Catholics/Eastern Orthodox closer to early Christianity than Christian fundamentalists?

The “first church” is the church that is recorded in the New Testament, especially in the Book of Acts and the Epistles of Paul. The New Testament church is the “original church” and the “one true church.” We can know this because it is described, in great detail, in Scripture. The church, as recorded in the New Testament, is God’s pattern and foundation for His church. Nowhere in the New Testament will you find the “one true church” doing any of the following: praying to Mary, praying to the saints, venerating Mary, submitting to a pope or a bishop, having a select priesthood, baptizing an infant, observing the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments, or passing on apostolic authority to successors of the apostles.

EDIT: I have read the writings of the early Christians and I am in agreement with them "if they are in 'agreement' with Scripture. The writings that do not agree with Scripture should be rejected because it was God and God alone who inspired Scripture, not the early Christians!

We are to take God's word above man's.

The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus. Those who say that the Catholic Church started during the time of Constantine are wrong. There is no historical evidence pointing to this. By the time the Edict of Milan, allowing religious tolerance (some revisionist erroneously say that this edict created the Catholic Church and made it the official church of Rome) was proclaimed there had already been more than 50 popes that reigned from the time of Peter. The Church was already referred to as the Catholic Church as early as AD 107 according to the writings of St. Ignatius of Antich. It is quite possible that the term already applied during the first century.

Yes, the fundies and evangelicals have new heretical doctrines that were not taught by the Apostles of Jesus. These false doctrines are based on their wrong interpretation of th Bible. And the weird thing is that a lot of these fundies say that they are the only true Christians and that Catholics are not Christians.

i am a christian who study the bible but church is out of the Q. Here are my two-cents worth.

1. are you a theology student bc i don't u/stand theological terms. I study the bible from genesis through to revelation in order to u/stand God's message to mankind.

2. ' Real Presence of Jesus in Communion ' ... and this means ?

if i take the phrase literally, yes i do believe that Jesus is present not only in communion but also at every convocation since if 2 or more are gathered in my Name, there I will be.

3. i support infant baptism. I see it as the duty of parents to guide and prepare their children for life on this earth.

4. i don't believe in asking for the intercession of saints and angels ...

in those days, perhaps some of the apostles and those who have seen Jesus in person were still alive. It makes sense to ask them to intercede in matters.

Asking angels to intercede is completely unbiblical.

Nowhere in the OT or the NT was this done before Jesus, during nor after Jesus' death. I have to conclude that this is idolatry.

5. some more theological terms which i won't bother to look up ... ' Consubtantiation versus Transubstantiation '.

6. ' Other mainstream Protestants like the methodists view the presence of Jesus in Communion to be only Spiritual. '

i believe that Jesus is present and we cannot see Him = spiritual vs physical.

7. ' veneration of the saints ' ... only God knows who will meet the criteria to enter heaven and thus be called a saint. So how any human being, pope or not, is able to judge this ? who made him a judge in this matter ? who would guess that at the last moment, the thief on the cross would believe in Jesus and thus obtain forgiveness ...

8. osas is a false doctrine as is premillenial rapture.

finally, for the naked Truth, read the bible for yourself.

You'll learn a lot more than follow mere men or church.

The Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number between 225 and 300 million members. It is considered by its adherents to be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ and his Apostles almost 2,000 years ago. The Church is composed of several self-governing ecclesial bodies, each geographically and nationally distinct but theologically unified. Each self-governing (or autocephalous) body, often but not always encompassing a nation, is shepherded by a synod of bishops whose duty, among other things, is to preserve and teach the Apostolic and patristic traditions and related Church practices. All Orthodox bishops trace their lineage back to the Apostles through the process of Apostolic Succession, in the same manner as the Roman Catholic, Oriental Orthodox and some other churches.

The Orthodox Church traces its development back through the Byzantine and Roman empires, to the earliest churches established by St. Paul and the Apostles. It clings tenaciously to its ancient traditions and practices, believing in growth without change. In non-doctrinal matters the church has occasionally shared from local Greek, Slavic and Middle Eastern traditions, among others, in turn shaping the cultural development of these nations.

Orthodox Christians believe that the ultimate goal of every Christian is to become like God, to love perfectly, to become “Little Christs” within Jesus Christ. This process is called theosis or deification.

The Biblical text used by the Orthodox includes the Greek Septuagint and the New Testament. It includes the Deuterocanonical Books, which are generally rejected by Protestants, and a few texts that are not in the Western canon. Orthodox accept scripture as the inspired Word of God, believing scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit to its authors, speakers and editors. Orthodox Christians also utilize icons as focal points when venerating the saints in their daily worship, while rejecting three-dimensional statuary. It should be fully understood that the icon is not venerated but is a device to identify with the consciousness of the person represented therein. The Orthodox Church maintains that this is not idolatry, but that the icon is used only as a means of identification of a God-created person.

