The Christian Church (2)

Introductionhe Christian church can be loosely defined as "those people who have a belief in Jesus of Nazareth" The church is believed to have began at the time of Pentecost (read the story in Acts chapter 2) when the disciples received the Holy Spirit from God after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

Brief History

The disciples originally called themselves "Christian Jews" but soon this changed to be just Christians or 'little Christs'. The number of Christians grew very quickly during the 50 years after the death of Jesus. St.Peter went to Rome and preached about Jesus. St. Paul traveled widely and converted many people to the new religion. The other disciples also traveled all over the Middle East and further afield. Some people believe that one of the disciples reached India ! When Roman soldiers became Christians they took the new religion all over the Roman Empire as far north as the borders of Scotland, south to North Africa, West to Wales and East to modern day Russia.

After the Roman Empire was defeated in 410 Christianity suffered but soon it was on the way up again. In 625 St.Augustine came to Britain and established Canterbury as an important cathedral. However Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa was challenged by the spread of the new religion of Islam. By the year 1000 all of Europe was Christian, and the majority of Europeans Christians. In 1054 the church in the East split away from the church in the West. This was known as the great Schism and Rome became the "capital" of the Western (or Roman Catholic) church, and Constantinople (now called Istanbul) the capital of the Eastern (or Orthodox Catholic) church.

In 1517 Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 "protests" on the door of a church in Wittenberg and this was the start of the Protestant movement. One of the main groups to split away from the Roman Catholic church was the Church of England (or Anglican) church. Over the next 300 years many other groups split away from either the Roman Catholic or Church of England. (See section The Christian Church 1).

In the 1700s and 1800s the major European nations were expanding and creating empires around the world. They took their religion with them. The "flavour" of Christianity depended on the country that was colonising. Soon Christianity was established and growing in Africa (mainly Protestant) and South America (mainly Roman Catholic). By the end of the 1800s Christianity was established all over the world. In the 1900s Christianity has continued to grow in Africa, South America and in the last few decades in South East Asia, only in Europe are the number of Christians diminishing.

Today there are over 2,000,000,000 Christians in the world. All this from a handful of disciples following a man called Jesus of Nazareth in a small country 2,000 years ago.

It is important to remember that Roman Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Church of England, Methodists, Quakers, Baptists (and many others) are only different types of Christians.