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[excerpt]
For the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman Empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine provided religious toleration with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, effectively lifting the ban on Christianity. Later, in AD 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicea in an attempt to unify Christianity. Constantine envisioned Christianity as a religion that could unite the Roman Empire, which at that time was beginning to fragment and divide. While this may have seemed to be a positive development for the Christian church, the results were anything but positive. Just as Constantine refused to fully embrace the Christian faith, but continued many of his pagan beliefs and practices, so the Christian church that Constantine promoted was a mixture of true Christianity and Roman paganism.
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http://www.gotquestions.org/origin-Catholic-church.html

Almost all “Protestants” practice a papacy that’s as bad or worse than Rome’s.......only their pope is local and called “The Pastor”.

Few and rare are the assemblies that have practiced the reality of the Lord Jesus as the true head of the church, and have a plurality of “co-equal” (only in authority) elders who truly preside under Jesus headship, in submission to one another and to all the church.

This was so clearly the early church practice for many years, as this record attests.

Interesting that in all of the NT, the very word “pastor” (singular) is never found except in reference to the Lord Jesus, and only occurs ONCE (Eph. 4:11) in all the NT when referring to leadership/ministry in the local assembly, when it is PLURAL. Elders are however throughout the NT, and always plural, and clearly given the authority to govern.

There were no pastors mentioned in Jerusalem, Antioch (see Acts 13:1), and any other church; no letter is ever written to a pastor, and no man is ever called a pastor in all the NT. It is never a title used by any man - except in man’s religious systems.

Yet, those who claim they adhere to no doctrine or teaching that is not solidly presented in scripture so steadfastly and universally practiced and defended to one that is no where to be found, except in “going beyond what is written” trying to claim that James was “the pastor” of the church in Jerusalem, etc. A method of interpreting scripture they would be aghast at if applied to any other truth.

Flame away - my asbestos suit is on.

PS: true church history records that there have been groups from the first century until now who have lived and practiced the reality of the practical headship of Christ, and plurality of leaders under His headship. The Brethren of the mid 19th century are just one example.

PSS: a plurality of men serving together under his headship is a divine and miraculous event, impossible to man - all of man’s works, both in the world and in what is called the church must be headed by a man, a CEO, or they fail. The “success” of today’s “churches” is all dependent on having a man at the head who is able to draw and keep others as followers - as Paul described in Acts 20:29, 30.