Faith, rites
and changing worlds.

A tradition that developed over time

A rite is an inherited pattern of worship: prayers, readings, gestures, music and the ordering of services. The Roman Rite developed from worship in the church of Rome and spread beyond the city. Its history includes changes in books and practice; it was not created in one finished form.

Catholicism names a wider church tradition and communion. The Roman Rite is its principal Latin liturgical tradition. The Catholic Church also includes Eastern churches using other rites. Knowing someone is Catholic therefore does not tell you every detail of how their community worships.

Rite asks how a community worships; church asks which community it belongs to.

• How the Roman Missal developed

  USCCB · historical introduction

• Liturgical diversity, paragraphs 1200–1203

  Catechism of the Catholic Church · church self-description

A tradition that developed over time

A rite is an inherited pattern of worship: prayers, readings, gestures, music and the ordering of services. The Roman Rite developed from worship in the church of Rome and spread beyond the city. Its history includes changes in books and practice; it was not created in one finished form.

Catholicism names a wider church tradition and communion. The Roman Rite is its principal Latin liturgical tradition. The Catholic Church also includes Eastern churches using other rites. Knowing someone is Catholic therefore does not tell you every detail of how their community worships.

Rite asks how a community worships; church asks which community it belongs to.

• How the Roman Missal developed

  USCCB · historical introduction

• Liturgical diversity, paragraphs 1200–1203

  Catechism of the Catholic Church · church self-description

451

The Council of Chalcedon met in 451 in the eastern Roman Empire. Its definition confessed one and the same Christ as fully divine and fully human, acknowledged in two natures without confusion or separation. The language tried to protect both Christ’s unity and the reality of his humanity and divinity.

Chalcedonian therefore identifies acceptance of this definition. It does not name a single worship rite. Reading the council’s acts also reveals bishops, imperial officials and disputes over authority. Theological argument took place within institutions and imperial politics.

“Two natures” in the definition does not mean two persons or two Christs.

• Council of Chalcedon, 451 · definition and acts

  Fordham Medieval Sourcebook · translated primary documents with later commentary

Late antiquity onward

The Coptic Orthodox Church is rooted in Egypt; the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Armenian Christian tradition. Both belong to the Oriental Orthodox family, which did not receive Chalcedon as an authoritative council. Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox are distinct church families.

Their emphasis on the unity of the incarnate Christ is often called miaphysite. It should not be reduced to a claim that Jesus lacked real humanity. The Catholic–Coptic declaration of 1973 explicitly affirmed both his complete divinity and complete humanity.

The Armenian church traces its beginnings to the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew as sacred tradition. Its classical Armenian liturgy and scriptural culture have their own history. “Apostolic” is a claim to continuity with the apostles used by many churches; here we mean the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Describe a church’s own teaching accurately, even when studying disagreements with it.

• Common Declaration of Paul VI and Shenouda III, 1973

  Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity · primary declaration

• Armenian Apostolic Church, Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin

  World Council of Churches · member church profile

• Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement · Oriental Orthodox–Roman Catholic dialogue

  World Council of Churches · reference work

Late antiquity onward

The Coptic Orthodox Church is rooted in Egypt; the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Armenian Christian tradition. Both belong to the Oriental Orthodox family, which did not receive Chalcedon as an authoritative council. Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox are distinct church families.

Their emphasis on the unity of the incarnate Christ is often called miaphysite. It should not be reduced to a claim that Jesus lacked real humanity. The Catholic–Coptic declaration of 1973 explicitly affirmed both his complete divinity and complete humanity.

The Armenian church traces its beginnings to the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew as sacred tradition. Its classical Armenian liturgy and scriptural culture have their own history. “Apostolic” is a claim to continuity with the apostles used by many churches; here we mean the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Describe a church’s own teaching accurately, even when studying disagreements with it.

• Common Declaration of Paul VI and Shenouda III, 1973

  Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity · primary declaration

• Armenian Apostolic Church, Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin

  World Council of Churches · member church profile

• Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement · Oriental Orthodox–Roman Catholic dialogue

  World Council of Churches · reference work

Early Christian debates; Iberia in the late eighth century

Adoptionism is a label used for different arguments about Jesus’ sonship. Introductory accounts often describe a human Jesus adopted as God’s Son. Modern scholarship questions whether that single description fits all the early figures placed under the label.

The later controversy associated with Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgell concerned speaking of Christ as adopted with respect to his humanity while affirming his divine sonship. It drew opposition from church leaders and Charlemagne’s circle, including condemnation at Frankfurt in 794. Treat that Iberian dispute in its own setting rather than as the automatic return of an unchanged ancient sect.

A repeated label does not establish an identical doctrine or continuous organization.

