Tradition · 30

Early Church

The church from the time of the apostles through the first great councils, before the lasting splits of the 5th century and the Great Schism of 1054.

It grew across the Roman Empire and beyond, organised around bishops in cities such as Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and later Constantinople. The councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) defined the doctrine of the Trinity and produced the Nicene Creed. Most later traditions, Eastern and Western, claim continuity with it.