Constantine hijacked true Christianity and called it Roman Catholicism,...first Christians weren't called ...?

Right. First Christians are in Acts in the Bible. And the seven churches in Revelation. They weren't catholic.

Jesus Christ is God and Savior.

@ cristoiglesia

There was no such thing as "Catholic Christians" before the Reformation; there were Christian Catholics though. Christian Catholicism was hijacked by Romans. The Romans impaired Christian Catholicism greatly (APOSTASY). Protestants called this ‘Christian Catholicism’ Roman Catholicism. Protestants attempted to reform Roman Catholicism to Christian Catholicism but the Devil created confusion because he didn’t want and doesn’t want humans to know the truth. “Catholic Christians” and “Protestants Christians” are names that came into existence after the Reformation because both claimed to be Christian, hence, why they are both subsets of Christianity by classification. The names aren’t false. Protestants weren’t “expressing their hatred for Christ’s own Church”. If the Protestants hated anything, it was the APOSTASY. Protestants called these ‘Christian Catholics’ Roman Catholics because that is what they truly were and are.

That's what we've been saying all along. And also remember that the Protestant religions are branches that broke off from the Catholic Church. So where does that leave them ? That's why J.W.'s are neither part of the Catholic or Protestant religions. Their beliefs are based totally on the teachings of the original first century Christians.

A ridiculous concept. Whether Catholics were the original Christians or not, Catholicism certainly was not founded/created by Constantine. Several historical documents mention Catholicism by name and speak of its organizational hierarchy in detail as early as 110 A.D., centuries before Constantine was born.

Also - papist - I wouldn't use that word if I were you. It's kind of the N-word for Catholics.

No... there was no unity in Christianity at all. They were just scattered small emerging cults, all with different beliefs. There was no "true" Christianity.

Under Constantine, Christians finally unified. And the Catholics gave the world the Christian Bible, picking and choosing and compiling the scriptures.

All Christianity got filtered through Catholicism for the next 1000 years... so if you think there were "true" Christians, then these Christians did not use the Bible... and whatever they knew or believed was lost anyway.

Constantine did nothing of the sort.

It's true he pushed the Church to hold councils and settle the very substantial theological issues that were causing controversy in his day. He did that because he was trying to run an empire, had just allowed Christians to participate without persecution, and had mobs of Christians picking sides and fighting it out in the streets of multiple cities.

But Constantine did not impose the decisions; he left that to the church leaders in the councils. (He was probably surprised by their choices.)

And Roman Catholicism did not separate from the real worldwide Catholic Church (which DID call itself that, quite early) until more than seven CENTURIES after Constantine.

"Papists" was a term coined yet another five centuries or so later, during the Reformation. I've never heard "Vaticanites" before; who the heck uses it?

I"ve seen this question before and I have another that points out the logic used by those that are bigoted against the Catholic Church, which is most American Protestant churches.

Almost everybody in this country has referred to a motorized vehicle as a car, but someone (I don't think it was Constantine) hijacked the true horseless carriages and called it a "Car." The first true vehicles were called horseless carriages, then Motorcar Automobile, they weren't called cars, rides, wheels, etc. I dare you to find a reference to a Car in the early literature describing the first horseless carriages.

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Your claims are inaccurate.

Historically, it is not possible to identify Constantine as the founder of Roman Catholicism. There simply is no evidence that he - personally - had any significant influence on Christian doctrine *except for* the violent suppression of dissident Christian factions. Historically, the beliefs of the majority of Christians when Constantine died was the very same as the beliefs of the majority of Christians when Constantine was born.

More specifically:

- The term "Roman Catholic" dates to the Protestant Reformation. There is NO historical evidence that Constantine coined the term as you claim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_%28ter...

- The earliest known use of the term "catholic church" is from the very early second century - roughly 200 years before the time of Constantine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic#History_of_e...

Conclusion: clearly you have not studied the history of early Christianity apart from the Bible itself. Instead, you have trusted an unreliable source that has given you false information, and you have - unwisely - repeated that false information in a public forum. Please study the history of early Christianity - there are several reliable text books on the subject, ranging from high school level to doctoral level.

- Jim

The only thing the Emperor Constantine did for the Church was to stop the persecution of the Church and give freedom of religion to the empire with the Edict of Milan. Constantine was never a Catholic but was instead baptized on His deathbed by two Arian bishops. Arianism had already been condemned at the Council of Nicaea.

Protestants were the first to call Catholic Christians Roman Catholic as a pejorative name and not Constantine. All the false names for Catholics were coined by Protestants in expressing their hatred for Christ's own Church. God bless!

In Christ

Fr. Joseph

You are correct. The first Christians were not Catholics at all.

Acts 11:26

And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

No, Constantine merely called various representatives of Christianity together and asked them to agree on doctrine. By that time the orthodoxy was pretty well-established and earlier forms of Christianity had been wiped out. The Nicene Creed was the statement they came up with.

The First Council of Constantinople of 381 changed the words a bit and added a passage about the "holy catholic and apostolic church." Catholic meant universal; it was not the name of a particular sect at the time even though the church of the time is clearly the predecessor of both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. That was well after the death of Constantine.

The first Christians had a wide variety of beliefs that modern Christians probably wouldn't recognize. If the earliest versions of Christianity were the true ones, no one is practicing True Christianity now.