Christianity is the religion centred on the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians confess as the Messiah and the Son of God. With more than two billion adherents, it is the largest religious tradition in the world.
Origins
Christianity began in the first century CE among Jewish followers of Jesus in Judea and Galilee. After his crucifixion under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, his followers proclaimed that God had raised him from the dead. Missionaries, among them the apostle Paul, carried the message across the eastern Mediterranean, and communities of non-Jewish believers soon outnumbered the Jewish ones.
Belief
The early church defined its central doctrines at councils. The Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 affirmed the doctrine of the Trinity: one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 affirmed that Jesus is one person with a divine and a human nature.
Scripture and worship
The Christian Bible joins the Hebrew scriptures, called the Old Testament, with the New Testament: four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, letters and the book of Revelation. Worship centres on baptism and the Eucharist, the shared bread and wine that recall the Last Supper. The great festivals are Christmas and Easter.
The churches today
- Catholic Church, in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
- Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches.
- Protestant churches, which arose from the sixteenth-century Reformation.
- The Church of the East and many independent and Pentecostal churches.
Continue with Sacred Texts, Comparative Studies or the Glossary.