[AlbionGirl]

The roots before all that. You know, Peter, the Rock I build my Church on, etc., etc. I don't think I am mistaken, but if I am, you didn't make a good case for how I am.

It doesn't seem to me that genuine affection and caring is strictly a by product of the 'spiritual requirement' of the Cross you're supposed to bear. That is a hollow and perfunctory understanding of the Commandment to Love.

Of these three, "Love is the geatest", not love just because you're supposed to bear it, but genuine, honest to goodness love. I see that in my Evangelical co-workers, It is not simply because they bear spiritual requirement on behalf of the Cross. It is because they genuinely have affection for me, as I do for them, and do not presume to know who -other than themselves- is saved and who is not.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

If I'm not mistaken, all sects trace their roots to Catholicism. ~~ I'm afraid you are mistaken. Not all protestant denominations trace their roots to catholicism. Most of them trace their roots to the Protestant Reformation. ~~ The roots before all that. You know, Peter, the Rock I build my Church on, etc., etc. I don't think I am mistaken, but if I am, you didn't make a good case for how I am.

Respectfully, the Eastern Orthodox would, of course, maintain that Roman Catholicism traces its roots to Eastern Orthodoxy -- not the other way around.

However, even in the West, there is an ancient and venerable Independent and non-Roman Christian Faith Tradition dating back to the earliest days of the Church. This lineage can be traced through the Presbyters of Iona and the Ambrosian-Rite Christians of Northern Italy and the Alps (whom even the Popes themselves admitted to be independent of Roman Jurisdiction until well into the 10th Century), through the 11-15th Century Waldensian Christians, to the Reformers themselves. At the 1532 Angrogne Confession, the Reformers severed their adherence to Papal Rome and instead covenanted themselves to this ancient and Independent Christian Faith Tradition.

You can read all about it HERE: The Covenant Line: From Eden to Independence Hall

The Angrogne confession was a direct result of the contact that the Waldenses had with the Reformers in the year 1530. The story is in many ways a thrilling one; the beleaguered, dispirited Waldenses of Savoy, fearing themselves to be the only true Christians left in the world and facing the possibility of total extermination at the hands of their Catholic enemies, suddenly began to hear accounts of a great religious movement sweeping the lands to the north of them, in which men and women were rejecting Catholic falsehoods and turning back to the truths of the Bible as the Waldenses understood them. Two representatives were sent from Piedmont to Basel to meet with the Lutheran Reformer Oecolampadius, who was astonished and pleased to learn of the existence of the faithful Waldenses who had preserved the evangelical faith from the time of the apostles, and he gave them much advice and godly counsel. ~~ (Williamson, Ibid.)

A manifold interest belongs to the meeting of these two Churches. Each is a miracle to the other. The preservation of the Vaudois Church for so many ages, amid the fires of persecution, made her a wonder to the Church of the sixteenth century. The bringing up of the latter from the dead made her a yet greater wonder to the Church of the first century. These two churches compare their respective beliefs: they find that their creeds are not twain, but one. They compare the sources of their knowledge: they find that they have both of them drawn their doctrine from the Word of God; they are not two Churches, they are one. They are the elder and younger members of the same glorious family, the children of the same father. ~~ (Wylie, “History of the Waldenses”)

According to the very best of 16th-Century Roman Catholic expositors, a definitive theological nomenclature may be assigned to this ancient and venerable Independent and Non-Roman Western Christian Faith Tradition in terms of their covenanted Heirs amongst the Reformers:

• Lindanus, a Catholic bishop of the see of Ghent, who wrote in defence of the tenets of the Church of Rome, about 1550, terms Calvin "the inheritor of the doctrine of the Waldenses."
  
• Mezeray, the celebrated historiographer of France, in his Abridgement of Chronology, speaking of the Waldenses, says, "They held nearly the same opinions as those who are now called Calvinists."
  
• Gualtier, a Jesuitical monk, in his chronological tables, drew up a catalogue consisting of seven and twenty particulars, in which he shows that the principles of the Waldenses, and those of the Calvinists coincided with each other...
• Aeneas Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius II) declares the doctrine taught by Calvin to be the same as that of the Waldenses...

So there is at least one Western Christian Sect which does not "trace their roots to Catholicism"; at least not Roman Catholicism. This Sect -- having severed its ties with Papal Rome -- refoundationalized their theological basis, covenanting themselves instead to a Western Christian Faith Tradition every bit as ancient and venerable as that of Rome, and (as is admitted by Rome's own defenders) preserved and advanced the Teachings of Independent, Non-Roman Christianity in the West for the benefit of later generations of Christians.

This Sect is called Calvinism.

best, OP

[k2blader]

The roots before all that. You know, Peter, the Rock I build my Church on, etc., etc.

I don't believe Matthew 16:18 establishes Peter as "first pope".

And my Christian roots are simply not Catholic.

[Desdemona]

You know, Peter, the Rock I build my Church on, etc., etc. I don't think I am mistaken, but if I am, you didn't make a good case for how I am.

You are correct. The orginal PROTESTants were protesting against the Catholic church. The Schism with the Orthodox is a different kettle of fish.