• Adoptionism

  Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907 · older Catholic account

• Rethinking adoptionism: An argument for dismantling a dubious category

  Scottish Journal of Theology, 2023 · research article

From tenth-century Bulgaria

Bogomilism emerged in medieval Bulgaria and spread into the Byzantine world. Sources associate it with ascetic Christian teaching and dualism: an opposition between the good divine realm and an evil power connected with the material world. Dualist accounts themselves varied.

Much of the evidence comes from opponents. Their descriptions need to be distinguished from the surviving texts associated with the tradition. Similar ideas among different groups do not, by themselves, prove an unbroken organizational chain from ancient Manichaeism through Bogomils to western Cathars.

A similarity in teaching is a reason to investigate contact, not proof of descent.

• Cathars, Albigensians, and Bogomils

  Encyclopaedia Iranica · comparative account of dualism

Twelfth–thirteenth centuries

Catharism is the conventional name for medieval western Christian dissent associated especially with southern France and northern Italy. Some surviving texts teach dualism and distinguish spiritual goodness from the material world. Historians debate how unified and extensive an organized movement existed, especially before the crusade.

The Albigensian Crusade joined the suppression of heresy to struggles over land, lordship and authority in southern France. The murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208 helped precipitate intervention, but accusations about who ordered it are not proof of responsibility.

For the War Atlas, separate what a campaign sought, which rulers and communities were involved, and what the sources show. A battle’s participants cannot all be assigned one belief from the name of the crusade.

Belief, accusations, political aims and military action need separate evidence.

• Cathars, Albigensians, and Bogomils

  Encyclopaedia Iranica · comparative account of dualism

• Principles at Stake: The Debate of April 2013 in Retrospect

  Cathars in Question, Boydell & Brewer · chapter summary

• The Albigensian Crusade

  The Cambridge History of the Crusades · chapter summary

Bohemia, 1421

The Bohemian group usually called Adamites broke from the radical Hussite environment in 1421. It came into conflict with other Hussites and was destroyed by forces led by Jan Žižka. The dispute involved the Eucharist, authority and reported violence.

Stories of restored innocence, nudity and sexual practices are often what later readers remember. Petr Čornej’s study distinguishes contemporary testimony from propaganda and later literary embellishment. It leaves important details uncertain. The historical community should not become a collection of sensational accusations presented as agreed facts.

An opponent’s allegation tells us what was alleged; it needs further evidence to establish what happened.

• The Adamites: Topoi – Fiction – Reality?

  Petr Čornej, Bohemica Olomucensia, 2021 · research abstract

Late fourteenth century onward

Lollardy names varied English religious dissent associated with John Wycliffe and later followers. Scripture, clerical power and wealth, and the meaning of the sacraments were central concerns. It was not a single standardized church with a uniform membership list.

The Twelve Conclusions presented in 1395 attacked aspects of the English church, including its temporal power and practices surrounding the Eucharist, images and pilgrimage. The text also condemned warfare. Read it as a particular reform statement, not as a survey of every person accused of Lollardy. Its preservation through a hostile refutation is part of its history.

A movement’s document is valuable evidence without representing every associated person.

• John Wycliffe and the Lollards

  Harvard Geoffrey Chaucer Website · historical introduction

• The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards

  Harvard Geoffrey Chaucer Website · translated primary text

Hus’s death in 1415; the articles of 1420

Jan Hus was a Bohemian preacher and reformer executed at the Council of Constance in 1415. The movement bearing his name developed into competing religious and political groups. Utraquists emphasized communion in both kinds: bread and wine for laypeople. Tábor became a centre of more radical reform.

The Four Articles of Prague called for preaching, communion in both kinds, limits on the clergy’s worldly rule, and punishment of serious public sins irrespective of rank. The ensuing wars involved crusading forces and disputes within Bohemia. “Hussite” therefore cannot be used as a synonym for one army, one programme or all religious dissent.

Follow the different groups and their aims within a movement, as well as its external opponents.

• Huss, John, Hussites

  New Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia · older Protestant account

• The Four Articles of Prague, 1420

  Husitství · Czech historical document

Fifteenth-century Castile

In this Iberian setting, conversos commonly means Jews who became Christians and, in many uses, their descendants. The label did not identify a separate church or one shared theology.

Yosi Yisraeli and Yanay Israeli show that contemporaries disputed who should be included, particularly in arguments following Toledo’s revolt of 1449. Some resisted applying a convert label to people born and raised Christian. Classification could carry social and political consequences.

An ancestry label cannot establish a person’s private belief. It is wrong to assume that all conversos secretly practised Judaism, or that every conversion had the same circumstances. Begin with an individual, place, date and surviving evidence.

A category imposed on people is not direct access to what they believed.

• Defining “Conversos” in Fifteenth-Century Castile

  Yosi Yisraeli and Yanay Israeli, Speculum, 2022 · research abstract