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1 results

  • 25 - Church structure and organisation

  • from PART III - THEMES AND PROBLEMS
  • Edited by Paul Fouracre, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 December 2005, pp 675-709

  • Summary

    By the later third century, when it began to be widely persecuted, the Christian community of believers had already created within the Roman Empire the basic forms of church organisation. The big councils, which were used as arenas for opinions and as a stage for the development of the church, were all held in the Greek East and only superficially concerned themselves with the modest Christianity of the West. The liturgy had its first flowering in the period 500-700 and it grew out of the variety of prayer and church services which had evolved under Byzantine influence. The Acacian and Henotikon schisms were a legacy of the fifth century, in which the papacy was embroiled up to the end of the century. The synod in Rome had a special position because it brought together all the bishops in suburbicarian Italy. The churches in the West were self-assured in their Christian belief and respected Rome as the city of the apostle.