St. Aidan's Anglican Church, Kansas City - Weekly Talks

The word catholic was first used by St. Ignatius of Antioch in the 2nd C. as an adjective to describe the multiple Christian congregations, all professing and practicing the same faith as handed down from the Apostles, recognizable from city to city, province to province and continent to continent. Each congregation had the same hierarchical structure (bishop, presbyter, deacon) and practiced the same sacraments and believed the same essential doctrines – one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. He calls this phenomenon the catholic Church. You can read his letters, written around 107, in the collection called the Apostolic Fathers. Ignatius [fire bearer] was the 3rd Bishop of Antioch in the Roman province of Syria, a successor of Peter. As Anglicans, our understanding of the word catholic reaches back to St. Ignatius. Western Christians were not called Roman Catholics the first 1000 years. This is why we say we are catholic but not Roman. So, what d