The Lord never intended for denominations

Who else thinks @BobRyan should reference the anti-Catholic source of all the nonsense that is being posted?

BobRyan said:

Bible banned if it was in the language of the people (nick named: vulgar language)

from; Counter-Reformation - Inquisition and outcomes of the Counter-Reformation

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“Index of Forbidden Books”) was established by the Roman Catholic Church in 1559 in an attempt to combat the spread of some of the writings of the Protestant Reformation. The first printed Index included a prohibition against the “Bible in Castilian Romance or any other vulgar tongue,” a ban that remained in force until the 18th century. Many books deemed heretical or threatening to the faith were destroyed or hidden

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The changing and slanting of the Bible by new religions reached a point that the Catholic Church wanted Catholics to only read legitmate Bibles that had been approved by the Catholic Church. Catholics continued to preach the Gospel and there continued to be translations of Biblical text by Catholics into the common, or "vulgar" tongue. I have posted before about how Catholics had to flee to France in order to publish an English language version of the Bible. Catholics published the Douay-Rheims New Testament in 1582, and the Old Testament in 1609 and 1610. They risked torture or death to try and get that Bible circulated in England. You can read the 1610 Catholic Douay Rheims book for yourself, printed in 1635, at

We are dealing with eternity here. The error that Bob Ryan makes and most Protestants do is that they make pronouncements of about the Word of God when they have no knowledge or authority to do so. Bob thinks that if he dies, he will be asleep till the final resurrection and there is no hell.
I have to warn you Bob, when you pass into eternity, you are going to be conscious and most likely going to be in purgatory as you may have saving faith in Our Lord, but you have spoken evil against His bride, out of ignorance, granted, but the justice of God is not thwarted.
You will see our Blessed Mother Mary, the ark of the New Covenant and you will be overcome with fear and shame for having spoken evil of her and taught against her dignity as the Mother of God. You will be brought before the Lord for your particular judgement and you will have to explain to Him why you have spoken against His mother and the Church. That is going to be psychologically painful for you, but since it is done out of ignorance, I believe Our Lord will have mercy, as He says in His word that those that blaspheme the Son of Man will be forgiven

You do have an opportunity to repent in this life, and feel the psychological pain of being wrong here, then you can avoid purgatory, but waiting until eternity is too late
I was once as you are. I believed the propaganda that Mary is not the Queen of Heaven and God has no mother blah blah blah
It is painful to admit you are wrong and don’t know the entire mind of God, but when you find it, you either repent or harden your heart
If you study and pray, you will find that God is not a dictator but a glorious leader. He never issues a command that He is not willing to follow Himself and do it perfectly. He commands us to honor our mother and father. Would He not do the same? The only fitting place for His Mother is Queen of all creation, as through her came our Lord, and by Our Lord came the Church. Mary is the Mother of God and mother of the Church which makes her the new Eve, the mother of all believers. Her seed fight against the dragon as told in Revelation 12

The apostates broke away from the foundation of christ. And formed denominations. First Corinthians 3:1. And I brethren, could not speak unto you spirtual, but unto carnal, even as unto babes in christ. 3:2. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat : for high ye were not able to bear it, neither now are ye able. These apostates caused divisions in christ. They broke away from the foundation of christ. They teach tradition of men. DICHOSTASIA in Greek means = division. AKROATES in Greek means = A hearer merely. The congregation is still on milk bottles. The meat of God's word is absolutely essential. Basically, the congregation is spirtualty bankrupt. 3:3. For ye are yet carnal; for where as there is among you ENVYING, strife, and divisions, are ye not Carnal, and walk as men. Isaiah chapter 29 speaks of empty souls. Thier spirtualty dead. Their weaned off milk bottles. They never mature in Gods word. Spirtual growth is essential. Were talking about denominations. 3:4. For while one says, I am Paul; and another , I am of apollos; are ye not carnal? The denominations just don't quite get around to teaching God's word, sound doctrine. Traditions of men are stumbling block. After 30 years. What's their spirtual growth ??. Zero !!. Get the picture. TAALUWL in Hebrew means = babe, delusion. The misguided preachers put stumbling block in the path of the congregation. TRIBOS in Greek means = Path. Its stumbling block in thier path. 3;8. Now he that plants and he that waters are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his labour. Their won't be any rewards for the misguided preachers. Its dead works. Those who teach sound doctrine will be in the joy of the Lord. Divisions cause stumbling block for people. Jesus is coming 7th trump, and judgement starts with house of God.

