Perhaps about that time --- yes --- or at Pentecost. But the Roman Catholic Church was formed after Constantine took power in Rome.
To quote St. Ignatius of Antioch (you brought him into this, not I):
"to the Church also which holds the presidency in the place of the country of the Romans" (Letter to the Romans).
Hmm, he seems to view the Church of Rome as the leading community of the church.
The fact that this is a lie routinely told by Catholic haters does not make it true.
"But the Roman Catholic Church was formed after Constantine took power in Rome."
Why do you say that?
You have just GOT to stop reading Dan Brown.
Let's see YOUR evidence, please. And check with some of our Orthodox brethren to see if they agree with you, if their evidence matches yours.
Also let's see if we can distinguish, please between "forming" and "legalizing". It seems to me the burden is to show that by giving legal status to something that already existed and by providing some legal framework within which it could operate Constantine showed that the thing he legalized pre-existed his state.
When I was an Episcopal Priest (that is, uh, Protestant), I had to register with the state of NY and of VA to be able to do weddings. In a certain sense, I was an agent of the state government. While it is at least arguable that the Episcopal Church, as a distinct,legal corporate entity began with Henry VIII, nobody says that my ministry began when NY said I could do weddings that the state would acknowledge as legally binding. Furthermore, when Henry VII and his parliament outlawed the RC Church and started killing its members, would you maintain it ceased to exist? If not, then are you saying that a Church only comes into existence by an act of civil or secular law but cannot pass out of existence by a like act? Interesting!
This is an easy distinction to make. It's the blurring of existence on the one hand and legal acknowledgment on the other that is hard to understand. You'd have us believe that a baby doesn't exist until it has a birth certificate!
Another pro-choice position! If you kill it before it has a birth certificate, it never was a baby - no harm, no foul!
(Okay, I admit it, I've been reading Ann Coulter again ...)
"Perhaps about that time --- yes --- or at Pentecost. But the Roman Catholic Church was formed after Constantine took power in Rome."
Where in heaven's name did you get that idea? The "Roman Catholic Church", at least the Church caled that, didn't exist until after the Great Schism. Before that it was simply the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, or so the Fathers called it.