Tradition Timeline

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Offshoots

When the Orthodox East and the Protestant Reformation parted from the Catholic Church, and where each of their distinct teachings first appears, in their own words and in the Church's replies.

Each mark is one quotation. Touch the timeline to read it.

3 timelines

63 quotations, each linked to the page it was checked against.

When each body parted

Each of these bodies has a row of its own under the main timeline. The row opens at the year shown here.

1054

Eastern Orthodox: parted from the Catholic Church. The legates of the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicate each other. This is the date usually given for the break between East and West.

1517

Lutheran: parted from the Catholic Church. Martin Luther publishes the Ninety-five Theses at Wittenberg. Pope Leo X excommunicates him in 1521.

1523

Reformed: parted from the Catholic Church. Ulrich Zwingli defends his Sixty-seven Articles at Zurich, and the city sides with him.

1525

Anabaptist: parted from the Reformed body. Former followers of Zwingli at Zurich baptize one another as adults and part from him.

1534

Anglican: parted from the Catholic Church. The Act of Supremacy names King Henry VIII supreme head of the Church of England.

1609

Baptist: parted from the Anglican body. John Smyth and a group of English Separatists in Amsterdam form the first Baptist congregation.

1784

Methodist: parted from the Anglican body. John Wesley sends ministers to America, and the Methodist Episcopal Church is organized apart from the Church of England.

1901

Pentecostal: parted from the Methodist body. The revival under Charles Parham at Topeka, Kansas. The Azusa Street revival follows in 1906.

The timelines

The East-West SchismFor the first thousand years the churches of East and West were in one communion. This timeline quotes the creed and canons they shared, then the points on which they came apart: the words "and the Son" in the Creed, the authority of the bishop of Rome, unleavened bread, purgatory, and later the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility. The Orthodox side and the Catholic side each speak in their own words, in date order. It ends with the lifting of the excommunications in 1965 and where the question of the primacy stood in 1995.18 quotations, from 381 to 1995The Protestant ReformationIn 1517 Martin Luther published ninety-five theses on indulgences. Within a few years he was excommunicated, and over the following centuries the movement that began with him divided into many separate bodies. This timeline quotes those bodies in their own words at or near the time each one began, with the replies of the popes and the Council of Trent, and ends with what the Catholic Church has said in recent years about the divisions and the work toward unity.20 quotations, from 31 October 1517 to 31 October 2016Where Protestant teachings first appearThis timeline takes the teachings that the objections on this site answer and asks where each one enters the written record. For each teaching it gives the earliest statement that could be quoted from a primary document on an approved source, in date order, with a link to the objection that answers it. Some of these teachings have forerunners before 1517, and those are shown at their own dates. A few replies of the Church are set at the dates they were given.25 quotations, from c. 400-430 to 1677