Since I owe Hijja an apology,I had better rmake it in public

[fpb]

I charged Hijja with saying that the Catholic Church began in 1521 - that is, with the Lutheran schism; implying that the entity that existed before then was different in essence from the one that exists now. I have now looked it up and realized that she did not in fact say that. Mind you, what she said - that the Church before Luther was "the universal Church," meaning undivided - is pretty nearly as wrong. Three great schisms had sliced the East away from her: the Nestorian schism, which lost Persia and missionary areas as far as China and possibly even Japan; the Monophysite, which lost Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Armenia and a missionary field reaching to India; and the Orthodox, which drove her out of the Greek and Russian lands, much of Eastern Europe, and most of the surviving Catholic communities in the Muslim East. For a long time it cannot even be said that the Catholic Church was necessarily the largest Christian Church. But at least it is not quite as bad as to imagine that the distinctive Catholic identity only began with Luther.

I would still like to see KH writing a love story, however.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It depends. The fact that the Catholic Church acknowledges the validity of all baptisms carried out "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," means that there are hundreds of millions of Christians who are not in communion with the undivided Church. On the other hand, you cannot speak of one Church when doctrine is different, authority is different, and in most (Protestant) cases, most Sacraments are not even recognized. The Catholic Church does regard itself as the One Church which Jesus founded, but it does not regard other Christians as outside the Christian community.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Not all baptisms, apparently... the Mormon baptisms are said to be invalid due to lack of proper intent, though the form is there.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yes. In fact, I believe that no major Christian denomination accepts the Mormons as Christian at all. Their theology is too different.