What is the Catholic Church?

It is the Ancient Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches.

What does this mean?

Although the Catholic Church is commonly mistakenly understood as the Roman Catholic Church on its own (which is merely currently the largest of its Sister Churches of “fully equal dignity” since the Muslim conquests of the Catholic East), The Catholic Church is the collective name of the Catholic (Greek for Universal) COMMUNION of (currently 26) Ancient and Younger Orthodox (non-heretical) Christian Rites or Sister Churches of East and West which each have their own culturally or spirituality-based responses to and celebrations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and each have their own pastoral leadership of the ordained Overseers (bishops or eparchs) who succeeded the different Apostles. Each Sister Church is typically headed by special Overseer called a Patriarch (the original Early Church ‘Pentarchy’ of Patriarchates or Church Provinces based in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and Byzantium/Constantinople), and the Pope in Rome is the Patriarch of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, “first among equals” of the ancient Patriarchs in deference to Peter the Apostle who died there. Each Orthodox and Catholic Sister Church or Rite also recognizes the Pope as the Chief Overseer and Head Pastor (Successor of Peter “the first” or “the chief” Apostle – Greek Protos in Matthew 10:2) of the entire ancient Universal (Catholic) Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches of East and West, which was the structure and form of the Undivided Early Christian Church of the First Millennium, the historic Early Church which pooled together their different insights from their different cultural expressions of Christianity and so together (against many heretics) established the basic, fundamental Christian doctrines including the Trinity and Jesus as “fully God and fully man” at the Early Ecumenical (worldwide) Councils of this Catholic, Christian Church.

Sadly, the reason people today (even Roman Catholic Christians!) commonly confuse the Catholic Church with its Roman Rite only is because since the decimation or forced separation of the Eastern Churches of the ancient Catholic (Universal) Christian Communion, the great majority of Catholic Christians have been Roman Rite Catholic Christians, and lack of contact with the minority of non-Roman Catholic Christians made the Catholic Church take on an overly-Roman and single-minded (not Catholic/Universal enough) character, forgetting the mutually enriching unity in diversity among the Sister Churches of the Undivided Early Catholic (Universal) Christian Church of the First Millennium.

The Protestant Reformers, in impatient response to various not-yet-solved problems and not-yet-reformed abuses within the 16th Century Roman Rite only, split away from the Roman Rite of the Catholic Communion after it had become so over-Romanized and accustomed to only its one valid style of worship. This meant that the Protestant Reformers also no longer had any concept of the Undivded Early Church’s mutually enriching unity in diversity and so each new Protestant church also believed there was only one proper way to love and serve God – theirs (most of the Protestant Reformers hated each other and wrote letters condemning each other, calling each other “sons of Satan” and the like for being different). This attitude by today has resulted in 35,000 distinct Protestant denominations even though most of those which have not gone “doctrinally liberal” (doubting or denying the historic essentials of Christianity) still maintain about 90% of the faith in what God has revealed of the Catholic Communion they left and just express and celebrate it differently - similar to the unity in diversity of the Undivided Early Catholic Church Communion, if only the divisive “one proper way” attitude can be abandoned!

Fortunately, as the Early Catholic Church’s early Ecumenical Councils did away with the satanic mischief of many heresies and other problems within the Church by officially and precisely defining the Church’s previously more implicitly held faith, the modern Catholic Church’s 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) has similarly laid the foundation for doing away with the satanic mischief of prolific 2nd Millennium divisions within the Church by officially and precisely defining the Church’s previously more implicitly held unity in the 1st Millennium. After centuries of being overly-Romanized and single-minded in forms of worship (even to the point of some Roman Catholics occasionally pressuring minority Eastern Catholics to “Romanize,” which just motivated the Eastern Orthodox Churches which had been forced out the Catholic Communion by their Muslim conquerors to stay out of the Catholic Communion), the Catholic Church today since its 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) is in the process of rediscovering itself as the Catholic Communion of Orthodox Christian Sister Churches, a reality it has never lost, but which has been much harder to see since non-Roman Rite Catholic Christians became a small minority. As Vatican Council II’s dogmatic ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) based on the lived reality of the unity in diversity of the Undivided Early Church gradually sinks into the minds and hearts of the “average Catholic” (even while the majority remain Roman Rite Catholic Christians), and as more non-Catholic Christians come to know it and explore it, and as the couple dozen existing non-Roman Rite Catholic Sister Churches continue to be built up and grow and reach out, having been officially reminded by Vatican II of their “fully equal dignity” with the current majority Roman Rite to counteract past instances of being pressured to “Romanize,” there are many ecumenical implications towards the eventual fulfilment of Jesus’ prayer for the unity of all His disciples “so that the world may believe” (John 17:23).

