the Roman Empire.
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 .