Why are there even denominations to begin with?

prodromos · Jul 8, 2026

Maria Billingsley said:
As far as the Byzantine East, the state and the Eastern Orthodox Church operated under a system where the emperor held supreme authority over both political and religious matters.

Not remotely true. I don't know why you posted the above link to www.oca.org since it doesn't support your claim.

Maria Billingsley said:
Anyone who attempted to gather privately, read the scriptures, and practice what they believed to be the true Gospel independent of the emperor and the state church faced a very real risk of execution, imprisonment, or exile. Not too much different from the West.

There were virtually no religious executions under Byzantine rule, and as far as exile goes, it was primarily under heretical emperors, with the christian bishops being exiled.
I'd also like to see evidence of people gathering privately to read the Scriptures and practice their own brand of christianity under the Byzantine Empire. As far as I can tell, this is something you just made up.

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

jmldn2 said:
I'm not a scholar (far from it) of history of religion but I have never understood why the Christian world even is divided into "denominations." We are not saved because we are in a certain denomination

Great question!

Look at early Christianity and how schisms occurred. The Great Schism that occurred between the West (Roman Catholic Church) and East (Eastern Orthodox Church) occurred in 1054. The Pope and Patriarch excommunicated one another.

In the 451, the Oriental Orthodox Church was separated from the rest of Christianity. They include Coptic, Armenians etc.

Prior to the Reformation, there was Jan Huss in Bohemia who is the father of the Moravian Church.

The Protestant Reformation occurred in 1517 with Martin Luther with Lutheranism. Then King Henry VIII of England separated from the Roman Church because he wanted to divorce his wife and the Pope wouldn't allow it. Thomas Cranmer was the one who really started the Church of England today followed by Elizabeth I.

Methodism is descended from Anglicanism by John & Charles Wesley. From Wesleyanism there is the Wesleyan Church, The Church of the Nazarene, and The Global Methodist Church.

Several others separated from Anglicanism including the Baptists, Congregationalists, Puritans, Separatists etc

Presbyterianism and Reformed traditions were founded by the Reformers John Calvin in France and John Knox in Scotland. There aremany Presbyterian and Reformed denominations today, including the United Church of Christ which was a merger of two Churches in the 1900s.

The pietist movement was founded by Lutherans. These include the Evangelical Covenant Church & the Evangelical Free Church.

The radical reformation founded the Anabaptists such as the Amish, Mennonites, & Hutterites.

Restorationist include the Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, & Christian Church founded by Alexander Campbell.

Pentecostalism was founded around 1900 during the Azusa street revival.

Through the years, many non-denominational Churches have been founded and many denominations share full communion sharing ministers, sacraments, and buildings.

This barely scratches the surface.

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

seeking.IAM said:
Denominations I get. I think a more interesting question is why do we allow denomination affiliation choices to divide us?

Many denominations share ministers and sacraments. Think of the universal priesthood of all believers.

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

Maria Billingsley said:
Now.

My cousin actually found a home Church in the 1990s with some of his friends. They originally gathered at a person's house. Now it's a mega-Church that is evangelical in theology, as far as I understand.

I'm not sure if he's ordained, because he did officiate at his Son's wedding in a Baptist Church (so did the father of the bride who is an ordained Baptist minister). He worked with computers IIRC.

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

Maria Billingsley said:
Home churches, they are popping up everywhere.

I'm aware of a home Church that is also a Baptist Church. I'm not sure who it's affiliated with and which Baptist denomination it's affiliated with. I find home churches quite interesting.

prodromos · Jul 8, 2026

RileyG said:
The Great Schism that occurred between the West (Roman Catholic Church) and East (Eastern Orthodox Church) occurred in 1054. The Pope and Patriarch excommunicated one another.

Actually only the legates were excommunicated by a council of bishops in Constantinople (Cardinal Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, and Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi). The Pope was not listed among the excommunicated and neither did Patriarch Michael personally excommunicate anyone. Neither did Pope Leo IX personally excommunicate Patriarch Michael, since the Bull of Excommunication was such a litany of falsehoods it is highly unlikely to have been written by the pope, who had actually died just prior to the legates arrival in Constantinople.
The fact that Frederick of Lorraine was elected as Pope Stephen IX three years later, probably didn't help relations between Rome and Constantinople any, and probably gave some authority to the Bull in the eyes of the Catholics (I've heard some Catholics claim that the Bull wasn't valid seeing as Pope Leo IX had died)

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

prodromos said:
Actually only the legates were excommunicated by a council of bishops in Constantinople (Cardinal Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, and Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi). The Pope was not listed among the excommunicated and neither did Patriarch Michael personally excommunicate anyone. Neither did Pope Leo IX personally excommunicate Patriarch Michael, since the Bull of Excommunication was such a litany of falsehoods it is highly unlikely to have been written by the pope, who had actually died just prior to the legates arrival in Constantinople.
The fact that Frederick of Lorraine was elected as Pope Stephen IX three years later, probably didn't help relations between Rome and Constantinople any, and probably gave some authority to the Bull in the eyes of the Catholics (I've heard some Catholics claim that the Bull wasn't valid seeing as Pope Leo IX had died)

Thanks for the correction! I appreciate it!

