Joel wrote:
> Governor Swill <governor.swill@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>> They condemn homosexuality while priests practice it and they use
>>>>> contributions to the church to silence victims of sexual abuse and
>>>>> assault. Fuck the Catholic hypocrisy, fuck their claim of being the
>>>>> original church. Francis' position is meaningless in real
>>>>> Christendom.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, the *original* Christian church is the Greek Orthodox based in Byzantium aka
>>>> Constantinople aka Istanbul. The Roman Catholics came later when the Roman empire split.
>>>
>>> I didn't address the question other than to scoff at Catholicism being
>>> the one. But it's not Orthodox, either.
>>
>> But you don't know what church it is?
>
>
> You remember the saying in standardized tests, "none of the above".
> There are churches that emulate the first century Christianity, but
> only first century Christianity itself is itself. There isn't a way
> to recreate it in the modern world.

Most of the early followers were in Judea and north to Syria and
Anatolia. Paul spread it through Greece and then Rome. Until the
AD 70 revolt, the Temple did some suppression in Judea. The Empire
varied between repression and ignoring, mostly ignoring, the
churches. The churches developped a hierarchy of bishops, and all
the bishops were regarded as leaders of the same, common church,
independent of imperial government, without political or legal
power. They had regional variations but in consensus.

With Constantine the church began growing political power. As the
empire split, rejoined, split, rejoined, the church became split
with the political power growing around the Rome bishop versus the
Antioch bishop. As the church became part of the imperial
government, jealous bishops looked after their own power and the
other side became rivals.

The seat of the Weatern Empire moved from Rome to Ravenna.

When Rome and the Western Empire fell, the church was schismed
with Rome bishop of the Roman Catholics called the pope and the
eastern bishops in accord forming the Eastern Orthodox churches.
Vanity and pride set in and really minor differences became life
and death monuments to intolerance.

Neither the Empire nor church were monoliths of coherent law and
policy the way modern nations and government are. Governors and
bishops ran their balliwicks as mostly as they wanted.

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