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== History ==

History:

The original Christian community was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ and led by the Apostles. St. [[Paul|Paul the Apostle]] was, together with [[Saint Peter]], the most notable of Early Christian missionaries. Christians were subjected to persecution, first under [[Nero]], shortly after the foundation of the church, and again, more severely, under the emperors [[Decius]] and [[Diocletian]] in the third century as well as [[Domitian]], [[Marcus Aurelius]] and others with the penalty for being Christian ultimately being death. After almost 300 years of persecution against the Church had only seen Christianity flourish, the Emperor [[Constantine I]] had a religious experience and legalized Christianity in the early fourth century.  Going to war with the co-Emperor of the east [[Lucinius]] over his continued persecution of Christians, Constantine won and became sole Emperor. The age of persecution was over.  

Christianity, of course, began with Jesus. Paul was converted and made thousands of Greeks in many cities believers. Some Jews converted people in Rome. Using Christianity as a scapegoat for the great fire in the city, Emperor Nero fed thousands to the lions, crucified Peter, and beheaded Paul. For the next two centuries Christianity grew very slowly. Yet in 312 the emperor Constantine converted. He spread it. Yet a heresy developed: Arianism, which regarded Jesus as being a Lesser Being than God. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325, it was condemned. Catholicism became a name for those in the west who opposed it, while in the east anti-Arians were called Orthodox members. The former is Greek for universal, the latter means right believing. Yet most Germanic tribes were Arians, not Catholics/Orthodox members.  

[[Image:Christians.jpg|thumb|450px]]

In 380, Emperor [[Theodosius I]] accepted Christianity as the official religion of the [[Roman Empire]]. By the time of the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, the surrounding barbarian nations had been Christianized, although mostly they followed [[Arianism]].  Over the next century or so they embraced Catholicism.

Eventually, the bishop of Rome became known as the Pope whereas that in Constantinople was called the Patriarch. The former made the Germanic tribes Catholic, the latter made the Slavs Orthodox devotees. In 1054, the two churches went their own ways.  

During the [[Middle Ages]] the Church underwent a time of missionary activity and expansion. After numerous disputes between eastern and western churches that became more pronounced from the ninth century onwards, the Church underwent the [[Great Schism]] in 1054 that divided it into a Western (Latin) branch, which has been called the Catholic Church and an Eastern branch, which has become known as the [[Orthodox Church]]. Both traced their roots to the time of Jesus, but the Orthodox Church did not acknowledge the Pope as the one leader of the Church and instead believed that all of the patriarchs were equals.

During the Middle Ages, the Church not only controlled spiritual life but also much of political and economic life. Bishops were advisers to kings and vast estates were owned by monasteries or by the Pope himself. Devoution to the relics of saints was widespread. Sins such as homosexuality, paganism, worshipping the Devil, and genocide were almost unknown. Overall, most medieval Catholics were moral and pious.  

The second major schism was the [[Protestant Reformation]] in the 16th century. As a reaction to the increasing popularity of Protestantism the Roman Catholic Church began to undertake some reforms. Firstly from 1869–1870 during the [[First Vatican Council]]. It was during the [[Second Vatican Council]] (1962–1965) that the most comprehensive reforms were undertaken. The Roman Catholic Church stretched relations with other Christian communities and other religions. The Roman Catholic Church also issued directions for a revision of the liturgy.

Yet Church leaders were often corrupt. This exploded in the Renaissance. Martin Luther, a German monk, protested. Unintentionally, he founded the Protestant churches. Soon most Scandinavians, some Frenchmen, most Englishmen and Scotsmen, and virtually everybody in northern Germany and the Netherlands practiced either Lutheranism (Germany, Scandinavia), Calvinism (France, Netherlands, Scotland), or Anglicanism (England). Protestants and Catholics battled. Spain, Portugal, France, southern Germany, and Italy remained Catholic, while Germany, Holland, England, Scotland, Wales, and Scandinavia were Protestant.  

 

In the Enlightenment, radical philosophers such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rosseau challenged Christianity in general. During the French Revolution, churches, monasteries, and convents were destroyed and Napoleon's troops dealt a permanent blow to the Church via promoting skepticism.  

 

The Church had to battle nationalism, communism, socialism, and persecution in the 19th century, seeing much property in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain seized from it and Catholicism being cracked down upon by devil-worshipping anticlericals. Meanwhile, it battled communism in the next century. Pope Pius XII heroically rescued many Jews in the Holocaust. Today, the Church again flourishes.

==Different churches==

==Different churches==