Catholic or Orthodox? Who Came First?

 When we read the New Testament, we don't read about the church ever being called ''Baptist'', ''Methodist,'' etc. At first, the followers of Christ were called Christians (Acts 11: 19-30.) Of course, the New Testament does not explicitly use terms like Catholic or Orthodox in referring to the church, but it also does not use some of the specific words referring to the Trinity or justification that Protestant theologians would use. However, from a historical standpoint, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches provide those of the Protestant Reformation and after. While some Anglicans wish to claim that their church is older than Catholicism on the grounds that the Council of Trent happened after the English Reformation, this is quite silly, as Roman Catholicism existed long before the English Reformation. Likewise, it is silly to claim that there was an underground Baptist Church for centuries when there is no historical evidence of this. Whether or not people like it, almost all churches today derive from either the Catholic or the Orthodox Church, with most coming from the former. 

Which came first? It is an old question that has stirred passionate answers. 

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, though, can both trace apostolic succession to the apostles. In this sense, neither is older than the other. But is this the only sense in which to judge what is the oldest church?

The term ''older church'' is probably not the best use, regardless of the viewpoint a theologian may embrace. As previously discussed, both Catholics and Orthodox can trace Apostolic Succession to the apostles. Perhaps we should ask ourselves instead, ''What church today functions as did the ancient church?''

When the latter question is posed, the answer becomes easier to find. In the ten points below, I have demonstrated historical evidence that the Roman Catholic Church of today is different than the ancient church. 

1. Although many Western theologians embraced the Filioque long before the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, Rome avoided the insertion of the creed long before the Great Schism. In fact, even as the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and other Western Christians began reciting the Filioque in the creed, the popes consistently believed that the creed should not be altered---until the eleventh century. It was not until the eleventh century that the popes decided that the Filioque should be read in the creed without the approval of an ecumenical church council. By agreeing for the Filioque to be read in the creed, the pope did something that had essentially never been done before---by allowing the creed to be altered without the consent of the universal church. 

2. The concept of Purgatory as a place was primarily a Medieval thought, born after 1054. Thus, indulgences were primarily a Roman invention in the Middle Ages. Ironically, it was largely Purgatory and indulgences that began the Protestant Reformation.

3. All seven of the ecumenical councils were summoned by the Byzantine Emperor, with the pope not even present at any of them.  When Emperor Constantine summoned Nicea I in the first century, the bishop of Rome was not even one of the main bishops that he consulted. Furthermore, all of these church councils were held exclusively in the East. This demonstrates that the church of the first millennium did not function like the later Roman Catholic Church. The popes never claimed infallibility of themselves before 1054, and while there are hints of papal supremacy before them, most of these claims of authority were primarily concerning the jurisdiction of the Western Church, not the church as a whole. In short, Rome changed the relationship between the bishop of Rome and the other bishops beginning primarily in the eleventh century (though also, certainly before then), as the pope understood himself as a monarch over the entire church, without the right to define doctrines of faith and morals, and the additional right to depose kings, emperors, and bishops. 

4. In defining dogmas of the church for all to believe, from the Bodily Assumption of Mary to her Immaculate Conception, the Roman Church, especially since the nineteenth century (especially Vatican I), has attributed alone authority to itself that we see little evidence of the first centuries of the church's existence. 

5. In the seventh through eighth centuries, several popes were actually adopted by the Byzantine emperors. But by the eleventh century, the popes claimed that they had the right to depose all emperors---showing that Rome had grown in power. 

6. Priestly celibacy became enforced in the Western Church by popes between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Historically, many Catholic Western priests had been married long before 1054. 

7. There was a radical change in artwork in Catholic Churches during the Renaissance. Historically, the Western Churches used their own icons, which, while not identical to the Eastern ones, were far closer in style to the Eastern icons than were the humanistic artwork of the Renaissance. 

8. Through Medieval scholasticism, the Western Church gradually began to define various aspects of theology and doctrine that the Western Church had never done before. This led to belief in the Immaculate Conception and other concepts of Rome that the East had never embraced. 

9. Although it is true that the bishop of Rome/pope played an important role in the church of Christendom in the first millennium, it should be remembered that the pope did not function in the early centuries as he would from the eleventh century on. Seeing the abuse of the papal office, some Western theologians in the Middle Ages occasionally accused certain popes of being Antichrist, and this was before Wycliffe or Luther. 

10. The New Testament was not written in Latin. While it is understandable that the ancient church translated the New Testament into Latin fairly early on, the early church never believed, as the Roman Church later would, that somehow only Latin was the holy language for the church to use. In fact, Greek, Syriac, Latin, and different languages were used in different Christian Churches across Christendom. The New Testament, of course, was originally written in either Koine Greek or Biblical Hebrew, and Early Christianity did not derive from Rome but from Jerusalem and Antioch. During the Great Schism, all of the most ancient churches in Christendom, such as Antioch and Jerusalem, took Constantinople's side over Rome. Indeed, Peter the Apostle, according to early Christian documents, went to Antioch before he ever went to Rome, and if Apostolic Succession is true, then his successors in Antioch have a greater claim to papal supremacy than the bishops of Rome. 

11. Scripturally, we don't see the concept of the papacy as known by Vatican I anywhere in the New Testament. Not only did Paul correct Peter in Galatians 2: 11-14, but the New Testament nowhere implies that Peter alone had infallibility or supremacy. In Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem was led by various apostles and elders, and while Peter played an important role in the council, he was certainly no monarch over it. Throughout the New Testament, Peter's role in the Roman Church is not even confirmed, though the majority of the New Testament was written by Paul instead. Additionally, while all Christians should admit a unique authority given to Peter in Matthew 16, using the Keys of the Kingdom as a defense of papal infallibility remains quite a stretch. In Matthew 18, all the apostles exercised the keys. Certainly, nowhere in the New Testament do we see one church leader exercise a monarch's role over the church. In 1 Peter 5: 1, Peter simply referred to himself as an ''elder.'' While it is possible that he was only being humble by the claim, none of the New Testament apostles ever imply that Peter has the papal authority that we see described by Vatican I. 

12. According to Edward Siecenski, an Oxford scholar of religion, Pope Leo the Great (fifth century) was the first pope to ever claim papal supremacy over the Eastern bishops. 

Above, I have proven that the Roman Catholic Church of today cannot be the same as the ancient church, even though its roots go back to the ancient church. On the other hand, let us turn to the Orthodox Church. The most ancient churches of Christendom, such as Jerusalem and Antioch, remained in communion with the Church of Constantinople even as the West and East severed relationships with one another. 

Eastern Orthodox function in church government as did the church of the first millennium; their artwork remains the same or similar; they recite the same creed as Rome did before the eleventh century; they profess the importance of the bishops of Rome in early Christianity without attributing the claims of Vatican I to the papacy. Many of the abuses that the Protestants reacted against in the sixteenth century, such as Purgatory and indulgences, had never been part of Orthodox theology. 

Considering that the Eastern Catholic Churches follow much of the same practice and thought as the Eastern Orthodox, it seems reasonable to conclude that both of them remain far closer to ancient Christianity than current Roman Catholicism. While I wouldn't say it's accurate to say the Orthodox Church is older than the Catholic Church, I think that we can see that the Orthodox Church functions closer to the ancient church than the Catholic Church. 

As a final thought, I would encourage Evangelicals to look into and consider Eastern Christianity. Far too often, Roman Catholicism is portrayed as the only alternative to Evangelical Christianity. However, Christianity began in the East, not in the West, and all Western Christians can benefit from studying the history and theolgogy of Eastern Christianity.