BobRyan said:

None of them are headquartered in Israel in the first century but all claim that line of origin since all are Christian

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Actually, as my Eastern Orthodox friends @HTacianas @prodromos and @PsaltiChrysostom can attest, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has been headquartered in Jerusalem since the city was rebuilt in the fourth century, and this is an autocephalous Orthodox church, completely self-ruling, like the Moscow Patriarchate, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Church of Cyprus, and so on.* Indeed, in the canons adopted at the Council of Nicaea in 325, canon 6 establishes that the churches of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch are autocephalous, and canon 7 restores that status to the rebuilt city of Jerusalem, the restoration of which was a project undertaken by St. Helena, the Christian mother of the first Christian Emperor of Rome, St. Constantine (whose Christianity I suspect played a major role in her conversion. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem also has one autonomous (semi-independent) daughter church, the Church of Sinai, which is the smallest Eastern Orthodox denomination, consisting primarily of St. Catharine’s Monastery, which was home to the Codex Sinaiticus until a Belgian adventurer stole it in the 19th century and sold different parts of it to the Czar of Russia and to the British, and which still houses a priceless collection of manuscripts and icons, including some of the oldest surviving icons, such as The Ladder of Divine Ascent and Christ Pantocrator, and also the burning bush on which the Holy Spirit appeared as a burning fire when Moses spoke with God (the bush was not actually burnt, and is still alive today and flourishing).

Likewise, as my Oriental Orthodox friends @ArmenianJohn @Pavel Mosko @coorilose and @dzheremi can attest, one of the four autocephalous Armenian Apostolic Churches** is the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I am not sure when it was founded, but it is the main representative of Oriental Orthodoxy in the Holy Land, being jointly responsible together with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Roman Catholic Franciscan Friars for the administration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Nativity and other sacred places. The Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox chapels at these sites are usually in the areas controlled by the Armenians, except in Bethlehem, where the Syriac Orthodox have a small church immediately adjacent to the Church of the Nativity.

* Of the 16 autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, four are Greek Orthodox, including in addition to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, the Church of Greece, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which is responsible for the Greek Orthodox churches in Western Europe, the Americas and Australia.

** Likewise there are four autocephalous Armenian churches. In Armenia proper there is the Catholicos of Holy Etchmiadzin, which is the seniormost Armenian church and is based at the ancient fourth century cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, the word meaning “God descended”, because during the ministry of St. Gregory the Illuminator to Armenia, what enabled him to convert the Armenians was the appearance of Jesus Christ where the cathedral is now located. Then in Lebanon there is the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, which was established for the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which was a buffer state between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic caliphate in the Middle Ages. Finally there are the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Constantinople; the latter used to be much more important before the Turkish genocide of Armenians. The Armenian churches in the US are under Holy Etchmiadzin and Cilicia both, the reason for the overlapping jurisdiction being a relic of the Soviet conquest and occupation of Armenia in the 1920s, which caused about half of the Armenians in the US to switch to the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia. The two Catholicoi are now reconciled, indeed Vartan II, memory eternal, served as Catholicos Vartan I of Cilicia before becoming Catholicos Vartan II of Holy Etchmiadzin. Nonetheless, the parallel jurisdictions remain, but there is no difference at all in worship or practice.

boughtwithaprice said:

We are dealing with eternity here. The error that Bob Ryan makes and most Protestants do is that they make pronouncements of about the Word of God when they have no knowledge or authority to do so. Bob thinks that if he dies, he will be asleep till the final resurrection and there is no hell.
I have to warn you Bob, when you pass into eternity, you are going to be conscious and most likely going to be in purgatory as you may have saving faith in Our Lord, but you have spoken evil against His bride, out of ignorance, granted, but the justice of God is not thwarted.
You will see our Blessed Mother Mary, the ark of the New Covenant and you will be overcome with fear and shame for having spoken evil of her and taught against her dignity as the Mother of God. You will be brought before the Lord for your particular judgement and you will have to explain to Him why you have spoken against His mother and the Church. That is going to be psychologically painful for you, but since it is done out of ignorance, I believe Our Lord will have mercy, as He says in His word that those that blaspheme the Son of Man will be forgiven

