Church History: Notable Concepts (inc. Heresies, Creeds, etc.), Notable Groups (inc. Denominations of the Faith, Monasticism, etc.), and Notable Anonymous Documents

Confessor (All Facts)

• Type of Christian during Christian Persecutions in Rome who suffered torture or was sentenced to work in the mines 

• Recognized as saints in recognition of their steadfastness in their faith

• The court records of their trials sometimes were preserved and served as the basis for popular biographies known as “saints’ lives,” which provided models for how to lead a Christian life 

Martyr (All Facts)

• Type of Christian who was executed for not renouncing their faith, becoming “witness” to the faith during Christian Persecutions in Rome

• Recognized as saints in recognition of their steadfastness in their faith

• The court records of their trials sometimes were preserved and served as the basis for popular biographies known as “saints’ lives,” which provided models for how to lead a Christian life 

100s - Pauline Christians (All Facts) 

• Founded by (St.) Paul

• Believe that Jesus’s death and resurrection introduced a New Covenant that fulfilled the Old Covenant and superseded Jewish law and custom, thus they did not have to follow Jewish law or custom

• Believe that gentiles could also be Christians, not just Jews

• Christians who are gentiles and thus believe gentiles can be Christians, not having to follow Jewish law or customs

0s CE - Gnosticism (All Facts)

• Heresy that started in the 0s CE 

• It is one of the first Christian heresies 

• Heretical belief that

  • The only goal of Christianity is to escape the fallen / physical world and enter heaven

  • The fallen / physical world is inherently bad and that spiritual goals should be directed towards entrance into the spiritual world, which is inherently good

  • Rejects the idea that a good God made our fallen / physical world very good, and that this world was created created by a lesser deity called the Demiurge instead

  • Rejects the idea that Jesus took on a fully human nature to come and redeem the fallen / physical world and/or emphasizes Jesus’s divinity but rejects Jesus’s humanity 

  • Emphasizes salvation through spiritual knowledge rather than faith alone 

• Those who held this belief believed

  • They possessed a divine spark that needed to be awakened by a divine messenger, such as Jesus, to escape the material prison that is the world and return to the divine realm

  • They possessed secret knowledge about the spiritual world 

• Term used to to a number of groups including the Valentinians and Sethians

• Influences the modern, non-Christian religion of Mandaeism 

• Considered non-Nicene

306 - Melitians (All Facts) 

• Heresy started by the namesake founder around 306

• It was essentially Donatism, but their Church was located in West North Africa instead of Egypt 

• Like Donatists, they believed that those who had renounced their faith while persecuted (during the Diocletianic Persecution) could not reenter into the Church 

311 - Donatism / Donatists (All Facts)

• Heresy started by the namesake founder around 311

  • Was condemned as heresy at the Council of Arles in 314

• Heretical belief that

  • The Sacraments only work on someone if they are done by a “true Christian”

    • For example, if a person is baptized and then that person later finds out the person who baptized them was a false believer, then that person would have to get re-baptized

  • Rejects the idea that the Sacraments exclusively depend on God

  • “Traditores” (betrayers), those who had turned over Christian books during the Diocletianic Persecution, had lost their spiritual authority and could no longer hold church office 

• When it first came about in the Roman Empire, it split off from mainstream Christianity because it disagreed with its response on persecution

  • It held that anyone who had sacrificed to the Roman gods should be refused readmission to the Church

• In contrast, those who opposed this heretical belief believed that spiritual authority lay in the office, not the man, and that after doing penance, the “traditores” (betrayers) could continue in office again

313 - Edict of Milan (All Facts)

• Issued by Constantine, it

  • Granted religious autonomy to all groups including Christians

  • Effectively made Christianity legal throughout the Empire

  • Ordered the compensation of Christian property that had been

    • confiscated by the imperial treasury

    • acquitted by private persons prior

  • Marked the first time that the imperial government recognized the Christian church as a lawful institution

  • Transformed Christianity from a potentially persecuted to a legally recognized religion

318 - Arianism / Arianists (All Facts)

• Heresy started by the namesake founder around 318

  • Was condemned as heresy at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the First Council of Constantinople in 381

• Heretical belief that

  • God created Jesus, meaning there was a time when Jesus did not exist and thus that He could not be God because God is eternal

  • Rejects the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father

    • They were Christians that taught that The Son (Jesus) was different in substance and subordinate in authority to The Father (God)

