Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church and the largest religious denomination, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2019. As the world’s oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution, it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church consists of 24 particular churches and almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world. The pope, who is the Bishop of Rome is the chief pastor of the church. The church’s administration, the Holy See, has its principal offices in the Vatican City, a tiny enclave of Rome of which the pope is head of state.

Iglesia Católica

Katholische Kirche

The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ’s apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the Magisterium of the church. The Latin Church, the twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches, and institutes such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders and third orders reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.

الكنيسة الكاثوليكية

Église Catholique

天主教会

Of its seven sacraments, the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated as the Perpetual Virgin, Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven; she is honoured in dogmas and devotions. Catholic social teaching emphasises voluntary support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church operates thousands of Catholic schools, hospitals, and orphanages around the world, and is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world. Among its other social services are numerous charitable and humanitarian organisations.

католическая церковь

Kościół Katolicki

Catholic (from Greek: καθολικός which means ‘universal’) was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century. The first known use of the phrase “the catholic church” occurred in the letter written about 110 AD from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans. In the Catechetical Lectures (c. 350) of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name “Catholic Church” was used to distinguish it from other groups that also called themselves “the church”. The “Catholic” notion was further stressed in the edict De fide Catolica issued 380 by Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire, when establishing the state church of the Roman Empire.
Since the East–West Schism of 1054, the Eastern Church has taken the adjective “Orthodox” as its distinctive epithet (however, its official name continues to be the “Orthodox Catholic Church”) and the Western Church in communion with the Holy See has similarly taken “Catholic”, keeping that description also after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when those who ceased to be in communion became known as “Protestants“.