You must be studying Catholic sources. The Catholic church started when Emperor Constantine declared the whole empire to be christian which brought in a lot of pagan beliefs and practices in to make it work. Of course some of those practices got passed on to the protesters.

The first churches meet in homes and did not have all the candles and rituals we do today. They were simple people sharing their personal testimonies and the stories that were told about Jesus. Non of the new testament was written til years after Jesus died, so it was word of mouth and what they heard of Torah(OT) and applied to Jesus.

Of course the fundamentalists are farther away because they try to take things as historical that where meant to be teaching tools for faith not for fact.

Protestantism, in all essential elements, merely borrows wholesale from Catholic Tradition, or distorts the same. All doctrines upon which Catholics and Protestants agree, are clearly Catholic in origin (Holy Trinity, virgin birth, Jesus' Resurrection, second coming, canon of the Bible, heaven, hell, etc.). Those where Protestantism differs are usually distortions of Catholic forerunners. For example, Quakerism is a variant of Catholic Quietism. Calvinism is an over-obsession with the Catholic idea of the sovereignty of God, but taken to lengths beyond what Catholicism ever taught (denial of free will, total depravity, double predestination, etc.). Protestant dichotomies such as faith vs. works, come from the nominalism of the late Middle Ages, which was itself a corrupt form of Scholasticism, never dogmatically sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Whatever life or truth is present in each Protestant idea, always is derived from Catholicism, which is the fulfillment of the deepest and best aspirations within Protestantism.

One of Protestantism's foundational principles is sola Scriptura, which is neither biblical (see below), historical (nonexistent until the 16th century), nor logical (it's self-defeating) idea

Today there are so many Protestant churches because there is so much different interpretation of the Bible; there is so much different interpretation of the Bible because there is so much wrong interpretation of the Bible. And there is so much wrong interpretation because the system of interpreting it is radically wrong. You cannot have one fold and one shepherd, one faith and one baptism by letting every man and every woman distort and pervert the Scriptures to suit their own pet theories.

In our day, there is no whim, fad or fancy that some one does not claim to prove from the Bible. Almost any man or woman is conceited enough to set himself up as a competent interpreter of the word of God. "I think the Bible means this, therefore it does mean this," is their modest position. These men and women want it thoroughly understood that our forefathers in the faith were all fools that for the last nineteen hundred years, the Christian world was in inky darkness. With them, however, light has come into the world.

I think the beliefs you are calling "fundamentalist" descend from the Puritan beliefs espoused by Calvin, and such as he, in the late sixteenth century. These felt that the church should be as was described in scripture -- Acts of the Apostles, and what can be discerned from Paul's letters -- and never mind the writings of any church father, even one as early as Polycarp. Practices described by Polycarp, Clement, Irenaus, etc. do not appear in scripture. It may be that such practices did exist among the earliest Christians -- and are among the ones condemned by Paul in his several letters as "false doctrine."

In other words, whether certain practices were current is not germane: whether they are correct, is. We know from Paul's letters that disagreements on how to run a church and what to believe were present from the very beginning. But "present" does not mean "correct." .... On the other hand, I disagree with the Calvinists: a practice being absent from scripture does not make it wrong, either; for scripture says the apostles had authority to institute changes.

Lets step back even further before the Orthodox gain power. and Yes that is how it happened in Constantine's time.

There are two basic Doctrines:

one says you have a soul I have given you the laws through your soul, the soul is love

soul is strength

soul is eternal

the other says you are a sinner and will have to repent continuously, this is the one the Orthodox subscribe to.

to you question direct:

People of that time needed something physical to relate. Their minds could not conceive , so the bead and wine were adopted so they could related to the communion.

In reality if you look at the actual greek and other cannons the person that the name jesus has be ascribe to, spoke of looking inside one self.

Imagine what those in power in the Church would do if they had only to teach to love yourself, and others.

Yes. "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."

Protestantism (with their doctrines of Bible Alone, Faith Alone, Once Saved Always Saved, ect.) was founded (by Martin Luther, John Calvin etc.) 1500+ years AFTER the founding of Christianity.

Only the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Communion of Churches can claim they are the continuation of the early Christian communities (Apostolic Succession).

The only Christians following in Jesus' footsteps and the early Christians are Jehovah's Witnesses. That's why as Jesus said, the world would be against them and they would be a spectacle to the world and they would hate them, that includes Babylon the Great the world empire of false religion that Satan controls. Time is very short not to check it out. Jehovah's Witnesses are the only Christians in the world to actually have love among themselves no matter where they go in the world. They don't pick up arms and kill their brothers just because they are from another nation. And they show sincere love for their neighbors by going therefore and preaching the good news of the kingdom just as Jesus said to help those that would listen to them.