Session 7 -Church History (Age of the Apostles & Persecution)

Church History

Having spent the previous three lessons covering the events of the Bible, it is important to remember that the Bible is a book of the Church, and it is a verbal icon of the life and teachings of Christ and the Early Church. Nothing we do or teach in the Church stands in opposition to Sacred Scripture, but as The Apostle John ends his Gospel, “there are also many things which Jesus did; were everyone of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. “ (John 21:25) The Canon of Sacred Scripture was approved by the Church, that is the Church decided which books were to be placed in the Bible. The next few weeks we will cover the history of the Church from the time of the Apostles, all the way to modern times. The history of the Church can be divided into these six eras, of which today we will cover the first two:

1. The Age of the Apostles
2. The Age of Persecution
3. The Age of the Ecumenical Councils
4. The time of the Great Schism
5. The Age of the New Persecution
6. The 20th-21st Centuries

The Age of the Apostles.

At the time of the Death and Resurrection of our Lord in 33 AD and specifically on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the Disciples and Apostles, in the upper room in Jerusalem the New Testament Church was born. Filled with the Holy Spirit the Apostles fearlessly preached the gospel to the ends of the earth. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter Gave such an inspired Sermon that 3000 people asked to be baptized. This first community of Christians, headed by St. James, the Brother of the Lord and the first Bishop of the city was later scattered by the persecutions which followed the stoning of the first martyr of the Christian Church, St. Stephen: "And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the Apostles" (Acts 8:1).

The Apostle Peter traveled to Antioch and Rome, the Apostle Andrew to Constantinople,Europe and the Slavic Lands ( Our Patriarch Bartholomew is the 270th Successor to The Apostle Andrew) James to Jerusalem and Thomas to India amongst the others. St. Paul the former persecutor of Christians did much to spread Christianity beyond the Jewish people to the gentiles. The works and exploits of the Apostles are contained in the Book of The Acts of The Apostles which is contained in the New Testament.

The Age of Persecution

The first three centuries of the Church were characterized by sporadic, but bloody, persecutions. Church tradition is full of the lives of these early martyrs for the faith, and one cannot but admire the courage and perseverance of these heroes who willingly gave up their lives rather than denounce Christ. Among these were Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, burned at the stake when over eighty years old, Justin the Martyr, and Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, as well as many other men and women martyrs, who are commemorated in the Church Calendar. They are heroes that you and I need to emulate. It is a shame that we find it hard today to sacrifice our own personal time, to build up and serve the church, and to serve our Lord. These persecutions, while often short lived, kept the Christians on guard as they knew at any time the threat of persecution was always there. The calling of Martyrdom, the giving of one's life for the Church and Christ was very real to them and a part of their spirituality as they worshiped in secret, often underground in the catacombs or the tombs.

In the year 312, the a great event took place in the life of Emperor of Byzantium, Constantine the Great, where he was saved from certain death after placing the image of the Cross on armament. He did this after seeing a vision in the sign of the Cross and surrounding it these words, by this sign you shall conquer. This led in 313, to the issuing of the Edict of Milan, which proclaimed the official toleration of the Christian faith. Fifty years later, the Emperor Theodosius carried this policy even further when he established that Christianity was the only accepted religion of the Empire, and outlawed paganism.

In 324, Constantine moved his imperial capital from Rome to Byzantium, on the shores of the Bosporus, where he built a new capital, Constantinople (dedicated in 330). From here, in 325, he called in the City of Nicea what was to be the first of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.