You do have an opportunity to repent in this life, and feel the psychological pain of being wrong here, then you can avoid purgatory, but waiting until eternity is too late
I was once as you are. I believed the propaganda that Mary is not the Queen of Heaven and God has no mother blah blah blah
It is painful to admit you are wrong and don’t know the entire mind of God, but when you find it, you either repent or harden your heart
If you study and pray, you will find that God is not a dictator but a glorious leader. He never issues a command that He is not willing to follow Himself and do it perfectly. He commands us to honor our mother and father. Would He not do the same? The only fitting place for His Mother is Queen of all creation, as through her came our Lord, and by Our Lord came the Church. Mary is the Mother of God and mother of the Church which makes her the new Eve, the mother of all believers. Her seed fight against the dragon as told in Revelation 12

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The Orthodox do not believe in purgatory, but what we do believe is a bit more frightening, and scripturally based (see The State of the Soul After Death by Fr. Seraphim Rose).

The Liturgist said:

one of the four autocephalous Armenian Apostolic Churches** is the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I am not sure when it was founded

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This is not an area of expertise of mine, but I do know that this is one instance (of many) where it is a bit deceptive to look at things this way, since the founding of the institution itself is shaped by local factors. According to the Armenians themselves, the founding of the Patriarchate with its distinct Armenian bishop dates back to the Arab conquest of Jerusalem (7th century), but this needs to be understood in the context of the Chalcedonian persecutions of the Armenians in earlier times which may have prevented the establishment of their own distinct hierarchy at the time, but did not prevent their habitation of Jerusalem itself, which predates even the Armenians' adoption of Christianity itself and dates back to the first century BC, with the reign of Armenian king Tigran II (95-55 BC). To my understanding, the same dynamic is at work with regard to the Syriacs, for obvious reasons related to the pre-Arab Conquest demographics of the area which definitely placed them as central to the local community (our earliest pilgrimage-related travelogues bearing witness) which would only later be divided into Chalcedonian vs. non-Chalcedonian populations, since Chalcedon itself had yet to occur. (This is one of the many, many reasons I do not personally find the Chalcedonian claims to being the only uninterrupted community of Christian inhabitants of the Holy Land to be even the slightest bit convincing as to the legitimacy of their continued claims over the region and all that that entails, but I supposed that's for another time.)

dzheremi said:

This is not an area of expertise of mine, but I do know that this is one instance (of many) where it is a bit deceptive to look at things this way, since the founding of the institution itself is shaped by local factors. According to the Armenians themselves, the founding of the Patriarchate with its distinct Armenian bishop dates back to the Arab conquest of Jerusalem (7th century), but this needs to be understood in the context of the Chalcedonian persecutions of the Armenians in earlier times which may have prevented the establishment of their own distinct hierarchy at the time, but did not prevent their habitation of Jerusalem itself, which predates even the Armenians' adoption of Christianity itself and dates back to the first century BC, with the reign of Armenian king Tigran II (95-55 BC). To my understanding, the same dynamic is at work with regard to the Syriacs, for obvious reasons related to the pre-Arab Conquest demographics of the area which definitely placed them as central to the local community (our earliest pilgrimage-related travelogues bearing witness) which would only later be divided into Chalcedonian vs. non-Chalcedonian populations, since Chalcedon itself had yet to occur. (This is one of the many, many reasons I do not personally find the Chalcedonian claims to being the only uninterrupted community of Christian inhabitants of the Holy Land to be even the slightest bit convincing as to the legitimacy of their continued claims over the region and all that that entails, but I supposed that's for another time.)

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There is no doubt that the Armenians, Copts and Syriac Orthodox as well as the Greek-speaking Oriental Orthodox like St. Severus, St. Dioscorus, St. Peter Fullo, and others were always in the Holy Land. By the way I am convinced that just as the Antiochian Orthodox and Jerusalemite Orthodox and Melkite Catholics were Greek speakers but are now Arabic speakers, that some of the Arabic speaking population in the Coptic and Syriac Orthodox churches is descended from the Greek speaking Oriental Orthodox.

