Hello, everyone!
As a Roman Catholic my self, that you ask this question saddens me. This is through no fault of your own of course. It's simply to me a reflection of the world today.
As Trumble said, Catholics are Christian, but not all Christians are Catholic. I have found that this belief that Catholics and Christians are two completely different religions stems from America as it is not commonly found amongst us Europeans. This stems from an erroneous belief that Catholics worship the Pope, the Saints, the Blessed Virgin Mary and statues etc.
Christianity is baisically split into three denominations or branches: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism.
Catholicism is the largest denomination of Christianity in the world. The Catholic Church its self is is composed of 23
sui iuris particular Churches. The largest of which is the Latin-Rite or Church. This particular Church grew up and out of the ashes of the Roman/Latin West. The other 22 particular Churches are what we would consider the Churches of Eastern Catholicism. These are Catholics who stay in tune with their Easter non-Latin heritage. Quite close to Eastern Orthodoxy. However, one thing we all have in common is that we share and profess a united Catholic Faith. This is what makes the Church universal.
Orthodoxy is the second largest denomination of Christianity in the world. I confess to having a more limited knowledge of the Orthodox world. It has two denominations: Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. There are two distinct branches of Theology within Catholicism which are characterised as Western Theology and Eastern Theology. Western Theology was heavily influenced by late Latin thinkers such as Aquinas—who him self was influenced by early Greek thinkers—and especially influenced by the Early Church Father Augustine of Hippo. Eastern Theology stays closer to simply the Early Church Fathers—so they say—and normally hold disdain for Latin thinkers. Eastern Theology is also characterised by a strong Esoteric undertone. I believe this stems from influence from early Gnosticism or perhaps their peculiar Eastern mentality/character.
Their reasons from breaking with the Catholic Church are mostly political and ethnic however. They simply do not like the Latin West. They abandoned the Church of Christ over material matters. Though I hold my hands up in saying that the Church was not always immaculate in temporal issues and must share some portion of the blame.
Protestantism... Protestantism... I cannot say anything nice about Protestantism. Their origins lie in politics. Simply put. There are around 70,000 different branches of Protestantism world-wide. Every man is his own Truth.
Yes, this is so. But as was the case even when the Eastern and Western Roman Empires lived, their was political tension in the air. The Great Schism was not so different from the Protestant Reformation in that it was driven by material and temporal matters.
I hold my hands up and say I am biased, however
!
Regards,
JP.
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