branches+of+catholic

**//Origins and History//** The Roman Catholic Church sees itself beginning in the New Testament era and developing throughout the centuries in communion with the Bishops of Rome (Popes). The Popes are considered the be the direct successors of St Peter, the first leader of the Apostles. The Roman Catholic church is often called "Western" in contrast to the "Eastern" or Orthodox churches. These churches formed an undivided Christian church for over a thousand years. They formally separated at the time of the Great Schism of 1054 over doctrinal disagreements. Among other things, the Orthodox churches rejected the primacy of the Pope. However, the Roman Catholic church continues to include member churches of both Western and Eastern traditions. Quite apart from Uniate churches, the Lebanese Maronite church is strongly represented in Australia, and while it is not "western", it is Roman Catholic.
 * Christianity – Roman Catholicism**

During the Middle Ages, the Catholic church held a virtual monopoly of faith in Western Europe and the increasing power of the clergy led to a series of abuses of church power. In particular, the system of papal indulgences (in which the Pope granted persons spiritual merit in exchange for financial reward or political favour), led to the widespread perception that the church had lost its spiritual remit (referred power). In the 16th Century this found expression in a cluster of vigorous reform movements (the Reformation) which fragmented Catholicism and created new streams of Christian churches outside the Pope s jurisdiction (Protestantism and Anglicanism). This also led to the counter-Reformation, a renewal and reform movement within the Catholic church.

The most significant Catholic event of the 20th Century was the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) which met from 1962 to 1965. Vatican II resulted in far reaching reforms including a more open relationship with non-Catholic churches, the simplification of liturgy, the admission of the vernacular into worship (Latin had been the language of church services for the majority of Catholics), changes in the dress and structure of holy orders, and increased lay participation in church life.

**//In Australia//** Roman Catholics arrived with the First Fleet (1788) and in many subsequent convict and settler convoys to Australia. However the NSW authorities did not permit official celebration of the Catholic mass until 1803. Until 1829, when Catholicism ceased to be illegal in England, Catholics encountered severe prejudice in Australia. By 1833, 10 Catholic schools were in operation in the colony. This system of denominational education continued to grow throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, with State aid becoming available in 1963. In 1836, the first Catholic church was completed in Sydney. In 1843 Australia became a separate diocese.

Historically, Australian Catholicism has been heavily influenced by Irish Catholicism. Since 1945, however, Catholic immigrants from continental Europe, Asia and the Middle East have made their own contributions. The general trend has been one of assimilation rather than the creation of ethnic parishes. There are over 100 religious orders in Australia, whose vocations range from teaching to health care, working with the poor, justice, and cloistered contemplation. In 1875, the first indigenous Australian order of nuns – the Sisters of St Joseph – was founded by Mary MacKillop, who was beatified in 1995.

**//Key Movements//** There is great diversity within the Catholic tradition. In Australia, this commonly reflects ethnicity –Italian Catholics, for example, place a much greater emphasis on the saints than do Irish Australian Catholics. Worldwide, the diversity of Catholic belief and practice finds expression in the variety of lay associations, which range from conservative movements such as Opus Dei and groups centred on Marian devotion, to radical social justice movements working towards financial, racial, and sexual equality. Ethnically-defined rites (or jurisdictions) within the Catholic church include the Maronites, the Ukrainian Rite, and the Melkites.

**//Organisational Structure//** The Catholic Church possesses a clearly defined, episcopal structure. The controversial First Vatican Council (1869-1870), established the primacy and infallibility of the Pope: when speaking in his official capacity on matters of faith and morals, he is preserved from error by the Holy Spirit. Under the Pope is a College of Cardinals who serve as advisors to the Pope and supervisors of church administration. When a Pope dies, the College of Cardinals elects his successor. Under the cardinals are bishops, who run dioceses (Australia has 32). Each diocese is made up of a number of parishes, which are run by priests. The laity has no voting power in major church bodies though they act in advisory capacities to the parish priest.

**//Key beliefs//** In addition to the key beliefs common to all Christians, Catholics believe:
 * There are seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, penance, communion, holy orders, marriage and the sacrament of the sick.


 * The Mass is the centre of the sacramental system, and Catholics are obliged to attend Mass every week.