The only Oriental Orthodox church that was exterminated was the Nubian Orthodox Church in what is now the Sudan. There was also the Orthodox Church of Caucasian Albania in what is now Azerbaijan, although apparently a church of it has reopened; this unfortunately does not address the tragedy of Azeri violence and ethnic cleansing against Armenians, supported by Turkey and Iran and tolerated far too long by the West.

af2018af2018 said:

I never understood denominations. Its just something man-made to further separate us from one another.

Was Jesus a Catholic? Did he ever say once to pray to his mother Mary? No.
The golden plates of LDS focus our attention away from the Lord.

I believe non-denominational is the closest we can get to what the Lord originally intended.

All the pomp and glamor and fancy dress and focus on saints.. where did Jesus ever ONCE tell his disciples to do this? In fact, his entire life was on living a life separate from that stuff.

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Denominations derived from theology. When people study the scriptures they often arrive at different interpretations thus creating different denominations. So the source of denominations is just people studying the word of God.

parousia70 said:

Protestants have to claim that the Church is "invisible" to try and maintain legitimacy as "the Church"

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Most Christian denominations do in fact have a visible organization - as it turns out.
None of them are headquartered in Israel in the first century but all claim that line of origin since all are Christian. The first century church knew nothing about having its headquarters in Rome or any other place but Jerusalem and then later Antioch.

NOTE:

None of them are headquartered in Israel in the first century but all claim that line of origin since all are Christian

The Liturgist said:

Actually, as my Eastern Orthodox friends @HTacianas @prodromos and @PsaltiChrysostom can attest, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has been headquartered in Jerusalem since the city was rebuilt in the fourth century,

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I assume you and I already agree that the "first century" is not "the fourth century".

boughtwithaprice said:

We are dealing with eternity here. The error that Bob Ryan makes and most Protestants do is that they make pronouncements of about the Word of God when they have no knowledge or authority to do so. Bob thinks that if he dies, he will be asleep till the final resurrection and there is no hell.

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You are incorrect.

1. I believe the Bible
2. The Bible says there is a hell and John calls it "The lake of fire and brimstone" Rev 20 -
3. Jesus says "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul - rather fear Him who is able to DESTROY BOTH body AND soul in fiery hell" Matt 10:28. So though the body is dust and does not sleep .. in fact it does not exist -- even so the soul still exists.
4. Jesus says "our FRIEND Lazarus SLEEPS I go that I may wake HIM" John 11.
5. Paul says to preach this at Christian funerals --


6. Peter says Christians are to fix their hope completely on the appearing of Christ

boughtwithaprice said:

I have to warn you Bob, when you pass into eternity, you are going to be conscious

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Thanks for the warning I appreciate the caring spirit in which you offer it (and I mean that) - but it would have to come from the Bible for me to take it seriously.

boughtwithaprice said:

and most likely going to be in purgatory

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Purgatory is not in the Bible either.

boughtwithaprice said:

as you may have saving faith in Our Lord, but you have spoken evil against His bride

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The bride of Christ is the church - and that includes the church of the first century. I am in line with that first century church.

boughtwithaprice said:

You will see our Blessed Mother Mary, the ark of the New Covenant and you will be overcome with fear

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You and I both know that the Bible says no such thing.

boughtwithaprice said:

and shame for having spoken evil of her

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I don't see where anyone has pointed to anything I have said against Mary the mother of Jesus.

boughtwithaprice said:

and taught against her dignity as the Mother of God.

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No Bible text calls Mary "the mother of God" -- I suspect we both know this as well - or you would have quoted a text.

boughtwithaprice said:

You will be brought before the Lord for your particular judgement and you will have to explain to Him why you have spoken against His mother

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When Jesus was confronted with "blessed be your mother" - Jesus' response begins with "on the contrary"

Luke 11:
27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that carried You, and the breasts at which You nursed!” 28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and follow it.”

boughtwithaprice said:

You do have an opportunity to repent in this life, and feel the psychological pain of being wrong here, then you can avoid purgatory, but waiting until eternity is too late

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Stop and think for a second. If purgatory were actually "real" wouldn't it merit at least some form of "honorable mention" in the Bible.
The Bible does mention, hell, and heaven, and the lake of fire, and judgment.
Is it not just "a tiny bit interesting" to you that the bible teaches absolutely no doctrine about purgatory?
Does that not even raise a single question in your mind?

boughtwithaprice said:

I was once as you are. I believed the propaganda that Mary is not the Queen of Heaven

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You and I both know that the Bible says nothing at all about "Mary Queen of Heaven". Not one text calls her that.