  • Rejects Christ’s fully divine nature

  • Jesus is like God, but not actually God

  • Results from the Analogical Fallacy: “The Trinity is like how the sun, its light, and its heat are all the sun”

    • This teaching struck a chord with those who viewed the Christian Trinity as analogous to a human family 

  • Was absorbed by the newly converted Germanic tribes, such as the Celts / Gauls, Vandals, and Lombards

  • Influences modern-day Jehovah’s Witness Theology

  • The Holy Spirit is distinct from God the Father and Jesus the Son 

• One of their supporters, Eusebius, is credited with having baptized Constantine the Great on the Emperor’s deathbed

  • This underlined how strong the namesake heretical movement became, as orthodox church leaders had thought that they had won the day after the Nicene Creed and Council of 325 

• In contrast, those that opposed and rejected this heresy believed that all three persons of the Christian Trinity were of the same substance and thus equal in status 

325 - Nicene Creed (All Facts)

• Established at the First Council of Nicaea 

• States that

  • God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all co-eternal

  • God is 1 essence, but 3 persons

  • Christ is truly human and truly God

  • Christ was born of the Virgin Mary

  • Christ died for humanity’s sins

  • Christ resurrected

  • Christ ascended and will return

325 - Nicene Christians / Nicene Christianity (All Facts)

• Historical term used to refer to contemporary Christian body including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant denominations and their churches

  • Any “Christian” who denied these tenets is not considered, by most Christians, to be Christian

  • Was absorbed by the Roman Empire

Bishop (All Facts)

• Within each Roman province, the church in each “civitas” was under this namesake authority 

• Within barbarian successor states, they

  • Administered justice

  • Oversaw local public works

  • Mobilized local populations

• In the barbarian successor states, they had taken over many of the duties of the city councils and local Roman officials, with many being de facto secular administrators on the local level

Archbishop (All Facts)

• Bishop of the capital city of a province

Patriarch (All Facts)

• Specific Archbishop, there are 5 of them at any one time and include the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Rome (the Pope)

Pope (All Facts) 

• The Bishop / Archbishop of Rome, a position which claims to have the highest status of all the bishops based on the argument that they were the successors of St. Peter the Apostle, an argument called Apostolic Succession 

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (All Facts)

• Church started by King Ezana of Axum and St. Frumentius, the missionary who baptized him

325 - 360 - Codex Sinaiticus / Sinai Codex / Sinai Bible (All Facts)

• Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible in the 300s, it contains the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, and the Greek New Testament, with both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Epistle of the Shepherd of Hermas included as well

Apollinarianism / Apollinarians (All Facts)

• Heresy started by the namesake founder in the 300s

  • Was condemned as heresy at the First Council of Constantinople in 381

• Heretical belief that

  • Jesus had only a divine mind, not a human one; but still had a human body and soul

Nestorianism / Nestorians (All Facts)

• Heresy started by the namesake founder around 428

  • Was condemned as heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 431

• Heretical belief that

  • Jesus’s divine nature is separate from his human nature

  • Treats divine Jesus and human Jesus like two different persons

  • Jesus’s divine nature is “God the Son” and Jesus’s human nature is “Jesus,” and “Christ” refers to both of them

  • Rejects the idea that God died for Christians, only that Jesus and Christ died for Christians, but not God

  • Mary is the mother of Jesus and the mother of Christ, but not the mother of God

  • Jesus and Christ died on the cross, but God did not die on the cross

• Opposite of Monophysitism

• Reached India by 480 

Monophysitism / Monophysites (All Facts)

• Heresy started by Eutyches 

• Was initially accepted by the Council of Ephesus in 449 

• Was condemned as heresy by the Council of Chalcedon in 451

• Heretical belief that

  • The incarnate Christ is of a single, divine nature

  • Jesus’s divine nature and human nature are mixed into one combined nature

  • Jesus resembles something like the Greek demigods in that he would be part god and part human

• In contrast, those that opposed and rejected this heresy believed that after incarnation Christ had a double but indivisible nature, both divine and human 

• Opposite of Nestorianism

• It was a heresy that arose but from two difficult but crucial mysteries of the Christian faith, which were the Incarnation and the Trinity 

• Heretical belief absorbed by the Coptic Church of Egypt 

482 - Henotikon (All Facts)

• Document issued by Byzantine Emperor Zeno in 482 that consisted of an `unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the differences between the supporters of the Council of Chalcedon and the council's opponents (Non-Chalcedonian Christians) that directly led to the Acacian Schism between the Western and Eastern (Byzantine) Roman Churches

