Christendom

This T-and-O map, which abstracts the known world to a cross inscribed within an orb, remakes geography in the service of Christian iconography. A T and O map or O-T or T-O map ( orbis terrae, orb or circle of the earth is a type of Medieval World map, sometimes also called More detailed versions place Jerusalem at the center of the world. Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, he-Latn Yerushaláyim; Arabic: ar القُدس, ar-Latn al-Quds) is the

Christendom usually refers to Christianity as a territorial phenomenon. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings It can also refer to the part of the world in which Christianity prevails. ^[1]

1 Christendom as a polity
2 Corpus Christianum
3 See also
4 Notes
5 External links

Christendom as a polity

The term Christendom has been used to refer to the medieval and renaissance notion of the Christian world as a sort of social and political polity. Polity ( Greek: Πολιτεία or Πολίτευμα transliterated as Politeía or Políteuma) was originally a term used in Ancient Greece In essence, the vision of Christendom is a vision of a Christian theocracy, a government devoted to the enforcement of Christian values, whose institutions are suffused with Christian doctrine. Theocracy is a form of government in which a god or deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler For the government of parliamentary systems see Executive (government. In this vision, members of the Christian clergy wield political authority. Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given Religion. The specific relationship between the political leaders and the clergy can vary but, in theory, national or political divisions are subsumed under the leadership of a church institution. This vision would tempt Church leaders and political leaders alike throughout European history.

Depiction of Constantine and the Nicene Fathers holding the Nicene Creed.

Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 proclaiming toleration for the Christian religion, and convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (27 February ca. 272 &ndash 22 May 337 commonly known as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or Saint Constantine The Edict of Milan was a letter signed by emperors Constantine and Licinius, that proclaimed Religious toleration in the Roman Empire. The First Council of Nicaea, held in Nicaea in Bithynia (present-day İznik in Turkey) convoked by the Roman Emperor Constantine The Nicene Creed (ˈnaɪsiːn is an ecumenical Christian statement of faith accepted in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of Christianity became the state religion of the Empire in 392 when Theodosius I prohibited the practice of pagan religions. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings A state religion (also called an official religion, established church or state church) is a religious body or Creed officially Flavius Theodosius (January 11 347 – January 17 395 also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great ( Greek: Θεοδόσιος Α΄ Ancient Roman religion encompasses the collection of Beliefs and Rituals practised in Ancient Rome in the form of Cult practices The Church gradually became a defining institution of the Empire.

As the Western Roman Empire disintegrated into feudal kingdoms and principalities, the concept of Christendom became less defined in the West and the Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire (and the subsequent Byzantine Empire) came to see themselves as the last bastion of Christendom. The Western Roman Empire refers to the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285 the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern The Decline of the Roman Empire, leading to the Fall of the Roman Empire, or the Fall of Rome, was the end of the Western Roman Empire. The vision would eventually take a radical turn with the rise of the Franks, a Germanic tribe that converted to the Christian faith and entered into communion with Rome. The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group On Christmas day 800 AD, Pope Leo III made the fateful decision to switch his allegiance from the emperors in Constantinople and crowned Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, as the Emperor of what came to be known as the Holy Roman Empire. Pope Leo III (died June 12, 816) was Pope from 795 to 816 Protected by Charlemagne from his enemies in Rome he subsequently strengthened Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις Konstantinoúpolis, or gr ἡ Πόλις hē Polis, Latin: la CONSTANTINOPOLIS Charlemagne (ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus meaning Charles the Great) (747 – 28 January 814 was King of the Franks from 768 to his The Holy Roman Empire ( HRE; German Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR, Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium (SRI was a union of territories in This empire created a competing definition of Christendom in contrast to the Byzantine Empire. The question of what constituted true Christendom would occupy political and religious leaders for centuries.

After the collapse of Charlemagne's empire, the Holy Roman Empire became a collection of states loosely connected to the Holy See of Rome. The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent Episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Tensions between the Popes and secular rulers ran high, as the pontiffs attempted to exert control over their temporal counterparts and vice versa. While the term " Pope " ( Latin: papa "father'" is used in several Churches to denote their high spiritual leaders ( e The idea of Christendom in the West was already greatly discredited by the time of the Renaissance Popes because of the moral laxity of the pontiffs and their willingness to seek and rely on temporal power as secular rulers did.

In the East, Christendom became increasingly well defined as the Byzantine Empire's gradual loss of territory to an expanding Islam caused Christianity to become ever more important to Byzantine identity. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. Even after the East-West Schism which divided the Church, there had always been a vague notion of a universal Christendom that included the East and the West. The East-West Schism, or the Great Schism, divided medieval Christendom into Eastern (Greek and Western (Latin branches which later became known as the The Byzantines would be divided among the Byzantine rite of the Orthodox Church and the Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church. The political unity (now without religious unity) was finally destroyed by the Fourth Crusade when Western Christian mercenaries conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and set the Byzantine Empire on the path to annihilation. The Fourth Crusade (1202&ndash1204 was originally designed to conquer Muslim Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις Konstantinoúpolis, or gr ἡ Πόλις hē Polis, Latin: la CONSTANTINOPOLIS ^[2]

With the breakup of the Byzantine Empire into individual nations with nationalist Orthodox Churches, the term Christendom became more valid in describing Western Europe, Catholicism and the non-Orthodox among Byzantines and other Eastern rites of the Church.

