Catholicity

'general', 'universal', via Latin: catholicus)[1] is a concept pertaining to beliefs and practices that are widely accepted by numerous Christian denominations, most notably by those Christian denominations that describe themselves as catholic in accordance with the Four Marks of the Church, as expressed in the Nicene Creed formulated at the First Council of Constantinople in 381: "[I believe] in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."

[citation needed] Among Protestant and related traditions, catholic is used in the sense of indicating a self-understanding of the universality of the confession and continuity of faith and practice from Early Christianity, encompassing the "whole company of God's redeemed people".

[11] Specifically among Moravian,[12] Lutheran,[13] Anglican,[14] Methodist,[15] and Reformed denominations[16] the term "catholic" is used in claiming to be "heirs of the apostolic faith".

[13] A common belief related to catholicity is institutional continuity with the early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ.

Spain, England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Bohemia, Slovakia, Scandinavia, the Baltic states, and Western Europe in general were in the Western camp, and Greece, Romania, Russia and many other Slavic lands, Anatolia, and the Christians in Syria and Egypt who accepted the Council of Chalcedon made up the Eastern camp.

In 1438, the Council of Florence convened, which featured a strong dialogue focussed on understanding the theological differences between the East and West, with the hope of reuniting the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

For times preceding the Great Schism, it refers to the Nicene Creed and especially to tenets of Christology, i.e. the rejection of Arianism.

It is then meaningful to attempt to draw up a list of common characteristic beliefs and practices of this definition of catholicity: Churches in the Roman Catholic tradition administer seven sacraments or "sacred mysteries": Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, also known as Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

Relevant Bible verses include;[47] "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

[50][51][52][53] Richard McBrien would put the proportion even higher, extending it to those who are in communion with the Bishop of Rome only in "degrees".

[62] However, counter examples such as seen above of the term "Roman Catholic Church" being used by popes and departments of the Holy See exist.

[64][65] Eastern Orthodox Christians consider themselves the heirs of the first-millennium patriarchal structure that developed in the Eastern Church into the model of the pentarchy, recognized by Ecumenical Councils, a theory that "continues to hold sway in official Greek circles to the present day".

On the other hand, the model of the pentarchy was never fully applied in the Western Church, which preferred the theory of the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, favoring Ultramontanism over Conciliarism.

[67][68][69][70] The title "Patriarch of the West" was rarely used by the popes until the 16th and 17th centuries, and was included in the Annuario Pontificio from 1863 to 2005, being dropped in the following year as never very clear, and having become over history "obsolete and practically unusable".

[71] Similar notion of the catholicity was also maintained in the former Church of the East, with its distinctive theological and ecclesiological characteristics and traditions.

Broad Church Anglicans tend to maintain a mediating view, or consider the matter one of adiaphora.

These Anglicans, for example, have agreed in the Porvoo Agreement to interchangeable ministries and full eucharistic communion with Lutherans.

In numerous churches the Eucharist is celebrated facing the altar (often with a tabernacle) by a priest assisted by a deacon and subdeacon.

Others, like John Keble, Edward Bouverie Pusey, and Charles Gore became influential figures in Anglicanism.

The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is a patron of Affirming Catholicism, a more liberal movement within Catholic Anglicanism.

It rejoices in the inheritance of the Apostolic Faith and loyally accepts the fundamental principles of the historic creeds and of the Protestant Reformation.

It ever remembers that in the providence of God Methodism was raised up to spread Scriptural Holiness through the land by the proclamation of the Evangelical Faith, and declares its unfaltering resolve to be true to its divinely appointed mission.

The doctrines of the Evangelical Faith, which Methodism has held from the beginning and still holds, are based upon the divine revelation recorded in the Holy Scriptures.

The puritan Westminster Confession of Faith adopted in 1646 (which remains the Confession of the Church of Scotland) states for example that: The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all.

[89]The London Confession of the Reformed Baptists repeats this with the emendation "which (with respect to the internal work of the Spirit and truth of grace) may be called invisible".

[citation needed] The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a division of the People's Republic of China's Religious Affairs Bureau which exercises state supervision of mainland China's Catholics, holds a similar position, while it also attempts, as with Buddhists and Protestants, to indoctrinate them and mobilize them in support of the Communist Party's objectives.

[92] According to McBrien, Catholicism is distinguished from other forms of Christianity in its particular understanding and commitment to tradition, the sacraments, the mediation between God, communion, and the See of Rome.

[note 5] Henry Mills Alden, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, writes that: The various Protestant sects can not constitute one church because they have no intercommunion...each Protestant Church, whether Methodist or Baptist or whatever, is in perfect communion with itself everywhere as the Roman Catholic; and in this respect, consequently, the Roman Catholic has no advantage or superiority, except in the point of numbers.

"[97] "It simply means that body of Christian believers over the world who agree in their religious views, and accept the same ecclesiastical forms.