α. Jerusalem
(30 or 33 AD)
The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ.
1. Ephesus
(approx. 100 AD)
The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus.
2. Athens
(second century)
The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe).
3. Lyon
(from 177)
The church in this city was founded by immigrants from Smyrna in Asia around 177. Following intense persecution, this is where Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 120-200) was later bishop, combatting the Gnostic heresy. Irenaeus asserted that the material world was the good creation of the Eternal Word. That same Word became "flesh", and undid the Fall, becoming the head of the redeemed human race ("recapitulation").
4. Carthage
(until 311)
Carthage is a place which represents persecution and martyrdom. Here and elsewhere the church stood firm against persecution in the days of Tertullian and later Cyprian. The greatest persecution came to an end in 311, leading to toleration of the Christian faith.
5. Nicaea
(311-381)
Following toleration of the Christian church in 311 and 313, Nicea was the venue for the First Ecumenical Council in 325 which asserted that the Son is consubstantial (equal) with God the Father. The later Second Council at Constantinople in 381 also asserted that the Spirit is Holy, Lord and Life-Giver – and so equal with the Father and the Son. It was at this time that the church found words to express the truth that God is Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The 300s were a Golden Age of Christian thinkers with greats such as Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, Ambrosius of Milan and others.
6. Chalcedon
(381-476)
The Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451 concluded a century of debate around Christ being both God and man (this is called "Christology"), asserting the unity of the single person of Christ in two distinct natures, divine and human. As a result breakaway communions emerged, due, at least in part, to differences in terminology more than substance: the Church of the East (“Nestorians”) and the oriental Orthodox churches of Egypt and Syria (also referred to as “Monophysites”). Two great Christian leaders from this period were Augustine of Hippo (345-430), and, in the East, John Chrysostom (d.407).
7. Monte Cassino
(476-732)
When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, that part of the world became dominated by tribespeople such as the Goths and Vandals whose semi-Christian faith denied that Christ is God (Arianism). The church regrouped and survived thanks to the efforts of monks such as Benedict of Nursia, who founded a monastery at Monte Cassino in 529. Monks preserved western culture, and evangelised heretics and pagans. During the 500s and 600s centuries, missionaries from Ireland, and later, in the seventh and eighth centuries, from what is now England, travelled abroad to evangelise, converting peoples from paganism to Christianity and reviving the church.
8. Studium
(476-843)
Meanwhile, the Eastern Roman Empire survived and flourished, particularly under Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565). The Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 condemned three erroneous writings on Christology (Three Chapters), and the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681 affirmed the teaching of Maxim the Confessor (d. 662) that in Christ there are two wills: a divine will and a human will. (The 7th Ecumenical Council approved the veneration of icons.) Towards the end of this period, the Empire of Constantinople was shaken by controversy and discord, leading to a Dark Age which only finally ended in 843. The central monastery in Constantinople was at Studium.
9. Aachen
(732-1054)
After centuries of instability and Barbarian rule in the West, it was the Franks, Germanic tribespeople, Christian since approx. 508, that assumed a leading role in the western church. In 800 Charles the Great was proclaimed Emperor of the Romans. During this time, much of Eastern Europe was evangelised, including Poland. From 910, Cluny in France became the epicentre for a movement to reform monasticism and the church. This was continued by the Cistercian movement in the 1000s and 1100s based at Cîteaux (also in France).
10. Ochrid
(843-1054)
From 843 onwards, the Eastern Roman Empire emerged from its Dark Age, and intensified missionary work in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, Christianising the Slavs inside and outside the Empire. The most famous missionaries were Cyril and Methodius, ministering to the kingdom of Moravia. Another key figure was Clement of Ochrid who simplified the Slavic alphabet (Ochrid was a centre for Christian learning in what was then Bulgaria). Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic went their separate ways in 1054 (the “Great Schism”), leading to two rival communions centred in Rome (West) and Constantinople (East) respectively.
11. Cluny
(1054-1309)
Following on from the reform movement centred at monasteries at Cluny and Cîteaux, the western church experienced the height of its power under Pope Gregory VII and Pope Innocent III. This was also the age of the crusades (Christian holy war), which also included the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 which further exacerbated divisions between East and West. In the 1200s, new monastic movements such as the Franciscans and Dominicans emerged. In Christian thought this is the time of Thomas Aquinas. The triumph of the church was expressed in the magnificent Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as the one at Chartres.