The Reformation and the ensuing decline and breakup of the Holy Roman Empire into independent states caused the term "Christendom" to take on a more informal meaning in Western Europe signifying countries which were predominantly Christian as opposed to Islamic or pagan countries. Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller rustic" is a word used to refer to various religions and religious beliefs from across the world

Others argue that, with the division of Protestantism into many denominations, Christendom could only apply to the civilization of Catholic nations that espoused the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King. This article discusses the title of Jesus Christ Christ the King.

The term can also refer to Christians considered as a group (the "Christian World") or to the informal cultural hegemony that Christianity has traditionally enjoyed in the West. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings

Corpus Christianum

There is another sense to the polity, with a less secular meaning, which would have been compatible with the idea of both a religious and a temporal body: Corpus Christianum. The Latin term Corpus Christianum is often translated as the Christian body, meaning the community of all Christians.

It described the pre-modern notion of the community of all Christians united under the Roman Catholic Church. In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment. A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth This community was to be guided by Christian values in its politics, economics and social life. Its legal basis was the corpus iuris canonica (body of canon law). Canon law is internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Anglican Communion of churches The Church's peak of authority over all European Christians in the Middle Ages and common endeavors of the Christian community — for example, the Crusades, the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and that against the Ottomans in the Balkans — helped to develop this sense of communal identity against the obstacle of Europe's deep political divisions. The Crusades were a series of military campaigns of a religious character waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Muslim (and earlier non-Muslim people of Berber and Arab descent The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe, and includes modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish The Corpus Christianum can be seen as a Christian equivalent of the Muslim Ummah. Ummah (أمة is an Arabic word meaning Community or Nation. It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or (in the The concept also justified the Inquisition and anti-Jewish pogroms, to root out divergent elements and create a religiously uniform community. The term Inquisition can refer to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics within the Roman Catholic Church and A pogrom is a form of Riot directed against a particular group whether ethnic religious or other and characterized by destruction of their Homes Businesses

This concept has been in crisis since the late Middle Ages, when the kings of France managed to establish a French national church during the 14th century and the papacy became ever more aligned with the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Holy Roman Empire ( HRE; German Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR, Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium (SRI was a union of territories in Other developments in philosophy and events in England and Europe were also critical: the War of the Roses, the Hundred Years' War, the end of feudalism and the rise of strong, centralized monarchies presaging the modern nation-state. The Hundred Years' War (Guerre de Cent Ans was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne vacant with the extinction of the senior Feudalism, a term first used in the early modern period (17th century in its most classic sense refers to a Medieval Europe Political system composed For the online game see Jennifer Government NationStates. The nation-state is a certain form of State that derives its legitimacy The Empire, due to its massive size, did represent a large portion of European Christians. Thus the Corpus Christianum was limited to the Christian community of the Empire, rather than all Christians worldwide.

The rise of Modernity and the Reformation in the early 16th century entailed the further deconstruction of the Corpus Christianum. Modernity is a term that refers to the Modern era. It is distinct from Modernism, and in different contexts refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the The Protestant Reformation was a reform movement in Europe that began in 1517 though its roots lie further back in time The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 officially ended the idea that all Christians could be united under one church. The Peace of Augsburg was a treaty between Ferdinand I, who replaced his brother Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor, and the forces of the Schmalkaldic The principle of cuius regio, eius religion ("whose the region is, his religion") established the religious, political and geographic divisions of Christianity, and this was established in international law with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which finally legally ended the concept of Christian unity, i. International law is the term commonly used for referring to the system of implicit and explicit agreements that bind together nation-states in adherence to recognized values and standards The term Peace of Westphalia refers to the two peace treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, signed on May 15 and October 24 of A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth e. the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" of the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed (ˈnaɪsiːn is an ecumenical Christian statement of faith accepted in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of With the Treaty of Westphalia, the Wars of Religion came to an end, and in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 the concept of the sovereign national state was born. The French Wars of Religion (1562 to 1598 between French Catholics and Protestants ( Huguenots involved both civil infighting The Treaty of Utrecht that established the Peace of Utrecht, rather than a single document comprised a series of individual peace treaties signed in the Dutch Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself The Corpus Christianum was replaced by something foreshadowing the modern idea of a tolerant and diverse society consisting of many different communities.

In this way Western Christendom, it can be argued, gave birth to a new civilisation known as "Western civilisation", characterised by the values of secularism and the separation of church and state. Secularism is generally the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from Religion or religious beliefs Separation of church and state is a Political and Legal Doctrine that Government and religious institutions are to be kept separate However, under the motto of the clash of civilizations and the growth of Christian fundamentalism, the idea might experience a revival to help define the West in contrast to other cultures. The Clash of Civilizations is a Theory, proposed by Political scientist Samuel P Fundamentalist Christianity, also known as Christian Fundamentalism or Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, is a movement that arose mainly within British and Western culture (sometimes equated with Western Civilization) are terms which are used to refer to Cultures of European origin

Notes

^ See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Christendom
^ Palmer, 1881. Constantinian shift is a term used by Anabaptist and Post-Christendom theologians to describe the political and theological aspects of the 4th century Ecumene (also spelled œcumene or oikoumene) a term originally used in the Greco-Roman world to refer to the inhabited earth (or at least the known ' Res publica christiana' is a Latin phrase combining the idea of Res publica + christiana to describe the worldwide community of Christianity Dominionism describes in several distinct ways a tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States Edwin Palmer, The Greek Testament] with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version. London: Simon Wallenberg Press, 2007. ISBN 1843560232

External links

Dictionary

-proper noun

The Christian world.

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