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You muddle out, "why do you suppose God let the Christian world get it so wrong for so long?" The problem with your query is your assumption that the institution you trust for your salvation is 'the christian world'. Catholicism is not 'the Christian World' and the catholic institution is not God's Temple.

The other blanket assumption is that everyone else or anything else that is not Catholic is wrong.

The mentality fails to recognize that truth is out there and Catholicism is not the sole possessor of the truth.

It's also assuming that God did indeed *let* error go for 1500 years, not trusting the God ALWAYS has a remnant and that He did not neglect the salvation of men's souls.

It's also that without the Catholic church what would men do? How could God manage without Catholicism to keep people on the straight and narrow.

A lot of erroneous assumptions about the character and integrity of God.

"The other blanket assumption is that everyone else or anything else that is not Catholic is wrong." Orthodoxy does not teach that at all. We KNOW that the path to theosis is found within The Church. We DO NOT know that it isn't also found elsewhere. We believe that from the beginning God has planted the "sporoi tou Theou", the seeds of God, throughout Creation. It stands to reason that there may well be other ways. These matters are up to God. "It's also that without the Catholic church what would men do?" I expect what they do to this day all around the world. Here's a better question, "What would Protestants in the West do today if The Church, in the person of a bunch of Greek speaking Eastern Catholic bishops, with a few Latins thrown in, hadn't decided what was in the Canon of the NT? I mean, what would you have been reading? What "Bible" would you have had to thump. How do you suppose they knew to reject the Shepherd of Hermas and let in Mark or Peter? The fact is they measured the scriptures which were voluminous, against "what The Church always and everywhere believed". As a practical matter, metmom, that meant measuring scripture against the Divine Liturgies, devotions, canons and the writings of The Fathers. So, while I have no doubt you folks would be here, you wouldn't be believing what you do. "A lot of erroneous assumptions about the character and integrity of God." God is O ΩΝ, the Being Which created "beingness". Is The Church wrong?