Please post your christian denomination here:

[Darius871]

Gnostic

[Ben Kenobi]

Considering the fact that anabaptist are against the catholics church.

What was your reason to became a catholic?

Good question.

The mass drew me in the first place. I like how the eucharist is the center of worship, whereas in the Mennonite church you might have it once a month. I like how the Catholic church has a head and their whole concept of priests and bishops and the pope makes sense to me.

I liked how no matter where I went the mass was the same, there was one church, and that was that, not different churches with slightly different teachings.

I liked the sense of history in the Catholic church, how you have a link through all the centuries of church history, and it made sense to me that the ecumenical councils were set up by the Catholic church. I really feel it is important for Christians to have a sense of unity and I came to the understanding that this would only happen in the Catholic church.

I like the idea of the sacraments, which is different from the anabaptists, and their concept of rebaptism.

I also had quite a few Catholic friends that I greatly admired for their faith.

A long answer, but I hope that helps.

[Dauphin]

My mother was brought up on the liberal end of Catholicism; My dad was brought up Anglican - at least for the purposes of a census form.

I don't like labels or organised religion, so to say I like the idea of joining the Quakers seems rather ironic.

[Eli]

The "Jesus was a false messiah" denomination.

[/runs]

[LordShiva]

Re: Re: Re: Please post your christian denomination here:

Originally posted by CrONoS
Polycast of Smyrna and St Peter were living during these times. That's why I included the first century. But I don't know when Polycast became a bishop.

They had PolyCast back then?

[Ben Kenobi]

Early church history is sort of neat, although I haven't read the originals (I assume you mean the early church fathers like Iraneus (sp?) and others?). There are churchs in the Mid East and India that never joined Catholicism when it was starting.

Like the Nestorians?

They weren't around until 500 AD, and they split off from the Catholics.

Question I have for you Jon is when did the Catholic church begin?

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Like the Nestorians?

They weren't around until 500 AD, and they split off from the Catholics.

Question I have for you Jon is when did the Catholic church begin?

I am refering to the Syrian churchs/etc. (Another example are the Mar Thoma churchs in India)

Catholic's claim with Peter.

Reading church history though, it is obviously after 300 AD. There were 4-5 great bishops.. Rome was only one of them.

JM

[LordShiva]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians

[Arrian]

My mother grew up Catholic - hated it, rebelled against it, married a (non-believing) protestant.

My father was too much of a skeptic to have ever bought into it. Historically, the family was Puritan ( :shudder: ). My dad claims to have somehow avoided baptism (dunno how that happened).

I was baptised Presbyterian. We used to go to a Congregational church in town for Christmas Eve service. Maybe an Easter or two. As you probably already know from various religion/atheism threads, I'm an agnostic.

-Arrian

[Wezil]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Please post your christian denomination here:

Originally posted by LordShiva


They had PolyCast back then?

WTF is Polycast?

[Ben Kenobi]

I am refering to the Syrian churchs/etc. (Another example are the Mar Thoma churchs in India)

Catholic's claim with Peter.

Reading church history though, it is obviously after 300 AD. There were 4-5 great bishops.. Rome was only one of them.

Yes, Eusebius says that in his history of the church. Talks about Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople alongside Rome.

The trouble is there is no break in the church from before the 300 AD, and after 300 AD. It's still the same church.

There are good bishops prior to them, such as Polycarp and Irenaeus, who were in the early and middle second century. All of these folks were church fathers then and now.

I understand what you are saying about the syrian churches, but are you aware that they are in communion with Rome? Same with the Copts in Egypt. They have different rites, but they do not consider themselves to have broken away.

[Jon Miller]

Some of them are in communion with Rome. And some of those by choice, and others were forced 200+ years ago.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

News to me. Don't know why we would force anyone, we've let many folks go because that is what they chose.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Some of them are in communion with Rome. And some of those by choice, and others were forced 200+ years ago.

JM

I agree with Ben, can you source that? Its hard to imagine the RCC, forcing Churches far beyond its political influence into communion, and several ones broke away without much trouble.

[Jon Miller]

During the ages of colonialism. Sometimes it took.. sometimes it didn't:

From wikipedia:

"The period of Jesuit influence, which broke the connection with Egypt, began a new chapter in Church history. The initiative in the Roman Catholic missions to Ethiopia was taken, not by Rome, but by Portugal, as an incident in the struggle with the Muslim Ottoman Empire and Sultanate of Adal for the command of the trade route to India by the Red Sea.

In 1507 Matthew, or Matheus, an Armenian, had been sent as an Ethiopian envoy to Portugal to ask for aid against the Adal Sultanate. In 1520 an embassy under Dom Rodrigo de Lima landed in Ethiopia (by which time Adal had been remobilized under Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi). An interesting account of the Portuguese mission, which lasted for several years, was written by Francisco Álvares, the chaplain.

Later, Ignatius Loyola wished to take up the task of conversion, but was forbidden. Instead, the pope sent out Joao Nunez Barreto as patriarch of the East Indies, with Andre de Oviedo as bishop; and from Goa envoys went to Ethiopia, followed by Oviedo himself, to secure the king's adherence to Rome. After repeated failures some measure of success was achieved under Emperor Susenyos, but not until 1624 did the Emperor make formal submission to the pope. Susenyos made Roman Catholicism the official state religion, but was met with heavy resistance by his subjects, and eventually had to abdicate in 1632 to his son, Fasilides, who promptly restored the state religion to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. He then expelled the Jesuits in 1633, and in 1665, Fasilides ordered that all Jesuit books (the Books of the Franks) be burned."

JM