One recent foretaste of this is the Traditional Anglican Communion being invited back into the Catholic Church Communion continuing to use their distinct Anglican Rite (distinctly English cultural response to and celebration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ). This is a big first step towards the eventual re-establishment of the Undivided Early Church’s structure wherein the Anglican Church was the Anglican ‘Daughter Church’ of the Ancient Roman Patriarchate of the Catholic Church, which was initially founded by the missionary Saint Augustine of Canterbury at the request of Pope Saint Gregory the Great (the Archbishops of Canterbury since functioning as the ‘Patriarchs’ of the Anglican Sister Church within the Catholic Communion, until the 16th Century Schism of King Henry VIII).

Already continuing the Undivided Early Church’s structure my own Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (also known as the Byzantine Ukrainian Catholic Church) is specifically the Ukrainian ‘Daughter’ Church of the ancient Byzantine (Greek) Patriarchate of the Catholic Church (and it is currently the largest non-Roman Rite of the Catholic Church Communion). In the Undivided First Millennium Catholic Church it was Greek missionaries of the Byzantine Patriarchate in Constantinople who (at King Saint Vladimir’s request) brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Church then developed its own distinct Ukrainian Rite (distinctly Ukrainian cultural response to and celebration of the Gospel) within the Catholic Communion. Ukraine, as all of the Byzantine Patriarchate, was forced to separate from the Catholic Communion by the Muslim conquerors of Constantinople (Byzantium), and since then the majority of the population of the Eastern Churches has remained Eastern Orthodox but no longer Eastern Catholic (though portions, sometimes large portions, of all of the Sister Churches separated from the Catholic Communion since came back – my own Byzantine Ukrainian Rite of the Catholic Church was only out of the Catholic Communion for 123 years, between 1472 and 1595).

Thankfully, Vatican Council II has now officially dealt with the roots of the Eastern Orthodox Schism (and its long continuance) in cultural prejudice on both sides, members of each Rite (Roman and Byzantine) sadly coming to think their particular cultural response to and celebration of the Gospel was “superior” to the other’s and forgetting the mutually enriching unity in diversity of the Undivided Early Catholic (Universal) Communion of Orthodox Sister Churches which has at last been formally defined by the 21st Ecumenical Council. Because of this, there have already been major milestones towards the re-establishment of the Undivided First Millennium Church’s unity in diversity between East and West in the the 1965 and 2006 Common Declarations of Catholic Popes and Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchs, wherein the leaders of both sides of the Schism confirm together that their Churches are actively working towards “the full communion of faith, of brotherly concord and of a sacramental life which existed between them throughout the first millennium of the life of the Church” (1965). “The Holy Spirit will help us to prepare the great day of the re-establishment of full unity, whenever and however God wills it. Then we shall truly be able to rejoice and be glad” (2006). Other important milestones towards the re-establishment of the ”complete unity” Jesus prayed for “so that the world may believe” have been the Evangelicals & Catholics Together (ECT) Accord, The Gift of Salvation (ECT 2), The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, and The Manhattan Declaration.

Go To Vatican II Implementation

Go To We Must Always Confirm Our Vast Common Ground Before Discussing Our Differences

Go To Sacred Tradition Is the Bride of Christ Dancing with Him Throughout History

Go To The Magisterium (Teaching Office)-the Apostolic Authority to Settle Christian Disputes over Interpretation Passed on in the Living Body of Christ the Church in Order to Preserve Orthodoxy Throughout History

Go To Closer Than We Think: Catholic Prima Scriptura in Relation to Protestant Sola Scriptura: The Bible First though Not Alone

Go To the 3-Volume

So That The World May Believe

A Call to Christian Unity

Jesus Prayed Christians “Be Brought to Complete Unity … So That the World May Believe” (John 17:23,21)

Teaching Christians How to Restore the Lost Unity in Diversity of the Undivided Early Church Through Lovingly Seeking to Truly Understand Each Other’s Differences While Celebrating Our Vast Common Saving Christian Faith and Learning from Our Different Strengths, “So That the World May Believe”

Forward & Introduction

Complete 3-Volume Table of Contents (And Summary at 1/10th the Length)

Volume I Introduction (For Understanding Our Great Common Faith):