Good day, I am interested in knowing about when the early church fathers, in apostolic succession, began to err, to miss the right and true? And also perhaps, grow cold?
It seems that you are presuming that the Church Fathers did, in fact, err and miss the right and true, as you put it. If this were the case, then those who erred and missed could not, accordingly, be considered Church Fathers, since it is inconceivable that the Church, as the Body of Christ and the pilar and foundation of truth could tolerate untruth, would you agree? If so, then that would mean that the gates of hell did, in fact, at one point prevail.
Another perspective that you might explore is that the Church has continuously maintained truth since its founding. This does not necessarily require a belief in the Roman Catholic Church or any other specific church of Apostolic succession; merely the belief that such a Church of Apostolic succession does, in fact, exist.
I know the apostolic succession is heavily important, John the apostle's disciple Polycarp for example, a great passing on of the baton. If Polycarp went wrong, John failed as a father. Paul and Peter and all the apostles made converts and had inner circles. But over time, decade after decade, when did they lose speed?
I would answer "never". However I, as an Orthodox Christian, would maintain that you will find the valid succession in the Eastern Orthodox Church; a Roman Catholic would argue that you would find it in the Roman Catholic Church; etc.
By the eighth century the Roman church had become political. And they may have needed a revival of the healings and prophecies mentioned going into the fifth century?
I believe that your observation about the Roman church becoming political in the eight century (I would say 9th, with Charlemagne), is somewhat accurate, however politicism was not a plague that affected only the Roman Church. After Constantine legalized Christianity and adopted it as the official Church of the Empire, politics infused much of the ecclesiastical structure of the Church. Many of the early Church canons were actually "nomocanons" - rules to be followed not only by the Church, but by the entire Empire. This in itself, however, does not imply that the entire Church was corrupted. There has always been a faithful core which maintained what was true, and contributed to the eventual correction of errors by parts of the Church. I would argue that the greatest strength of the first millennium Church was its consistency in five independent Sees (Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria), which formed a sort of system of checks and balances. This system was weakened when Rome and the eastern Sees broke from each other in the 11th century. Again, we may argue amongst ourselves about what constitutes or constituted the faithful core, and which parts were/are in heresy and/or schism.
By the fifth century end, the fathers had addressed each possible kind of heresy. I think last to go was modalism.
The last great heresy addressed by the first millennial Church was iconoclasm. It was dealt with by the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 (i.e. the eighth century) in Nicea, which coincidentally was the Council that definitively established the canon of the New Testament for the entire Church (it had only been established in local councils until then).
Heresy is the predominant form of Christianity today, if one holds that false theology constitutes heresy. I am not making this statement based on my being an Orthodox Christian, but rather by applying certain logic. There are hundreds, if not, thousands of Christian groups today - usually claiming to be "churches" - which hold conflicting beliefs. Even if one apply the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as a sort of "least common denominator" to proof-test beliefs (as does CF), there is broad disagreement over how it should be interpreted. In some cases it has been modified (e.g. as is the case with the Roman Catholic Church). True and false doctrine cannot coexist within the true Church. Logically, all or all but a handful (or maybe just one) of the Christian groups existing today exist outside the Church.
