Christianity
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Andrei Rublev
The Old Testament Trinity
c. 1410s.
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Key Ideas:
Christianity
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Since its beginnings as
a Jewish sect, Christianity became established as one of the
five m ain world religions as a result of its interaction with
Greco-Roman culture and philosophy. Christianity, particularly
in its organized form as a church, has played an important role
in world history since its inception, whether as a state
religion or as a powerful competitor to secular authority. It
wasn't until the separation of church and state in the modern
era that the Church lost its direct influence on political
events.
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The Central Message and the Early Church
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The Virgin Mary and John witness
Christ's crucifixion, mural, ca. 740
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The Christian
image of God is based on that of Judaism; both believe
in a benevolent creator and preserver of the world who
also demands of man an accounting for his actions.
Christianity's central message, however, is the belief
in the incarnate son of God, Jesus Christ, who suffered
and
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died on the cross for the salvation of mankind and was
resurrected.
His story and message are recorded in the four
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Gospels of the New Testament, which is the basis of
Christian belief.
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3
Handwritten
Gospel of John on papyrus,
end of the second century
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The Vladimir Virgin with Child.
12th century.
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
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Dionisii.
The Crucifixion.
c. 1500.
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5
The Apostle Paul, founder
of the Church, Serbian mural, ca.1 265
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Early Christianity engaged in an intensive spiritual
debate with its Jewish and Greco-Roman rivals. Under the
influence of the
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Apostle Paul, the Church decided upon an active mission
to disseminate its message to the heathens and
throughout the world.
Up until the seventh century, the Church struggled with
the definition of its image of God and its role in the
world. Often this resulted in wars and persecution.
Socio-politically, early Christianity wavered between
the commandment of brotherly love, which required active
engagement in the world, and the anticipation of the
forthcoming Kingdom of God that is "not of this world."
The claim of God and Jesus Christ to exclusive divine
status kept the Christians, like the Jews, from
participating in Roman cults that the Roman Empire
mandated in order to maintain the loyalty of all peoples
and cultures in the empire.
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Andrei Rublev
Apostle Paul.
c. 1420s.
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
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Theophanes the Greek
The Apostle Paul.
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Christianity in the Roman Empire
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The Christians proselytized in all of the larger cities of the
empire, including Rome, so that by the end of the second century
a.d. there were already numerous congregations.
As they were suspected of disloyalty to the rulers, the
Christians often experienced fierce persecution and took refuge
in the
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catacombs of the cities; when discovered, they most often chose
a
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martyr's death in keeping with the image of the suffering Jesus
and apostles before them.
At this time, however, a stable structure emerged that allowed
the Church to survive. The "Constantinian Change" occurred with
the edicts of tolerance of 311 and 313 and the further policies
of Constantine the Great. Christianity became the official
religion of the Roman Empire. In the Eastern Roman Empire of
Byzantium, the Christian doctrine of salvation was combined with
the ancient cult of the ruler, and the emperor became the
preordained advocate ofthefateofman.
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2
The Good Shepherd, fresco in Catacomb of Calixtus. Rome, third с
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Christians condemned to die as martyrs
await their death in the arena
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The Middle Ages and the Rise of the Papacy
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In the early Middle Ages, a surge in the development of European
civilization and education was sparked by the work of Christian
monastic orders.
As a result of endowments, the
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monasteries also became powerful landowners.
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The Benedictine abbey Monte Cassino. Italy, founded in 529 by
St. Benedict of Norcia
The conversion to Catholicism of the previously Arianist
Germanic peoples in the fifth to seventh centuries strengthened
the position of the bishop of Rome, the pope.
Primarily through his alliance with France, the pope had won
independence from Byzantium and built up a papal claim to
jurisdictional primacy as the successor of the Apostle
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Peter.
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The Apostles Peter and Paul, tombstone, after 313
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Apostles Peter and Paul.
12th-13th century.
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
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From the time of the
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imperial coronation of Charlemagne by the pope in 800, popes and
the Holy Roman Emperors were closely tied. The estrangement from
Byzantium led to a schism in 1054 between the papal Western
church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, which endures to the
present.
The
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Crusades to the Holy Land initiated by the Western church
between 1095 and the 13th century exemplified Christianity's
most intolerant and violent side.
With the
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Investiture Controversy in the eleventh and twelfth century, the
Church won far-reaching independence from lay interference.
Under Pope Innocent III (1198— 1216), the papacy reached the
zenith of its worldly power—until it went too far. The exile of
the popes to Avignon from 1309 to 1377 and the Great Schism of
1378-1417 highlighted that reforms were necessary.
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Charlemagne is
crowned emperor by Pope Leo on
December 25, 800 in St Peter's Cathedral
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The conquest of Jerusalem by the First
crusade under the leadership of Godfrey of
Bouillon on the Jul у 15, 1099,
book illustration, 14th century
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Emperor Henry IV, front, asks Mathilda
of Tuscany to mediate in his conflict with
Pope Gregory VII in the Investiture Controversy,
book illustration
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From the Reformation to the Enlightenment
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Martin Luther at the Imperial Diet of Worms, 1521
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The Reformation in the 16th century was a period of
social as well as religious upheaval that can be
considered the beginning of the Modern Era. In an
attempt to return to the original message of the Gospels
and prevent abuses of power by the Church, a number of
Protestant churches sprang up.
The most important among these were the Lutherans,
followers of
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Martin Luther; the Reformists, followers of Huldrych
Zwingli; and the Calvinists, followers of John Calvin.
The first religious wars were ended by the laboriously
negotiated Peace of Augsburg in 1555, but the religious
disputes broke out violently again in the French Wars of
Religion, and above all during the Thirty Years' War.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Christianity and the
churches in Europe found themselves on the defensive as
a result of renewed self-awareness resulting from the
Enlightenment and the start of the Industrial
Revolution. In the 19th century, they allied themselves
with the powers of political conservatism. It was only
later that they recognized the necessity of reacting to
labor issues and socialism. In the "battle for culture"
in many countries, the churches lost the supervision of
the educational institutions of modern society.
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Luther
in 1529 by Lucas Cranach
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John
Calvin by an unknown artist
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The Churches in the 20th
Century and Beyond
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In the 20th century, the Eastern Orthodox Church experienced a
period of widespread suppression between 1917 and 1991—or an
authoritarian binding into the system of "socialism as it was
actually practiced." The churches in Western and Central Europe
wavered between currying favor with authoritarian regimes and
suppression at their hands. After 1945, the Catholic Church
reconciled with the Western democracies and opened to the modern
age with the
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Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Protestantism experienced an
upswing, particularly in the United States.
Since the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has focused on
the "young churches" of Latin America and Africa. In Central
Europe the Church is largely limited to a role in community work
and providing ethical cues. Whether there will be a return to
the Church in post-communist Eastern Europe remains unclear.
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12 Celebration following the end
of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, 1965
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