12. Kyiv
(1054-1453)
From the 900s, the focus of Eastern Orthodoxy shifted from the truth of Christ’s incarnation to the subjective experience of salvation, crystallised in the concept of "theosis" (to become united to God). As Constantinople waned, the new centre of gravity in the Orthodox world became the Principality of Rus' with its capital at Kyiv, and later Moscow. When the Empire of Constantinople collapsed in 1453, it was the ruler of Rus' (later Russia) who took on the mantle of the Christian Emperor, Caesar or "Tsar".
13. Avignon
(1309-1517)
In the 1300s and 1400s, the western church experienced two crises: the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1309-1376) and the Great Western Schism (1378-1417). For a time, Avignon in France was the residence of the Pope. As a result, there was a general consensus to seek root-and-branch reform of the church. Prominent early reformers at the time included John Wycliffe (1300s) and Jan Hus (1400s).
14. Wittenberg
(from 1517)
The Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailing his 95 theses at Wittenberg in Germany, and later by Zwingli's ministry at the Grossmunster church in Zurich. The Reformation represented a rediscovery of the gospel, proclaiming the supreme authority of Scripture, justification by faith alone, and the priesthood of all believers. On the Continent, the Anabaptists represented the radical wing of the Reformation, viewing the Christian faith as requiring a deliberate, personal decision to follow Christ, expressed in believer's baptism. In Britain, some Protestants, nicknamed "Puritans", didn't think the English Reformation had gone far enough. Some wanted a reformed church like in Switzerland, while others formed autonomous "gathered churches" based on voluntary membership and free from the influence of the state ("independent churches").
15. “Three Romes”
(from 1545)
The Roman Catholic response to the Reformation was the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation, reasserting the teaching of the church, and regaining control of territory and the faithful. By the 1600s, the centre of the Roman Catholic world was the kingdom of France ruled by Louis XIV. Meanwhile, starting with Richard Simon, a more liberal approach to the Bible became more prevalent. As the tide turned, the Jesuits, staunch defenders of the Counter-Reformation, were officially suppressed in 1773.
At this time, many of the Orthodox churches lived under Muslim rule. Cyril Lucaris (d. 1638), a Patriarch of Constantinople, sympathised with the Protestant Reformation. Later in the 1600s, Eastern Orthodox Councils ruled against the teachings of the Reformation. In 1666 the Old Believers broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church over liturgical reforms. From the early 1700s, Peter the Great of Russia brought the church under state control, replacing the Patriarch with a church synod.
16. Leyden
(1580-1689)
After the heady days of the Reformation, the following century (1600s) saw a need to consolidate and also to contend for the faith. Protestant confessions such as the Formula of Concord (Lutheran) and the Westminster Confession (Puritan) formulated new orthodoxies, while the Anabaptist movement was continued by the Mennonites, mainly based in Germany and the Netherlands.
In the 1600s, the Netherlands, including the university town of Leyden, were the centre of the Protestant Christian world, and produced the leading theological works, as well as providing toleration for religious minorities. It was in the Netherlands that some English Independents (see above), influenced by the Mennonites, came to embrace believer's baptism - the first Baptists.
17. Halle
(1675-1789)
By the end of the 1600s, the years of conflict and controversy, combined with new freedoms, created a need to return to "heart religion", and the experience of personal conversion, preached by Jonathan Edwards in the American colonies, and advocated in Germany by the Pietists and Moravians (the latter were based at a country estate in Germany called "Herrnhut"). The Pietist movement founded a university at Halle which became a centre first for “heart religion”, but later also for Rationalist doubt (e.g. Christian Wolff d.1754).
Through John Wesley, the Moravians influenced the Methodist Revival in the English-speaking world. Revivals served to rekindle Christian zeal in the Church of England, and also in the independent churches. At the same time, the values of the Enlightenment influenced many churches in a rationalist (liberal) direction.
18. Lourdes
(1789-1914)
After the catastrophe of the French Revolution, Roman Catholic faith likewise experienced a revival in France and elsewhere, often driven by folk devotion such as visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.
In the Orthodox East from the 1700s, the Philokalia movement revived the Greek Orthodox Church, and also the Orthodox Church in Russia with a renewed interest in the mystical wisdom of Desert Fathers such as Macarius.
