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While this may have seemed to be a positive development for the Christian church, the results were anything but positive.
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Constantine envisioned Christianity as a religion that could unite the Roman Empire, which at that time was beginning to fragment and divide. Later, in AD 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicea in an attempt to unify Christianity. Constantine provided religious toleration with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, effectively lifting the ban on Christianity.
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This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. So, if the origin of the Catholic Church is not in the teachings of Jesus and His apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, what is the true origin of the Catholic Church?įor the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman Empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. In the New Testament, there is no mention of the papacy, worship/adoration of Mary (or the immaculate conception of Mary, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the assumption of Mary, or Mary as co-redemptrix and mediatrix), petitioning saints in heaven for their prayers, apostolic succession, the ordinances of the church functioning as sacraments, infant baptism, confession of sin to a priest, purgatory, indulgences, or the equal authority of church tradition and Scripture. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament will reveal that the Catholic Church does not have its origin in the teachings of Jesus or His apostles.