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Timeline of Church History (New Testament Era)

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Timeline of Church History
Eras Timeline of Church History (Abridged article)
Eras New Testament Era | Apostolic Era (33-100) | Ante-Nicene Era (100-325) | Nicene Era (325-451) | Byzantine Era (451-843) | Late Byzantine Era (843-1054) | Post-Roman Schism (1054-1453) | Post-Imperial Era (1453-1821) | Modern Era (1821-1917) | Communist Era (1917-1991) | Post-Communist Era (1991-Present) |
(Main articles)


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The History of the Church is a vital part of the Orthodox Christian faith. Orthodox Christians are defined significantly by their continuity with all those who have gone before, those who first received and preached the truth of Jesus Christ to the world, those who helped to formulate the expression and worship of our faith, and those who continue to move forward in the unchanging yet ever-dynamic Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church.

New Testament era

  • 168 BC-70 AD Late Second Temple period: the main internal struggles amongst the Jews were between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as well as the Essenes and Zealots.
  • 168 BC martyrdom of the Holy Seven Maccabees, their mother Solomonia, and their teacher Eleazar.
  • 167-160 BC Revolt of the Maccabees under Judas Maccabeus.
  • 165 BC Restoration of Jewish worship at the Temple in Jerusalem; the Temple is purified and the idols erected there by Antiochus IV are destroyed; the reconsecration of the Temple becomes an annual feast of dedication in the Jewish calendar, Hanukkah (the wicks of the menorah miraculously burned for eight days, even though there was only enough sacred oil for one day's lighting).
  • 63 BC Judea becomes a Roman client kingdom (Iudaea Province by 6 AD).
  • 46 BC Julius Caesar institutes Julian Calendar.
  • 40 The Idumean Herod the Great, son of Antipater, was designated "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate.
  • 27 BC-180 AD Pax Romana.
  • 20 BC Herod the Great begins a massive renovation and expansion of the Second Temple complex; treaty between Rome and Persia fixes boundary between the two empires along the Euphrates.


Notes

  • Some of these dates are necessarily a bit vague, as records for some periods are particularly difficult to piece together accurately.
  • The division of Church History into separate eras as done here will always be to some extent arbitrary, though it was attempted to group periods according to major watershed events.
  • This timeline is necessarily biased toward the history of the Orthodox Church, though a number of non-Orthodox or purely political events are mentioned for their importance in history related to Orthodoxy or for reference.

See also

Published works

The following are published writings that provide an overview of Church history:

From an Orthodox perspective

From a Heterodox perspective

  • Boer, Harry R. A Short History of the Early Church. (ISBN 0802813399)
  • Cairns, Earle E. Christianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church. (ISBN 0310208122)
  • Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church. (ISBN 0140231994)
  • Eusebius Pamphilus; Cruse, C.F. (translator). Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. (ISBN 1565633717)
  • Gonzalez, Justo L. A History of Christian Thought, Volume 1: From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon. (ISBN 0687171822)
  • Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Reformation. (ISBN 0060633158)
  • Hall, Stuart G. Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church. (ISBN 0802806295)
  • Hastings, Adrian, ed. A World History of Christianity. (ISBN 0802848753)
  • Hurtado, Larry W. (Dr). Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005. (ISBN 9780802831675)
  • Jones, Timothy P. Christian History Made Easy. (ISBN 1890947105)
  • Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church. (ISBN 156563196X)
  • Wace, Henry; Piercy, William C., ed. A Dictionary of Christian Biography: Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D. With an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies. (ISBN 1565630572)
  • Walton, Robert C. Chronological and Background Charts of Church History. (ISBN 0310362814)

External links