A Very, Very Short Introduction to the History of Christianity

Immediately after the time of Jesus, his eleven followers (the apostles) dispersed throughout the Mediterranean and set up small Christian enclaves. In some places these enclaves grew into small communities, and Christians within those communities would sometimes leave to establish more enclaves. Rome was the major power in the Mediterranean during this time, and under Roman law Christianity was illegal, so these enclaves/communities were often operating in the shadows. In 313 CE the Roman emperor legalized Christianity within Rome, and a little bit later he called the major leaders of the religion together to settle its differences and define Christian beliefs. Christianity began to flourish.

In 380 CE Christianity became Rome's state religion. It grew to such a point that, even as Rome began to weaken and fall apart, Christianity remained the religion of Europe. For more than a thousand years of "dark ages," kings and queens of Europe claimed that their throne was a right bestowed upon them by the Christian God, and Christianity was really the only thing that received scholarly attention.

The structure of the religion at this time was based around the kinds of meetings that the Roman emperor called in 313. Scholars, clergy, and royalty would write to each other about the goings on of the religion. If a major problem was identified, a "council" would be called. At a council, all of the major leaders of the religion would come together to decide on what the church as a whole believes about something. For example, at one council they decided on what date Easter would fall; at another they determined that Jesus' divine and human nature co-exist in one being - the councils often ruled on complicated things.

This idea is important because, for a long time, Christianity envisioned itself as a single church. The church leaders thought every member of the church should believe in the same thing and act in the same way toward God. The councils were a nice way to make sure everybody was on the same page. Occasionally, a small subsection of the religion would disagree with the decisions of one of the councils and splinter off into their own church. The Church of the East broke off from the rest of Christianity after disagreeing with the conclusion of the third council, and their geographic and cultural differences were enough that the rift remains to this day. When the disagreement happened within the bounds of European Christianity, though - as in the case of Novation, a Roman priest who was excommunicated and possibly killed around 250 CE for his opposition to a new pope.

And so this process continued for a while, with the European Christian church defending its oneness from threats from within just kind of allowing schisms outside of its cultural sphere to happen. The so-called Great Schism of 1054 is another example of this, though it is called great because the royalty and clergy of the Orthodox church which splintered off were still in very close contact with the rest of the Catholic church, and so the whole ordeal was very messy. Still, though, the dominance of the Catholic church within central and western Europe went more or less unchallenged for another 500 years.