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To: edwinland; Arthur McGowan

Has anyone in the RCC ever said why your church is not call the Roman Christian Church? Why the undying attachment to the word “Catholic” and detachment from the word “Christ-ian” in how you identify your church to the world?


239 posted on 02/26/2015 12:02:35 PM PST by Resettozero
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To: Resettozero
Has anyone in the RCC ever said why your church is not call the Roman Christian Church? Why the undying attachment to the word “Catholic” and detachment from the word “Christ-ian” in how you identify your church to the world?

By RCC do you mean the 'Roman Catholic Church'? The term 'Roman Catholic Church' is not the proper name of the Catholic Church and it is not used by the Church herself. The proper name of the Catholic Church is simply the "Catholic Church".

To answer your question, the term "The Catholic Church" was adopted sometime in the First Century A.D.

The earliest recorded evidence of the use of the term "the catholic church" can be found in Saint Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Christians in Smyrna in approximately AD 110.

It can also be found in the Nicene Creed which refers to the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." As the Creed was formalized over a millenium before the reformation, the name was not attempting to address divisions which arose much later among the Churches.

Incidentally, other Christian churches have names such as "The United Methodist Church", "The Church of England" and there's also the Southern Baptist Convention. I don't think in any of these cases they are "detaching" themselves from the word Christian in how they identify themselves to the world.

264 posted on 02/26/2015 2:03:15 PM PST by edwinland
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