19. London
(1789-1914)
Following on from the revivals of the 1700s, during the long 19th century (1789-1914), Christian faith experienced several more periods of revival in the English-speaking world both sides of the Atlantic: from 1791 (Second Great Awakening), from 1859 (Third Great Awakening), and from 1904 (Welsh Revival and, later, Pentecostalism). On the continent of Europe, Protestant faith was likewise revived (Le Reveil/Erweckung). At this time, London was the world's leading city, and preachers such as Charles Spurgeon (Baptist) held major influence. Meanwhile, new challenges to Christianity emerged. Thinkers such as Darwin, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche introduced ideas which challenged Christian belief. This was accompanied by other forces which replaced the role of the church in areas such as marriage, art, music and education.
20. New York
(1900s)
In the 1900s, many of the new ideas of the 1800s morphed into powerful political ideologies, holding sway over millions, and also post-Christian societal values. There were many cases of Christians bravely prevailing in the face of state repression. At the same time, in many traditionally Christian countries the Christian churches saw a major decline in numbers. The general retreat of Christianity was countered by new forms of evangelism and new expressions of faith and church, as well as the faith being passed on to the next generation in Christian families and local churches.
ω. The ends of the earth
(from 1300s)
The Age of Discovery, from the 1300s and 1400s, prompted a new phase of Christian missionary work reaching newly discovered lands and people - first by the Orthodox (for example, Stephen of Perm) and Roman Catholics (for example, Francis Xavier), and later by Protestants. Pioneers of Protestant missionary work from 1600s included Albert Cornelius Ruyl in the Dutch East Indies, John Eliot in North America, and Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg in the Danish colonies. William Carey (1761-1834) later spearheaded missionary interest in the English-speaking world.
Christian mission in sub-Saharan Africa took off in the 1800s, with missionaries such as David Livingstone. From the mid-1800s, Christianity revived in China (there had been Christians in China on and off for over a thousand years, since at least the year 645).
In the 1900s it was these newly reached areas which became the global heartlands of Christianity – the United States, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, as well as parts of South East Asia (e.g. Korea), and the Pacific islands.
(30 or 33 AD)
The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ.
1. Ephesus
(approx. 100 AD)
The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus.
2. Athens
(second century)
The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe).
3. Lyon
(from 177)
The church in this city was founded by immigrants from Smyrna in Asia around 177. Following intense persecution, this is where Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 120-200) was later bishop, combatting the Gnostic heresy. Irenaeus asserted that the material world was the good creation of the Eternal Word. That same Word became "flesh", and undid the Fall, becoming the head of the redeemed human race ("recapitulation").
4. Carthage
(until 311)
Carthage is a place which represents persecution and martyrdom. Here and elsewhere the church stood firm against persecution in the days of Tertullian and later Cyprian. The greatest persecution came to an end in 311, leading to toleration of the Christian faith.
5. Nicaea
(311-381)
Following toleration of the Christian church in 311 and 313, Nicea was the venue for the First Ecumenical Council in 325 which asserted that the Son is consubstantial (equal) with God the Father. The later Second Council at Constantinople in 381 also asserted that the Spirit is Holy, Lord and Life-Giver – and so equal with the Father and the Son. It was at this time that the church found words to express the truth that God is Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The 300s were a Golden Age of Christian thinkers with greats such as Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, Ambrosius of Milan and others.
6. Chalcedon
(381-476)
The Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451 concluded a century of debate around Christ being both God and man (this is called "Christology"), asserting the unity of the single person of Christ in two distinct natures, divine and human. As a result breakaway communions emerged, due, at least in part, to differences in terminology more than substance: the Church of the East (“Nestorians”) and the oriental Orthodox churches of Egypt and Syria (also referred to as “Monophysites”). Two great Christian leaders from this period were Augustine of Hippo (345-430), and, in the East, John Chrysostom (d.407).
7. Monte Cassino
(476-732)
When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, that part of the world became dominated by tribespeople such as the Goths and Vandals whose semi-Christian faith denied that Christ is God (Arianism). The church regrouped and survived thanks to the efforts of monks such as Benedict of Nursia, who founded a monastery at Monte Cassino in 529. Monks preserved western culture, and evangelised heretics and pagans. During the 500s and 600s centuries, missionaries from Ireland, and later, in the seventh and eighth centuries, from what is now England, travelled abroad to evangelise, converting peoples from paganism to Christianity and reviving the church.
