The religion based on Christ has been divided into four main branches. It is interesting to know what the dogmatic differences are between these branches of Christianity, since despite using the same sacred text, each one of them has substantially different customs, rites and beliefs. different.
The Christianity
The Christian religion is Abrahamic monotheistic and is based on the existence and doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth. It is considered the religion that has the most followers, it is the most widespread in the world with more than 2.400 million devotees. This religion in its primitive stage was highly persecuted, but it made its way and is currently spread throughout the world. If you want to learn more about these religious topics, you can read ¿what are the sacraments?
Christianity is very varied both from a cultural and dogmatic point of view. The branches of Christianity have emerged due to the differences that exist in the interpretation of the books that make up the Bible. All agree to consider Jesus of Nazareth like the messiah announced in the old testament, but from then on the way of believing in the teachings varies.
This religion arose from Judaism in the middle of the first century after Christ, in judea. It was led at that time by the disciples of Jesus. This early Christianity spread from here, despite having suffered great persecution. Over time it came to be present in practically every country in the world. In some times even the kings appointed themselves leaders of the church, and carried out reforms at their whim and convenience.
branches of christianity
With the passage of time, and the acceptance of Christian congregations, there were more and more conversions to this religion. This led to the ramification of it due to small and large discrepancies in the exercise of faith, for different reasons these variants arose, here are the four main ones, although there are others.
This distinction was made taking into account the number of parishioners that each branch has, and the number of countries where their temples are located. This was done this way because that is an indicator of the impact they have on societies, faith is an important promoter of good behavior in human beings, and here lies the great importance in societies of these branches of Christianity.
Protestantism
This is one of the most relevant branches of Christianity, more than nine hundred million parishioners are documented throughout the world. It begins in the sixteenth century with Martin Luther, this is the so-called progenitor of Protestantism, since in fifteen hundred and seventeen, it officially separated from the institution of the Catholic Church.
Protestants consider that there are only two activities: baptism and communion. They do not recognize the figure of the supreme pontiff as the vicar of Christ and the highest authority of the church. For this branch of Christianity, the Bible is the only book where the word of God is found, and therefore his teachings.
Protestants do not agree with the charge for indulgences, so they preach that the salvation of the soul depends solely and exclusively on the faith of each person and not on the works that are done. For them there is no purgatory, and they do not believe in the allegory of the sacrifice of the mass or in the intercession of the deceased saints.
In this branch the use of statues or religious images is not accepted. Due to its number of followers and the number of countries where its cults are found, it is the most influential in modern Christianity.
Orthodox
The orthodox slopes separated from the institution of the catholic church in the eleventh century, although both are very similar in the ritual part and in the beliefs. The Orthodox constitute a congregation of independent churches, each of which has its own ecclesiastical authorities in the figure of its bishops.
This is one of the branches of Christianity that begins with the definitive rupture of the institution of the Christian church by finding differences in criteria and not accepting them in the reforms that the Roman church proposed. That's exactly where the name orthodox comes from, which means straight belief. In this branch, the original creed of the Christian church is maintained as the origin of the holy spirit.
The orthodox church denies the existence of purgatory, nor does it accept the pure conception of the virgin María, and does not recognize the definition of the original slip that the Roman church embraced. The countries where the largest number of believers are found are Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Russia.
One of the most marked differences of this branch of Christianity, with the Roman Church, is that male priests married to ladies of good reputation can be ordained, meaning that the celibacy of the priesthood does not apply to the Orthodox Church. In these churches it is common to find married deacons and priests. If you want to know more about spiritual issues you can read the holy book of buddhism.
This is another of the branches of Christianity that has a large number of believers, which is why it is widespread throughout the Christian world. Their churches can be found in more and more places on the planet.
Catholic
This is one of the branches of Christianity, which corresponds to the institution of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church in Western Europe. It has its backbone in the Vatican and considers the Pope as vicar of Christ and maximum authority. Of the branches of Christianity that exist, this is the one with the most parishioners, with more than one thousand two hundred and fourteen million faithful believers.
In addition to the cult of Jesus, the virgin is also considered worthy of worship María with all its invocations and the saints. The institution of Catholicism, wields as an argument, that she was the only one that Christ in person founded, through a commission that he left to the apostle Pedro, this is the reason why it is considered as the instrument of the intimate union with God.
The practices of the Catholic Church have been based on doctrinal uses and definitions that are not found in the text of the Bible and that are transmitted through the apostolic tradition, this custom was one of the reasons that caused the separation of the Orthodox and the Protestants.
Catholics have seven sacraments to perform throughout their lives and among the main ones are baptism, the Eucharist, and marriage. The other branches of Christianity consider that the Catholic Church has moved away from the teachings contained in the Bible, and question many of the currently accepted definitions and sacraments. In the last reforms, a great gap was marked between the four branches of Christianity, since the dogmatic difference is very deep.
Anglican church
This church was born in England, where it is practiced and in some places in the United States. It is a large congregation of some forty self-governing interdependent areas, defined as the faith, practice and spirit of the constituent temples known as the Anglican Communion, which are churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It is one of the most faithful Christian communions of the many that have emerged in the world, it has approximately ninety-eight million followers. They consider themselves to be a part of the Christian, holy, catholic, apostolic and reformed church. For many they are a non-papal form of Catholicism or a form of Protestantism without founding figures such as Martin Luther o John Calvin.
This is one of the branches of Christianity, which has deep foundations in the centuries prior to the sixteenth century, the relevance of this faith, the one professed by Anglicans, is found in the text of the Bible, in the thirty-nine books of the faith Christianity and the Book of Common Prayer, which summarizes the teaching of the first five centuries and rejects the later evolution of the Catholic Church. If you want to know more about these topics of religion you can read contributions of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Anglicans do not worship images and all their religious have the same rank, sharing the leadership and guidance of the church. They use the bible, but everyone is free to interpret it, clerics are free to marry without any restrictions. This is considered one of the most liberal churches in this sense, everything is due to the great support that the king gave Enrique XVIII to this separation of the papal traditions.
Another particularity of the Anglican church is that in some of them women and homosexuals are allowed to be ordained priests, this is the source of much controversy, despite this it is allowed in view of the fact that each church can make its own interpretation of the bible text. Another contradiction is that in some churches images of saints and virgins can be seen, again in these cases they exercise their freedom of interpretation of the sacred text.