 * In the sacrament of communion at the Mass, bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation).


 * Catholics affirm that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus was conceived miraculously through the power of the Holy Spirit, and not through sexual relations with her husband Joseph. They also teach that Mary remained a virgin "before, during and after" the birth of Jesus, and that he remained her only child. The church also teaches that at her own conception, Mary herself, by virtue of being the "mother of God" was conceived without original sin. This is referred to as her "Immaculate conception. They also believe in Mary’s “bodily assumption” – that she was taken directly to heaven at the end of her life and enthroned as Queen of Heaven.


 * Catholics place great emphasis on the tradition of church interpretation of the Bible, as distinct from either individual or literal scriptural interpretation.


 * Catholics believe that saints, created through the process of canonisation, can intercede with God on behalf of people who are alive today and petition for their memory.


 * Catholics acknowledge the primacy and the authority of the Bishop of Rome, called the Pope, traditionally regarded as Christ’s representative on Earth.

RESPONSE TASKS

**Christianity - Roman Catholicism** __________________________________   **What All Catholics Should Know About Eastern Catholic Churches** As the Church brought the Christian faith to lands near and far, it strained to maintain common understandings among various peoples. Early Christianity suffered from disagreements about the nature of Christ’s divinity and the understanding of the Trinity. Two early Church Councils—one at Nicea in 325 and another at Constantinople in 381—set Church teaching on these crucial dogmas (notions of ‘truth’), which have been handed down to us in the Nicene Creed (List of Catholic beliefs). Centuries of wear and tear resulted in the East-West schism of 1054, between what came to be known as “Catholicism” and “Orthodoxy.” Centuries later, Catholicism fractured with the Reformation in 16th-century Europe. The new terms were “Roman Catholicism” and “Protestantism.” All along the way, the papacy sought to strengthen its authority. For Catholics, the branches of the Church are properly called the Latin Church and the Eastern Churches. There are two separate codes of canon (church) law, one for the Oriental, or Eastern Churches in union with Rome and another for the Latin, or Western Church (which we usually term the Roman Catholic Church). Each of these legal codes recognizes the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff, the pope in Rome. **Patriarchates** The first large branches in the Catholic family tree appear in the fourth century. The Roman Emperor Constantine, who legalized Christianity, transferred his—and its—headquarters from Rome to the ancient city of Byzantium in the year 330. He renamed this city Constantinople. (We now know it as Istanbul, Turkey.) There were three other important centers of the Roman Empire: **Rome, Antioch in Syria, and Alexandria in Egyp**t. The bishops of these four great cities of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria attained greater supremacy over time, especially at the Council of Constantinople in 381. There the Bishop of Constantinople received honorary status, after the Bishop of Rome. Rome had been the center of a vast empire, and the site of martyrdom for Sts. Peter and Paul. But the East was growing in power. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Bishops of Constantinople and of Jerusalem received territorial authority over their respective areas. Eventually, Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem came to be known as **patriarchates**, that is, Church territories headed by a patriarch. Coincidentally, Christianity spread beyond the Roman Empire. **Syriac-speaking** Christians looked to **Edessa in East Syria** as their center. **Eastern Churches** The 11th-century East-West schism created a complex situation. A large part of the problem was the supreme authority of Rome over other patriarchal Churches. Virtually all the Eastern Churches broke with Rome at some point, and present Eastern Catholic Churches are the result of efforts to restore that connection At present, there are 22 separate groupings of the East that recognize the supreme authority of Rome. In some cases, parts of these communions—21 are “Churches”—are locally administered by a Western bishop. One, the Georgian, is recognized as a grouping, but not as a Church. Each follows the Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches, and uses its own pattern of worship. __**Patriarchal:**__ The six patriarchal Eastern Catholic Churches are: Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic, Maronite, Melkite and Syriac. Their patriarchs, along with their synods (assemblies of bishops), enjoy superior authority in their respective churches. __**Major Archepiscopal:**__ In these, the Ukrainian, the Syro-Malabar and the Syro-Malankar Churches, a major archbishop is essentially the same as a patriarch, although his election, unlike a patriarch’s, must be approved by the Pope. __**Metropolitan:**__ The Ethiopian (or Abyssinian), the Romanian and the Ruthenian Churches are distinct in that their Metropolitan (principal bishop), must request—his sign of authority—from the pope rather than by election from his Church. In these cases the local synod must provide three nominees to the pope, who makes the final choice. __**Others:**__ Nine Eastern Catholic Churches are none of the above. They are called “sui iuris” and are a separate category of churches. For the most part they are a single diocese: the Albanian, Belarussian, Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Italo-Albanian, Slovak, Russian, and churches of the former Yugoslavia—once called //Križevci//, but now including for Macedonia and Serbia/Montenegro. These nine do not have the highly developed hierarchical structures of the other 12. The pope grants authority to the bishop who governs these churches. **Liturgical Families of the East** The differences among the Churches is mostly to do with local cultures. The distinct groupings relate to the three major Eastern patriarchates (Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria) and to Edessa. These in turn influenced other Churches in the Christian East, especially in Chaldea (modern-day Iran) and Armenia. Some of the Eastern Catholic Churches are reunited from the Eastern Churches that separated from Rome during the fifth century, or in 1054, or at other times in the Church’s long history. //The Antiochian liturgical family (group)// has two branches:West Syrian and East Syrian. Antioch was founded by St. Peter, and St. James is credited for its liturgy, which is celebrated in the ancient Syriac language that Jesus spoke, Aramaic, as well as in local language. The West Syrian Churches are the Maronite (which claims always to have been in union with Rome), Syriac (1781), and Syro-Malankarese (1930). The East Syrian, whose liturgy shows the influence of Edessa, are the Chaldean (1692) and Syro-Malabarese (16th century). The Syro-Malabarese, like the Syro-Malankarese, finds roots in the evangelization of St. Thomas in India. //The Alexandrian liturgical family// includes the Coptic (1741) and the Ethiopian (1846). Its liturgy is attributed to St. Mark the Evangelist, and is variously celebrated in Coptic (Ancient Egyptian) and Arabic in Egypt and the Near East, and in Geez (Ethiopian) in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Jerusalem. //The Byzantine liturgical family//, by far the largest - related to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As we trace the lineage of each Byzantine tradition, we find close relations among those Churches linked by geography and/or language. The oldest Byzantine or Constantinopolitan liturgies are those of the Greek (mid-19th century) and Melkite communions. The Patriarchal Melkite Church (18th century) actually began in the Antiochian tradition, but now celebrates liturgy in Greek as well as several local vernacular languages. The Byzantine Slav liturgical family celebrates the liturgy in Old Slavonic and the local language, and includes the Belarussian (17th century), Bulgarian (1861), Hungarian (1646), the churches of the former Yugoslavia, including //Križevci// (1611), Russian (1905), Ruthenian (17th century), Slovak Ukrainian (1595). The //sui iuris// Albanian (1628) and Italo-Albanian (or Italo-Greek, which never separated), and the Metropolitan Romanian Church (1697) tend to use their own languages, despite their Greek roots. **Modified from a text written by //Phyllis Zagano//** **//__________________________________//**   **RESPOND - WHAT ALL CATHOLICS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES**
 * 1)  //Who is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church?//
 * 2)  //Why is the Roman Catholic Church called the ‘Western’ Church? When is this label derived from?//
 * 3)  //What was the Reformation and when did it occur?//
 * 4)  //Why was Vatican II so significant?//
 * 5)  //Why do you think it was illegal to be Catholic in England and consequently NSW in the early 1800s?//
 * 6)  //Historically which group of Catholics has Australia been heavily influenced by? Which other groups have begun to influence Catholics in Australia?//
 * 7)  //Summarise the key beliefs of all Catholics.//
 * 1)  **What two things did the very earliest of churches disagree about?**
 * 2)  **What happened in the schism of 1054?**
 * 3)  **What are the two main branches of the Catholic church?**
 * 4)  **What are patriarchates? List four of them.**
 * 5)  **Draw up a table showing the similarities, differences of the Antiochian, Alexandrian, and Byzantine or Constantinople Patriarchates churches.**
 * 6)  **Using the map provided, colour code and provide a key, showing the different church’s locations.**