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Lesson 6

Unity, Diversity, and Schism in the Early Church

The early Church operated under the principle of subsidiarity.

Catechism Connections

Lesson Topics
Catholic Apologetics Church History Heresies
Essential Lessons

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Lesson Vocabulary

  • Patriarch
    :
    (n.): A bishop of the highest rank second only to the pope. In the early Church, individual and regional churches (i.e., Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) were led by patriarchs. The modern equivalent in the Catholic Church is an archbishop. Today, the heads of Eastern Catholic rites (who are in communion with the pope) and Eastern Orthodox Christians are called patriarchs.
  • Subsidiarity
    :
    (n.): The organizing principle that matters are best handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized authority. A community of a higher order should not interfere with the inner life of a community of a lower order, depriving it of its functions, but should support it in case of need and help integrate it into the larger society, with a view to the common good.
  • Heresy
    :
    (n.): The obstinate denial after Baptism of a truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith.
  • Apostasy
    :
    (n.): Renunciation of a religion. Among sins against the First Commandment, apostasy is the sin of total repudiation of the Christian Faith.
  • Schism
    :
    (n.): A division caused by differences in belief. Among sins against the First Commandment, schism is the refusal of submission to the pope or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.
  • Ecumenical Council
    :
    (n.): A meeting of all the world’s bishops together in union with the pope.
  • Council of Nicaea
    :
    (n.): The first ecumenical council of the Church, called by Roman Emperor Constantine in AD 325, which taught that Jesus is consubstantial with the Father, and which initially drafted what would become the Nicene Creed.
  • Consubstantial
    :
    (adj.): Of the same substance. This word is used to describe how God the Father and God the Son are both fully God, or of the same divine substance. This teaching was definitively set forth in the Nicene Creed to combat false teachings about Jesus and affirm the Truth of His human and divine natures.
  • Arianism
    :
    (n.): An influential heresy of the early Church that taught that Jesus, the Son of God, was created by God the Father, and therefore not truly equal to Him or of the same substance.
  • First Council of Constantinople
    :
    (n.): An ecumenical council convened in AD 381 that condemned again Arius’s teaching, reaffirmed the teachings of the Council of Nicaea, and issued a revised Creed.
  • Apollinarianism
    :
    (n.): The name given to a heresy of the early Church which asserted that Christ had a human body and a human- sensitive soul but not a human rational mind.
  • Theotokos
    :
    (n.): Title for the Blessed Virgin Mary which means she is the Mother of God, from the Greek for “God-bearer.”
  • Hypostatic Union
    :
    (n.): The union of the divine and human natures in the one divine Person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
  • Council of Ephesus
    :
    (n.): An ecumenical council convened by Emperor Theodosius in AD 431, which condemned Nestorianism and proclaimed the hypostatic union — that Christ is one person with two natures — a human nature and a divine nature.
  • Nestorianism
    :
    (n.): The name given to a heresy of the early Church that divided Jesus into two persons, an eternal divine Person and a created human person who were closely connected but not one and the same.
  • Tome of Leo
    :
    (n.): Pope St. Leo the Great’s letter clarifying the teaching of the Council of Ephesus, and which became one basis for the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.
  • Council of Chalcedon
    :
    (n.): An ecumenical council convened in AD 451 that condemned the heresey of Monophysitism and further clarified Church teaching on the two natures of Christ.
  • Monophysites
    :
    (n.): Christians, such as the Coptic Orthodox, who believe that Jesus Christ has a single nature that is both fully human and fully divine. Churches with Monophysite Christologies are called Oriental Orthodox Churches.

    • Plan

    Chapter Powerpoint
    pptx
    Chapter Powerpoint Activity 3
    pptx
    Vocabulary Review
    pdf
    Vocabulary Review Answer Key
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    Teach

    Christ handing the Keys of the Kingdom to Peter (ca. 1481)
    jpg
    Delivery of the Keys (c. 1481-1482)
    jpg

    Extend

    'Are they Really Catholic?' Article

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