Founding of the Roman Catholic Church

The rise of the earliest Christian Church, from the time of its founding to the time of Charlemagne, can be seen with reference to three dynamic processes that correspond roughly to three phases of development: the theological/doctrinal phase, during which fundamental mainstream Church beliefs were authoritatively established; the phase of intrinsic institutional rationalization, during which institutional management, hierarchy, and praxis were conformed; and the phase of Church interaction with non-Church institutions, notably secular culture and state apparatus emergent in early medieval Europe. Now these three dynamics and phases overlap and converge, and overlaying them is the shaping of a distinctively Christian religious identity. Moreover, key events and issue resolution in early Church history must be located geographically because strands of thought and institutional praxis that were to become dominant were associated with specific Christian-era sites, notably the following: Jerusalem, inland from the southeastern Mediterranean coast in Palestine; Ant

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drove Philip's ministry out of Judea toward Ethiopia and Egypt (Acts 8). Though it took its doctrine from James's Jerusalem brethren, the apostolic mission of Paul and Barnabas took its missional identity from their association in Antioch and extended, with Paul's partly enforced relocation in Rome, toward the west. By Acts 28:17ff, Paul, who has preached far and wide in the Levant, has been arrested by Jewish authorities in Caesarea and is being extradited to Rome. The doctrinal design of Acts as a whole emerges in Chapters 27 and 28, which describe Paul's extradition journey by way of a host of Mediterranean ports (Cyprus, Crete, Syracuse (on Sicily), Alexandria), including a shipwreck at the island of Melita (Malta, due south of Sicily). Each stop seems successively less Jewish, successively more Gentile. Local Jewish communities know of the sect that "everywhere [] is spoken against" (Acts 28:22), not least because Paul appears to have upset Jewish and pagan communities all over Asia Minor: "And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed . . . and had great reasoning among themselves" (Acts 28:24-5; 29). It must be remembered that Paul is intro
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3018
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)