• Edict aimed at softening the Church’s decision made at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 to condemn Monophysitism as a heresy

  • Acacius of Constantinople’s formula on the nature of Christ was acceptable to Monophysite churches of Egypt and Syria, which Byzantine Emperor Zeno wished to please

Lavra (All Facts) 

• Type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center

Monastery (All Facts)

• Provided spiritual centers that allowed one to retreat from public life

• By the mid-400s, they became increasingly popular among Christians

• From their establishment, many religious communities emerged all over the Eastern Mediterranean, and, in turn, many of those evolved into economic centers

Gryovagues (All Facts)

• Type of Monk that wanders from one monastery to another 

Stylites (All Facts)

• Type of Monk that sat for years on pillars

Anchorites (All Facts)

• Type of Monk that lived as a solitary hermit

Easter Tables (All Facts) 

• Aimed at settling the controversy about the date of the namesake Christian holiday since its date having been decided at the Council of Nicaea 

• This controversy had been an ongoing debate that raged for the last century

Benedictine Rule / Benedict’s Rule (All Facts)

• Code drawn up by the namesake monk

• It was essentially a set of rules monks had to follow when in monasteries

• It was a powerful expression of monastic joys and ideals that insisted chiefly on inner discipline

• It was similar to other codes but less rigid and austere

  • Of all the different rules passed, this was the most popular and found particular favor for its directness and clarity

  • It was gradually adopted by the majority of monasteries and monastic houses

  • One notable exception was Ireland, which followed stricter rules

• It outlined that

  • Monasteries were to be “families” governed by an abbot elected for life by the monks

  • After a probationary year, a new monk was to take his vows (there was no particular vow of poverty)

  • All the monastery’s goods were to be held in common

• Central to a monk’s life was

  • The Divine Office

  • The many services he attended throughout the day and night which inspired his work

  • Study

  • Private Prayer

Coptic Church (All Facts)

• Church of Egypt that was Monophysite, the belief that Christ was one nature of both human and divine rather than two natures

• When the Arab Muslims of the Rashidun Caliphate came to invade Egypt in the 640s, they saw them as liberators given that the Byzantines persecuted them for being heretical; despite the fact that Muslims were theologically further than their fellow Nicene Byzantine Christians

Monothelitism (All Facts)

• Heresy which emerged in 633 in Syria and Armenia

• Was condemned as heresy by the Lateran Council of 649

• Heretical belief that

  • Jesus had only single will rather than two wills despite having two natures

Monasticism (All Facts)

• The namesake institutions had spread throughout western Europe and took an increasing role in social and intellectual life by 750

  • Historically, the namesake practice was perhaps most profound and widespread in Ireland

  • Moreover, rules tended to be more severe and ascetic in Ireland than the common Benedictine’s rule practiced elsewhere

• The namesake practice spread mainly because of the spiritual impulse of men to give their lives to God in meditation

  • Ever since early Christian times, there existed in the Church a tradition of withdrawal from the world in order to worship God more effectively

• The namesake practice also

  • Provided material security from the uncertainties of the time

  • Was a useful way of securing family land under the guise of “religious” foundations

• Most of the namesake institution’s founders made their own rules, and discipline varied in its severity

  • All of the namesake institutions however

    • lived as communities, under abbots

    • dedicated themselves to the service of God and spiritual development of monks

Abbot (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the male head of a monastery or abbey

Troglodytes (All Facts)

• Christian hermits who sought safety in caves and became cave-dwellers during the Arab raids on the vulnerable eastern fringe of the Byzantine Empire, in face of the ever-present danger of attack by Arabs

• They took advantage of the soft volcanic rock (tuff) with which the region of Cappadocia in Anatolia abounded

  • Over thousands of years, the Tuff had been eroded into needles, cones, and pyramids, which, when hollowed out provided quite passable swellings

  • People had exploited the local rock in this way for a long time, since the time of the ancient Hittite Empire

Iconoclasm (All Facts)

• Belief that venerating images or icons is idolatrous or that they represent corrupt power

Iconoclasts (All Facts)

• Those that believed in or supported Iconoclasm

Iconodulism (All Facts)

• Belief that venerating images or icons is NOT idolatrous

• Examples of religious actions taken under this belief include honorable veneration, kissing, candlelight, and incense

Iconodules (All Facts)

• Those who believed in or supported Iconodulism