Almost everything about catholic faith revolves around events that (allegedly) happened in the Middle East. Most of the holiest sites seem to be there in relation to the bible’s depiction of events. So wouldn’t it make sense that the pope/vatican would place its power center as near as possible from the holiest sites? How did it come to be Rome? Was this a decision based on the current political climate at the time or was there a reason based on faith/rethoric of the church?
In: 89
OK, I would break down the answer slightly differently.
Firstly, a lot of people here seem to think that the power of Roman branch of Christianity is a recent development. It is not, as it is evident from Acts and letters; most of them seem to indicate that the Roman branch of the church rose to prominence very early, perhaps due to personal qualities of St. Paul. What’s more, if we take Acts at their word, then we’ll see that the Jewish community was extremely hostile to early Christians, driving them to form large diasporas elsewhere.
Secondly, early Christianity’s prestige was largely driven by theology, and in order to do theology you needed money and a pool of educated people. Relatively few cities could offer something similar, and by the time of the Great Schism there were only two: Rome and Constantinople.
Thirdly, there’s a big matter of language people often omit. The Gospels are written in original Greek; however, the Roman tradition translated everything into non-native Latin. What’s worse, it started doing theology in Latin too; so, essentially, a lot of the split was about Rome going their way. There was no other region that could pull off something similar (at least, not until Luther).
Latest Answers