The Church in History Series (4 vols.)

This study of the formation of the church begins with the earliest Christian community in Jerusalem, led by Jesus’ disciples, and ends with the expansion of Christianity into various regions of the Roman Empire. Tracing the growing pains of the church from its birth through its separation from Judaism, to its struggle against Gnostic and pagan influences, the author demonstrates how early Christians deepened their loyalty to the apostolic tradition by wrestling with internal and external challenges.

The author appeals to the general reader as well as the scholar by addressing perennially popular questions: Did Jesus marry? Who was responsible for the crucifixion? What is the relationship between philosophy and theology? And how were the Scriptures compiled?

The volume concludes with teachings of the church father Irenaeus of Lyons, who presents an image of a church shaped by ministry, canon, creed, and openness to the world—a church that, by method and model, offers a solid base for growth in the following centuries.

Almost without exception, the “histories of the church” available in print are histories of Western Christianity, with only brief mentions of the East. This volume—the second in a planned series of six—attempts to achieve a more balanced approach. Filling the needs of students, but also of a wider readership, it describes the expansion of Christianity in the East and the West in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries—from Ireland to the Indian Ocean and from Germany to Nubia. It exposes the tensions which arose between the inevitable cultural pluralism and the needs of church unity—an issue which stands at the center of modern ecclesiological concerns. It discusses the debates on the identity of Christ, formally solved by the decrees of the great ecumenical councils, but which left Christendom divided. It defines the problems raised by the arbitrariness of Eastern Roman emperors and by the gradual development of Roman primacy.

This volume gives an account of the Church in the period from the end of the Sixth Ecumenical Synod in 681 to the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Although “Greek East” and “Latin West” are becoming distinct entities during this expanse of time, the author treats them in parallel, observing the points at which their destinies coincide or conflict and noting developments within the whole of the Church rather than striving simply, or even primarily, to explain the eventual schism between Eastern and Western Christendom.

Covering events both unique to each part (the Iconoclastic controversy in the East and the rise of the Carolingian Empire in the West) and common to each part (monastic reform, renaissance, and mission) the author skillfully portrays two Christian civilizations that share much in common yet become increasingly incomprehensible to one another. Despite curious synchronisms between East and West, the author demonstrates how two paths diverged from a once common route, and how eventually Byzantine Orthodoxy defined the Greek East over against the Latin West in theological, religious, cultural, and political terms.

This volume examines developments in the churches of the East and the West in the High Middle Ages, including major Western movements such as the reform papacy, the crusades, and scholasticism, and their impact on the Eastern Church. Concurrently, the author explores the theological and spiritual tides that spread from Byzantium to the northern regions of the Balkans and Rus’, and lastly recounts the stories of the native churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Armenia, and Georgia.

Through careful analysis, this volume exposes many factors that contributed to Christian disunity in the Middle Ages and that made attempts at reunion between the two halves of Christendom fail. Therefore, this work challenges and stimulates not only church historians but also all Christians concerned with the root causes of disunity in the Body of Christ.