Peace!

The Liturgist · Jul 8, 2026

RileyG said:
I'm aware of a home Church that is also a Baptist Church. I'm not sure who it's affiliated with and which Baptist denomination it's affiliated with. I find home churches quite interesting.

There are Orthodox home churches, where we cannot gather enough people to justify a building. Indeed the smallest church in the UK with regular services, is an Antiochian chapel a pious Orthodox Christian clergyman, formerly Anglican (there are so many C of E converts to the Antiochian church they have their own demonym, ”Angliochian”) built in his house: Home - Saint Fursey's Orthodox Christian Community in Stalham

Additioanlly in Greece small roadside Orthodox chapels are very common and there are also many of these on the grounds of St. Anthony‘s monastery in Florence, Arizona, where i met St. Ephraim of Mount Athos and Arizona.

At any rate take a look at this lovely church:

I am not opposed to house churches at all, indeed my next house will be acquired with ecclesiastical space in mind, rather I’m merely opposed to house churches as an issue of dogma, since there is no Scriptural injunction against dedicated buildings and the cathedral in Kerala on the site where St. Thomas the Apostle received a crown of martyrdom when the local Maharajah threw a javelin at him dates from the mid first century (and is presently in your denomiantion, unfortuntely the Portuguese replaced the original facade with a Latin Colonial Baroque facade.

Holy Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the holiest place in the Armenian church, where Christ appeared, causing the conversion of the Armenians to Holy Orthodoxy (the word means “God descended” in Classical Armenian.

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

The Liturgist said:
There are Orthodox home churches, where we cannot gather enough people to justify a building. Indeed the smallest church in the UK with regular services, is an Antiochian chapel a pious Orthodox Christian clergyman, formerly Anglican (there are so many C of E converts to the Antiochian church they have their own demonym, ”Angliochian”) built in his house: Home - Saint Fursey's Orthodox Christian Community in Stalham

Additioanlly in Greece small roadside Orthodox chapels are very common and there are also many of these on the grounds of St. Anthony‘s monastery in Florence, Arizona, where i met St. Ephraim of Mount Athos and Arizona.

At any rate take a look at this lovely church:

View attachment 381217

I am not opposed to house churches at all, indeed my next house will be acquired with ecclesiastical space in mind, rather I’m merely opposed to house churches as an issue of dogma, since there is no Scriptural injunction against dedicated buildings and the cathedral in Kerala on the site where St. Thomas the Apostle received a crown of martyrdom when the local Maharajah threw a javelin at him dates from the mid first century (and is presently in your denomiantion, unfortuntely the Portuguese replaced the original facade with a Latin Colonial Baroque facade.

Holy Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the holiest place in the Armenian church, where Christ appeared, causing the conversion of the Armenians to Holy Orthodoxy (the word means “God descended” in Classical Armenian.

I wasn't aware of that at all!

Thank you for sharing!

Peace!

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

@The Liturgist Without going off topic, I know there are some former Anglicans that became Orthodox and celebrated the Western Rite Orthodoxy within the Antiochian Orthodox Church. I have a Book of Common Prayer based on the Western Rite as well as St. Ambrose Prayerbook, even though I'm Roman Catholic. I find their liturgy and prayers still very beautiful. (I also love Eastern Christianity in general as an outsider).

Peace

RileyG · Jul 8, 2026

RileyG said:
@The Liturgist Without going off topic, I know there are some former Anglicans that became Orthodox and celebrated the Western Rite Orthodoxy within the Antiochian Orthodox Church. I have a Book of Common Prayer based on the Western Rite as well as St. Ambrose Prayerbook, even though I'm Roman Catholic. I find their liturgy and prayers still very beautiful. (I also love Eastern Christianity in general as an outsider).

Peace

Per the OP, there are also Eastern Catholics who use the Eastern Divine Liturgy but are in full communion with the Pope. The Catholic Church has 23 distinct rites. Indeed, not all Catholics are "Roman Catholic" and some Eastern Catholics may take offense at being called "Roman Catholic."