BUT I have good news for --- the Bible DOES have a text about "the queen of heaven", so it IS a Biblical subject (unlike Purgatory)

Jer 7:17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to provoke Me to anger.

Jer 44:
16 “As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you! 17 But we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings, and our leaders did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. 18 But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything, and have met our end by the sword and by famine.” 19 “And,” said the women, “when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image, and poured out drink offerings to her?”
20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women—even to all the people who were giving him such an answer—saying, 21 “As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your leaders, and the people of the land, did the Lord not remember them, and did all of this not come into His mind? 22 So the Lord was no longer able to endure it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations

boughtwithaprice said:

and God has no mother blah blah blah

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Which is why the phrase "mother of God" is not in the Bible.

boughtwithaprice said:

If you study and pray, you will find that God is not a dictator but a glorious leader.

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Now see - isn't it nice to have a point where we can agree?

boughtwithaprice said:

The only fitting place for His Mother is Queen of all creation

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Another great example of something not in the Bible at all. And think about this for a moment - John is writing the book of Revelation and the book of the Gospel of John - in the 90's - yet even he does not use that term for Mary.

Surely we must 'notice' this key detail.

boughtwithaprice said:

Mary is the Mother of God '

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So you say - but you ignore 2 glaringly obvious bible details to do so.

1. The incarnation of Christ - is not a matter of "procreation" rather it is "incarnation". Just as Joseph was not 'stronger than God' - nor "wiser than God" so also Mary was not "mother of God". There is a huge difference between incarnation and procreation.

2. Not one single text in all of scripture uses such a statement - and this would have been unthinkable if it were true that the Bible wanted to teach that "God has a Mother who is the Queen of Heaven'. For those who believe such a thing is true - how is it that such a huge idea as that - never makes honorable mention in the Bible? The same Bible that does tell us about Timothy being asked to bring a coat and some books to Paul. -- yet says nothing along the lines of "Mary mother of God" or "Mary queen of heaven" or "Mary sinless like Christ" or 'Mary co-redemptrix with Christ" or any of those add-on traditions.

boughtwithaprice said:

and mother of the Church which makes her the new Eve, the mother of all believers.

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How odd that Paul goes out of his way to remind us that Abraham is the father of the faithful in Rom 4... but not one peep about Mary "the mother of all believers" in any statement by any NT author. No, not one.

boughtwithaprice said:

Her seed fight against the dragon as told in Revelation 12

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Mary did not run into hiding for 1260 years -- rather it was the church of Christ that was persecuted for that period of time as Rev 12 points out.

In Gen 3 - it is the "seed of the woman" (EVE) that was to fight against the serpent.

Gen 3:
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”'

The people of God have been at war with the devil for 6000 years.

Eph 6:
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.


Rom 16:19 For the report of your obedience has reached everyone; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil. 20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

miamited said:

Hi af,

I agree with you 100%.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

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And I second that 100%.

Hmmm... did this thread take a left turn somewhere? Seems like it became all about Catholics rather than the Lord's view on denominations. Or... was that subject completely resolved? Are we all now just one unified body of Christians? Did I miss that conclusion? :?

Techo said:

Hmmm... did this thread take a left turn somewhere? Seems like it became all about Catholics rather than the Lord's view on denominations. Or... was that subject completely resolved? Are we all now just one unified body of Christians? Did I miss that conclusion? :?

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The OP is inline with a lot of statements you find on CF by Catholic members stating that we should only have the Catholic church as the Christian church and that failure to keep that priority has resulted in multiple denominations.

The non-Catholic view has been that errors that crept in over time forced the protests and attempts at reforms which when rejected resulted in one group accepting the reform and others rejecting it - thus more than one group of Christians.