Great Church

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In the historiography of early Christianity, the "Great Church" (Latin: ecclesia magna) was the period of about 180 to 313, between that of primitive Christianity and that of the legalization of the Christian religion in the Roman Empire, corresponding closely to what is called the Ante-Nicene Period. "It has rightly been called the period of the Great Church, in view of its numerical growth, its constitutional development and its intense theological activity." The Great Church, also called the catholic (i.e., universal) Church, has been defined also as meaning "the Church as defended by such as Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Cyprian of Carthage, and Origen of Alexandria and characterized as possessing a single teaching and communion over and against the division of the sects, e.g., gnosticism, and the heresies". By the beginning of the fourth century, the Great Church already formed about 15% of the population of the Roman Empire and was ready, both numerically and structurally...

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