Within the western world, there are also Anglican Use Catholics who use a Mass based on the Anglican service. Other rites within the Catholic Church exist, such as the Mozarabic Rite in Spain & Portugal, and the Ambrosian Rite in Milan, Italy. These are not separate denominations, but are in full communion with the Catholic Church. The Church also recognizes the Zaire use of the Mass according to some African customs.

(A majority of Catholics in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and most of Africa belong to the Roman Rite. Most Catholics are Roman rite AKA Latin rite. For example, roughly 99% of Catholics are Roman Rite Catholics).

(The Anglican Ordinariate- which is the Anglican Use in the Catholic Church- includes former Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Methodists. Any Catholic can go to their Mass, it fulfills their Sunday obligation).

The Liturgist · Jul 8, 2026

RileyG said:
@The Liturgist Without going off topic, I know there are some former Anglicans that became Orthodox and celebrated the Western Rite Orthodoxy within the Antiochian Orthodox Church. I have a Book of Common Prayer based on the Western Rite as well as St. Ambrose Prayerbook, even though I'm Roman Catholic. I find their liturgy and prayers still very beautiful. (I also love Eastern Christianity in general as an outsider).

Peace

That’s correct, St. Andrew’s Prayerbook is the main Antiochian prayer book used in the US (I haven’t seen the St. Ambrose one, I am going to want to see that, perhaps PM me about it) - at any rate the Antiochians have Western Rite Vicarates in the US, Australia and England, and its a wonderful thing. There is also a much smaller ROCOR Western Rite Vicarate.

St. Andrew’s Prayerbook I quite like because it has two liturgies - one for use by Anglicans called the Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon, which basically took the Anglican Holy Communion service and modified it according to the specifications for changes outlined by St. Tikhon, who in his efforts to facilitate an Anglican-Russian Orthodox communion in the US, carefully scrutinized the Book of Common Prayer and made a list of what would need to be added or revised for it to be used in Orthodoxy, and additionally, there is a vernacular translation of the Tridentine Mass (which I feel is what most of the Council Fathers of Vatican II thought they would be getting with Sacrosanctum Concilium) with one or two very slight adjustments, the Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory the Diologist.*

*Not to be confused with the Presanctified Liturgy of St. Gregory the Diologist, which was used in both the EO church, on weekdays in Lent and Holy Week, and in your church, on Good Friday, until the revisions of the Tridentine mass in the 1950s by Pope Pius XII, which were a bit tragic in my opinion since they modified the liturgy of Good Friday and Holy Saturday in such a way that most of the parallels with Orthodoxy were lost.

truthuprootsevil · Jul 9, 2026

jmldn2 said:
I'm not a scholar (far from it) of history of religion but I have never understood why the Christian world even is divided into "denominations." We are not saved because we are in a certain denomination

It started in the first few hundred years of the church when the Church of Rome had ideas to separate itself from the church that followed the Jewish theologies because they had different theological ideas and made official in 1025 AD.
The Separation of Christianity from Judaism - World History Encyclopedia The Separation of Christianity from Judaism

The first schisms within Christianity - Musée protestant The first schisms within Christianity - Musée protestant

Then even within the Christian church itself, up until today there are different theological views on various scriptures and these views cause debates and these debates lead to separation.

Not the way it should be; SO WE UNDERSTAND WHY Christ said "Upon this Rock he builds his church and the Gates of hell will not prevail against it."

prodromos · Jul 9, 2026

truthuprootsevil said:
It started in the first few hundred years of the church when the Church of Rome had ideas to separate itself from the church that followed the Jewish theologies because they had different theological ideas and made official in 1025 AD.
The Separation of Christianity from Judaism - World History Encyclopedia The Separation of Christianity from Judaism

That article is awful, and even though the author is apparently Professor of Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, it seems obvious to me that she is not a Christian herself. She obviously does not believe Christ actually rose from the dead, let alone that He is eternal God. I wouldn't trust anything she writes about Christianity.

Aldebaran · Jul 9, 2026

THE DENOMINATION-SPECIFIC THEOLOGY FORUM IS NOT A PLACE TO BE FLAMING CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS WE DON'T AGREE WITH. PLEASE READ THE FORUM'S STATEMENT OF PURPOSE REGARDING THIS.

The Liturgist · Jul 9, 2026

RileyG said:
Through the years, many non-denominational

These are basically denominations, indeed many non-denominational churches are mini-denominations usually operating with some combination of evangelical / charismatic / fundamentalist-calvinist-baptist theology.

The Liturgist · Jul 9, 2026

prodromos said:
That article is awful, and even though the author is apparently Professor of Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, it seems obvious to me that she is not a Christian herself. She obviously does not believe Christ actually rose from the dead, let alone that He is eternal God. I wouldn't trust anything she writes about Christianity.

