Godless Dave

Thanks, ManM. But even before 1000 AD, I thought the Pope in Rome didn't entirely recognize the authority of the Emperor in Constantinople, and the Emperor didn't recognize the authority of the Pope. This is what I remember from Norman Cantor's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060925531/qid=1036779909/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-7604361-3222323" target="_blank">Civilization of the Middle Ages</a> but I could be mistaken.

[ November 08, 2002: Message edited by: Godless Dave ]</p>

lpetrich

That Emperor is presumably the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, a loose confederation that covered much of Europe and that was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

And some of those Emperors had had power struggles with the pope.

Godless Dave

Actually, I'm talking about the Emperor of the Byzantine empire, which was basically the eastern part of the Roman empire after the western part fell apart.

Kosh

I'm not sure that my neighbors qualify as Fundy:

yes, they're quite misinformed. But a recent exchange went like this:

Neighbor: Our morals are a whole lot better than they were in '95

Me: You weren't a Christian?

Neighbor: We were &lt;gasp&gt;Catholic&lt;/gasp&gt;

Proxima Centauri

<a href="http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0074/0074_01.asp" target="_blank">An example</a> of what Jack Chick believes or preaches.
It is often not certain if what a person preaches is what that person believes.

crunchyfrog

The only christian church that existed was the Jerusalem church under James. It existed from the brief period between the death of Christ and the Pauline Church.

All modern churches are Paulist and NOT Christian.

lpetrich

I wonder what they considered so horrible about Catholicism as opposed to Fundie "true Xianity".

sullster

It makes me sad to realise that even a highly educated person could think that their Protestant Sect could be traced back to the biblical days. The lack of knowledge of history is appalling and discouraging, especially among the highly educated.

All Protestant Sects derive their origin from the period of European history described as "The Reformation". There would be no Protestant Sects on the face of the earth today, if there had not been a Catholic Church in existence after the fall of the Roman Empire. The very word "Protestant" reveals the word-protest. The 'protest', was against the Catholic religion.

The Protestant Reformation included issues
such as German nationalism, the desire for local political power, the rising of peasants, the effects of the printing press, the utter corruption of the Roman Popes and other aspects.

Well, I do protest myself too much, I admit. Why would I expect religious believers to think critically?

Amos

That is true sullster, but throughout history religious sects have emerged that protested against Catholicsm. They all had something in common for which they were ex-communicated and it is along this line of thinking they can be traced back to the first breaking of bread when "many of his desciples remarked 'this sort of talk is hard to endure! How can anyone take it seriously?'" (Jn.6:60, I think), and to this Jesus replied "does that shake your faith?" and after this they left the faith.

So yes, Luther was nothing special because there is nothing to be special in (remember here that all roads lead to Rome). Luther was just obnoxious and so even this protestant movement will run out of steam once they realize that there is only so much fire you can get our of the bible. All they need is time to sort things out for themeselves and you are a good example of this.

[ November 09, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

lpetrich

And as to the Pope and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor, I don't know of where the Pope had questioned that emperor's legitimacy.

In fact, there is a curious document that suggests the opposite: the Donation of Constantine, in which that Emperor had granted the Pope temporal sovereignty over the Papal States of central Italy, including Rome.

This document was shown to be a hoax in the Renaissance by a certain Lorenzo Valla; he pointed out a variety of anachronisms in the language of that document that suggested a later composition -- 800's rather than 300's.