c. 49
Council of Jerusalem
The apostles and elders at Jerusalem decide that Gentile converts need not be circumcised or keep the whole law; the decision that makes a Gentile church possible.
Christianity
The Catholic stream of the Christianity timeline.
Streams: All of Christianity Catholic Eastern Orthodox Oriental Orthodox Anglican Lutheran Reformed and Presbyterian Anabaptist Baptist Methodist and Wesleyan Restorationist Pentecostal and Charismatic Independent and Non-denominational
Apostolic
Patristic
325
First Council of Nicaea
Constantine convenes the first ecumenical council at Nicaea, which condemns Arius and confesses the Son as homoousios; of the same being as the Father; in the original Nicene Creed.
367
Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter
Athanasius of Alexandria's Easter letter lists the twenty-seven books of the New Testament; the earliest surviving list that matches the church's canon exactly.
381
First Council of Constantinople
The second ecumenical council completes the Nicene confession, expanding the article on the Holy Spirit; its creed is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed the church still recites.
431
Council of Ephesus
The third ecumenical council condemns Nestorius and confesses Mary as Theotokos, God-bearer; the Church of the East separates in the aftermath; the first lasting schism.
451
Council of Chalcedon
The fourth ecumenical council confesses Christ in two natures, without confusion or separation; the churches that refuse the definition become the Oriental Orthodox communion.
553
Second Council of Constantinople
The fifth ecumenical council condemns the Three Chapters in Justinian's bid to reconcile the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches; the reconciliation fails.
680–681
Third Council of Constantinople
The sixth ecumenical council condemns Monothelitism and confesses two wills in Christ, vindicating Maximus the Confessor a generation after his death.
787
Second Council of Nicaea
The seventh ecumenical council restores the icons and defines the distinction the church still uses: veneration (proskynesis) for images, true worship (latreia) for God alone.
Medieval
1054
Great Schism
Legates of Leo IX lay a bull of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia and Patriarch Cerularius answers in kind; the mutual anathemas formalize the rupture between Rome and Constantinople.
1095
Council of Clermont; First Crusade Called
Urban II preaches at Clermont and calls the armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land; the crusading movement begins.
1099
Fall of Jerusalem
The First Crusade storms Jerusalem after a five-week siege and massacres its inhabitants; the Latin Kingdom is established.
1204
Fourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople
Diverted crusaders storm and sack Constantinople, enthroning a Latin emperor and patriarch; the outrage hardens the schism of 1054 into permanence.
1215
Fourth Lateran Council
Innocent III's council defines transubstantiation, requires annual confession and Easter communion, and legislates for the medieval church at its most confident.
1273
Aquinas Completes the Summa Theologiae
Thomas Aquinas leaves the Summa unfinished at his death the following year; the work becomes the standard synthesis of Catholic theology.
1309–1377
Avignon Papacy
Seven popes reign from Avignon under French influence; Catherine of Siena's pleading and Petrarch's scorn frame the period the Italians called a Babylonian captivity.
1378–1417
Western Schism
Rival popes at Rome and Avignon; and after Pisa, a third; divide Latin obedience for a generation, until the Council of Constance restores a single see.
1415
Jan Hus Burned at Constance
The Council of Constance condemns Jan Hus and burns him despite his safe-conduct; the Hussite wars follow in Bohemia, a century before Luther.
Reformation
1517
Luther's Ninety-Five Theses
Martin Luther publishes his theses against indulgences at Wittenberg; the Reformation begins.
1534
Act of Supremacy; Jesuits Founded
England's Act of Supremacy makes Henry VIII head of the Church of England; the same year Ignatius of Loyola and his companions take their vows at Montmartre, founding the movement that becomes the Society of Jesus.
1545–1563
Council of Trent
Across eighteen years and three convocations, Trent defines Catholic doctrine against the Reformation and reforms the clergy; the Tridentine settlement governs Catholic life for four centuries.
1618–1648
Thirty Years' War
The last and deadliest of Europe's wars of religion devastates the German lands before exhaustion produces a settlement.
1648
Peace of Westphalia
The treaties of Münster and Osnabrück end the war and settle the confessional map of the empire on the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, extended to the Reformed.
Modern
1833
Oxford Movement Begins
Keble's sermon on National Apostasy opens the Oxford Movement; Newman, Pusey, and the Tracts for the Times press the Church of England toward its Catholic inheritance.
1869–1870
First Vatican Council
Vatican I defines papal infallibility in Pastor Aeternus; the Old Catholic churches separate in refusal, and the council suspends unfinished as Rome falls to Italy.
Contemporary
1962–1965
Second Vatican Council
John XXIII's council renews the Catholic Church for the modern world: the liturgy in the vernacular, religious liberty confessed, ecumenism embraced, and the church's posture toward Judaism reversed in Nostra Aetate.
1968
Lambeth Conference on Contraception
The Lambeth Conference of 1968 accepts contraception within Christian marriage, against Rome's Humanae Vitae of the same year; the Anglican and Catholic positions on the question publicly diverge.
1977
The Kansas City Charismatic Conference
Some fifty thousand charismatics from Catholic, Protestant, and Pentecostal churches worship together at Kansas City; the conference is the high-water mark of the charismatic renewal's ecumenical moment.
1999
Joint Declaration on Justification
The Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification at Augsburg, declaring a consensus on the article over which the Reformation divided.