8. Studium
(476-843)
Meanwhile, the Eastern Roman Empire survived and flourished, particularly under Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565). The Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 condemned three erroneous writings on Christology (Three Chapters), and the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681 affirmed the teaching of Maxim the Confessor (d. 662) that in Christ there are two wills: a divine will and a human will. (The 7th Ecumenical Council approved the veneration of icons.) Towards the end of this period, the Empire of Constantinople was shaken by controversy and discord, leading to a Dark Age which only finally ended in 843. The central monastery in Constantinople was at Studium.
9. Aachen
(732-1054)
After centuries of instability and Barbarian rule in the West, it was the Franks, Germanic tribespeople, Christian since approx. 508, that assumed a leading role in the western church. In 800 Charles the Great was proclaimed Emperor of the Romans. During this time, much of Eastern Europe was evangelised, including Poland. From 910, Cluny in France became the epicentre for a movement to reform monasticism and the church. This was continued by the Cistercian movement in the 1000s and 1100s based at Cîteaux (also in France).
10. Ochrid
(843-1054)
From 843 onwards, the Eastern Roman Empire emerged from its Dark Age, and intensified missionary work in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, Christianising the Slavs inside and outside the Empire. The most famous missionaries were Cyril and Methodius, ministering to the kingdom of Moravia. Another key figure was Clement of Ochrid who simplified the Slavic alphabet (Ochrid was a centre for Christian learning in what was then Bulgaria). Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic went their separate ways in 1054 (the “Great Schism”), leading to two rival communions centred in Rome (West) and Constantinople (East) respectively.
11. Cluny
(1054-1309)
Following on from the reform movement centred at monasteries at Cluny and Cîteaux, the western church experienced the height of its power under Pope Gregory VII and Pope Innocent III. This was also the age of the crusades (Christian holy war), which also included the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 which further exacerbated divisions between East and West. In the 1200s, new monastic movements such as the Franciscans and Dominicans emerged. In Christian thought this is the time of Thomas Aquinas. The triumph of the church was expressed in the magnificent Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as the one at Chartres.
12. Kyiv
(1054-1453)
From the 900s, the focus of Eastern Orthodoxy shifted from the truth of Christ’s incarnation to the subjective experience of salvation, crystallised in the concept of "theosis" (to become united to God). As Constantinople waned, the new centre of gravity in the Orthodox world became the Principality of Rus' with its capital at Kyiv, and later Moscow. When the Empire of Constantinople collapsed in 1453, it was the ruler of Rus' (later Russia) who took on the mantle of the Christian Emperor, Caesar or "Tsar".
13. Avignon
(1309-1517)
In the 1300s and 1400s, the western church experienced two crises: the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1309-1376) and the Great Western Schism (1378-1417). For a time, Avignon in France was the residence of the Pope. As a result, there was a general consensus to seek root-and-branch reform of the church. Prominent early reformers at the time included John Wycliffe (1300s) and Jan Hus (1400s).
14. Wittenberg
(from 1517)
The Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailing his 95 theses at Wittenberg in Germany, and later by Zwingli's ministry at the Grossmunster church in Zurich. The Reformation represented a rediscovery of the gospel, proclaiming the supreme authority of Scripture, justification by faith alone, and the priesthood of all believers. On the Continent, the Anabaptists represented the radical wing of the Reformation, viewing the Christian faith as requiring a deliberate, personal decision to follow Christ, expressed in believer's baptism. In Britain, some Protestants, nicknamed "Puritans", didn't think the English Reformation had gone far enough. Some wanted a reformed church like in Switzerland, while others formed autonomous "gathered churches" based on voluntary membership and free from the influence of the state ("independent churches").
15. “Three Romes”
(from 1545)
The Roman Catholic response to the Reformation was the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation, reasserting the teaching of the church, and regaining control of territory and the faithful. By the 1600s, the centre of the Roman Catholic world was the kingdom of France ruled by Louis XIV. Meanwhile, starting with Richard Simon, a more liberal approach to the Bible became more prevalent. As the tide turned, the Jesuits, staunch defenders of the Counter-Reformation, were officially suppressed in 1773.
