I was using Ambrose's statements regarding confession of mortal vs venial sins to cite the beliefs I am referring to. The timing is at the beginning of the Constantine changes, which really begin what most people consider as the Roman era of the Church. No doubt about it though, once the Temple was detroyed in 70 AD and the Church scattered, it began the shift to Roman centered due to the size of that Church (30,000), the infuence of the Roman culture in the world, and the fact that both Peter and Paul travelled to Rome at the end of their lives to provide leadership for the entire Church from that base of operations. But let's not lose cite that the maturing of the Church from those formative years migrating away from Jewish centric was not necessarily a bad thing. Paul's theology and oral traditions paved the way there. The liturgical nature of the Church, with bishops, priests and deacons, the liturgy of the Eucharistic service (the Mass), etc were all birthed while the apostles were presiding over the Church and were modelled from Jewish practices (the Passover, Temple priests, etc), as well as the visions that John experienced of Heaven (Revelation). John was known to be the first to have worn the bishop's mitre and his teachings and influence were a tremendous influence of bringing some uniformity across East and West in the form the liturgy of the Eucharistic Mass. So much of what people think of as "Catholic" actually had it's root right there with the Apostles.