The article also completely ignores the history of the Mar Thoma Christians of India, the Syriac Orthodox, the Church of the East, and other groups of Christians with substantial numbers of Judaism, and it ignores the incorporation of Jewish worship practices into Christianity.

For example @truthuprootsevil - the article doesn’t mention how the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox, while in full communion with other Orthodox churches, still observe many Jewish practices, the main difference being they worship on Sunday as well as Saturday and no longer perform animal sacrifices but rather celebrate the Eucharist in place of that, but the Ethiopians are in full communion with the Copts who do not follow Jewish practices, indeed they were part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. Likewise some of the Mar Thoma Christians in India are of endogamous Jewish descent. Among those two groups, we see an avoidance of pork even though the denominations of which they are a member or in communion consume pork, along with other aspects of Judaism, and to me this is acceptable because Acts 15 appears to allow this for converts from Judaism.

The main issue is that the author is focused extremely narrowly on the history of the Western church and to a much lesser extent the Greek church and is also following a narrative popular among liberal scholars, the idea of parallel Christianities, usually used to justify discarding the Creeds and incorporating psuedepigrapha like the Gospel According to Thomas and other liberal texts.

jmldn2 · Jul 9, 2026

truthuprootsevil said:
It started in the first few hundred years of the church when the Church of Rome had ideas to separate itself from the church that followed the Jewish theologies because they had different theological ideas and made official in 1025 AD.
The Separation of Christianity from Judaism - World History Encyclopedia The Separation of Christianity from Judaism

The first schisms within Christianity - Musée protestant The first schisms within Christianity - Musée protestant

Then even within the Christian church itself, up until today there are different theological views on various scriptures and these views cause debates and these debates lead to separation.

Not the way it should be; SO WE UNDERSTAND WHY Christ said "Upon this Rock he builds his church and the Gates of hell will not prevail against it."

Thank you for such a great explanation.

jmldn2 · Jul 9, 2026

RileyG said:
Great question!

Look at early Christianity and how schisms occurred. The Great Schism that occurred between the West (Roman Catholic Church) and East (Eastern Orthodox Church) occurred in 1054. The Pope and Patriarch excommunicated one another.

In the 451, the Oriental Orthodox Church was separated from the rest of Christianity. They include Coptic, Armenians etc.

Prior to the Reformation, there was Jan Huss in Bohemia who is the father of the Moravian Church.

The Protestant Reformation occurred in 1517 with Martin Luther with Lutheranism. Then King Henry VIII of England separated from the Roman Church because he wanted to divorce his wife and the Pope wouldn't allow it. Thomas Cranmer was the one who really started the Church of England today followed by Elizabeth I.

Methodism is descended from Anglicanism by John & Charles Wesley. From Wesleyanism there is the Wesleyan Church, The Church of the Nazarene, and The Global Methodist Church.

Several others separated from Anglicanism including the Baptists, Congregationalists, Puritans, Separatists etc

Presbyterianism and Reformed traditions were founded by the Reformers John Calvin in France and John Knox in Scotland. There aremany Presbyterian and Reformed denominations today, including the United Church of Christ which was a merger of two Churches in the 1900s.

The pietist movement was founded by Lutherans. These include the Evangelical Covenant Church & the Evangelical Free Church.

The radical reformation founded the Anabaptists such as the Amish, Mennonites, & Hutterites.

Restorationist include the Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, & Christian Church founded by Alexander Campbell.

Pentecostalism was founded around 1900 during the Azusa street revival.

Through the years, many non-denominational Churches have been founded and many denominations share full communion sharing ministers, sacraments, and buildings.

This barely scratches the surface.

Wow. Oh, wow. Just leave it to man to mess around and try to "so call improve" God's original work

jmldn2 · Jul 9, 2026

Sabertooth said:
OP, if there were no denominations, you could not be a Methodist.

I worship in the Methodist church because that's where my husband grew up his whole life. I was brought up a Baptist. However, I am a Christian who goes to a certain denomination. I do not agree with all of the Methodist doctrine. I did not agree with all of the Baptist doctrine. I believe in the Word of God as it is revealed to me through the Holy Spirit with which I am sealed. My salvation is from Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God Almighty Make of Heaven and Earth. Entering heaven is not based upon denomination, my name on a church roll, church attendance. I just cannot believe there are so many denominations within the Christian faith.

Why are there even denominations to begin with?

Senior Veteran

Veteran

Veteran

Veteran

Veteran

Senior Veteran

Veteran

Traditional Liturgical Christian

Veteran

Veteran

Veteran

Traditional Liturgical Christian

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

NCC-1701-A

Traditional Liturgical Christian

Traditional Liturgical Christian

Newbie

Newbie

Newbie

Similar threads