At this time, many of the Orthodox churches lived under Muslim rule. Cyril Lucaris (d. 1638), a Patriarch of Constantinople, sympathised with the Protestant Reformation. Later in the 1600s, Eastern Orthodox Councils ruled against the teachings of the Reformation. In 1666 the Old Believers broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church over liturgical reforms. From the early 1700s, Peter the Great of Russia brought the church under state control, replacing the Patriarch with a church synod.
16. Leyden
(1580-1689)
After the heady days of the Reformation, the following century (1600s) saw a need to consolidate and also to contend for the faith. Protestant confessions such as the Formula of Concord (Lutheran) and the Westminster Confession (Puritan) formulated new orthodoxies, while the Anabaptist movement was continued by the Mennonites, mainly based in Germany and the Netherlands.
In the 1600s, the Netherlands, including the university town of Leyden, were the centre of the Protestant Christian world, and produced the leading theological works, as well as providing toleration for religious minorities. It was in the Netherlands that some English Independents (see above), influenced by the Mennonites, came to embrace believer's baptism - the first Baptists.
17. Halle
(1675-1789)
By the end of the 1600s, the years of conflict and controversy, combined with new freedoms, created a need to return to "heart religion", and the experience of personal conversion, preached by Jonathan Edwards in the American colonies, and advocated in Germany by the Pietists and Moravians (the latter were based at a country estate in Germany called "Herrnhut"). The Pietist movement founded a university at Halle which became a centre first for “heart religion”, but later also for Rationalist doubt (e.g. Christian Wolff d.1754).
Through John Wesley, the Moravians influenced the Methodist Revival in the English-speaking world. Revivals served to rekindle Christian zeal in the Church of England, and also in the independent churches. At the same time, the values of the Enlightenment influenced many churches in a rationalist (liberal) direction.
18. Lourdes
(1789-1914)
After the catastrophe of the French Revolution, Roman Catholic faith likewise experienced a revival in France and elsewhere, often driven by folk devotion such as visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.
In the Orthodox East from the 1700s, the Philokalia movement revived the Greek Orthodox Church, and also the Orthodox Church in Russia with a renewed interest in the mystical wisdom of Desert Fathers such as Macarius.
19. London
(1789-1914)
Following on from the revivals of the 1700s, during the long 19th century (1789-1914), Christian faith experienced several more periods of revival in the English-speaking world both sides of the Atlantic: from 1791 (Second Great Awakening), from 1859 (Third Great Awakening), and from 1904 (Welsh Revival and, later, Pentecostalism). On the continent of Europe, Protestant faith was likewise revived (Le Reveil/Erweckung). At this time, London was the world's leading city, and preachers such as Charles Spurgeon (Baptist) held major influence. Meanwhile, new challenges to Christianity emerged. Thinkers such as Darwin, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche introduced ideas which challenged Christian belief. This was accompanied by other forces which replaced the role of the church in areas such as marriage, art, music and education.
20. New York
(1900s)
In the 1900s, many of the new ideas of the 1800s morphed into powerful political ideologies, holding sway over millions, and also post-Christian societal values. There were many cases of Christians bravely prevailing in the face of state repression. At the same time, in many traditionally Christian countries the Christian churches saw a major decline in numbers. The general retreat of Christianity was countered by new forms of evangelism and new expressions of faith and church, as well as the faith being passed on to the next generation in Christian families and local churches.
ω. The ends of the earth
(from 1300s)
The Age of Discovery, from the 1300s and 1400s, prompted a new phase of Christian missionary work reaching newly discovered lands and people - first by the Orthodox (for example, Stephen of Perm) and Roman Catholics (for example, Francis Xavier), and later by Protestants. Pioneers of Protestant missionary work from 1600s included Albert Cornelius Ruyl in the Dutch East Indies, John Eliot in North America, and Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg in the Danish colonies. William Carey (1761-1834) later spearheaded missionary interest in the English-speaking world.
Christian mission in sub-Saharan Africa took off in the 1800s, with missionaries such as David Livingstone. From the mid-1800s, Christianity revived in China (there had been Christians in China on and off for over a thousand years, since at least the year 645).
In the 1900s it was these newly reached areas which became the global heartlands of Christianity – the United States, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, as well as parts of South East Asia (e.g. Korea), and the Pacific islands.
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