[Cronos]

But the churches established with believers who were personally won to Christ by the Apostles were simple local assemblies of believers. Believers moved on from place to place for various reasons just as they do today

Yes, and they remained in the hierarch structures -- check any historical background. Even the Naimans were in contact with the CAtholicos of Ctesiphon-Selucia

[Quix]

NOPE.

Here and there, eventually.

And power has a way of consolidating more power.

Not very successfully, for a few hundred years, though.

It’s an interesting fantasy of revisionism and rubber history to construe it otherwise.