Christian Factions

Arianism:     Was named after Arius a priest from Alexandria who in 321 AD taught that Jesus Christ was somehow of a lesser importance, and had been created by, God the Father. Arius beliefs on the nature of the Trinity was that God the Father was separate from the lesser Jesus Christ. God was born before time began and creator of the world and working through the Christ he created the Holy Ghost, which was subservient to the Son as the Son was to the Father. Arius and his followers agreed that Christ was the son of God, but denied that they were one substance (Greek: homoousios). Instead, they viewed God and the Son as having distinct but similar substances (Greek: homoiousios). The difference in Greek was literally one iota (the English letter I) of difference. Constantine the Great specially convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to deal with this matter. Bishops from all over the Roman world gathered together to have Constantine help them decide on the nature of God. They worked out the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were found to be equal persons in one God. Constantine ordered all Arian books burned and Arius exiled, he died in 336 AD. The Council of Nicaea however did not end the controversy, several later emperors including Constantius II and Valens, supported the Arian faction within the Church, but with the accession of Theodosius I the matter was finally settled at least within the Roman empire. Many Germanic tribes however had been converted to an Arian form of Christianity and when they established their secession kingdoms within the Roman empire Arianism and Nicaean Christianity existed site by site with different churches for each group. However by the beginning of the 8th century all the Germanic tribes adhering to Arianism were either conquered by Nicaean Germanic tribes or had been converted to Nicaean Christianity but Christian factions quite similar to Arianism still survive to these days.

Donatism:    A very strict and puritanical schismatic movement which started among Christians in North Africa during the prosecutions of 303 AD by Diocletian. He ordered all churches, sacred books and relics to be destroyed. In 304 another edict was issued ordering everybody to burn incense to the traditional gods of the Roman empire and those who refused were to be executed. By that time many Christians gave up the sacred texts to the persecutors and even betrayed other Christians to the Romans. These people became known as "traditors". After the prosecutions in 311 a man named Caecilian was consecrated as bishop of Carthage but one of the three bishops who had consecrated Caecilian, had given copies of the Bible to the Roman persecutors and thus had sinned greatly against other Christians making him a traditor. A group of bishops formed a synod and declared the consecration of Caecilian to be invalid. Claiming that only those living a blameless life belonged in the church, and, further, that the validity of any sacrament depended upon the personal worthiness of the priest administering it. After the death of Caecilian, Aelius Donatus the Great became bishop of Carthage and it is from his name that the movement took its name. Under his leadership the Donatist began to re-examine every priest who had baptized people and had administered the sacrament of Holy Communion. And since ones salvation depended on baptism and the receiving of the Holy Communion they began to practice rebaptism of those not baptized by pure priest. This practice was condemned at the Synod of Arles in 314 since it basically said the authority in the Catholic church was lost. The Donatists however gained more and more converts and they seceded in 316 and set up their own hierarchy. By 350 they outnumbered the orthodox Christians in Africa, and each city had its opposing orthodox and Donatist bishops. In 409 Donatism was declared heresy and they were severely prosecuted but they managed to survive and lasted until the African Christian church was eventually replaced by invading Arabs and Islam in the 7th and 8th century.

Nestorianism:      Is named after Nestorius, a monk born in Syria who was chosen by Theodosius II to be Patriarch of Constantinople. In 428 he attacked the popular attribution of the title Theotokos (God - bearing or mother of God) to the Virgin Mary he held that Mary was the mother of Christ only in respect to his humanity not his divinity. And thus attributing human characteristics to Christ effectively making him two persons, one human, one divine. The council of Ephesus was convened in 431 to address the issue and pronounced that Christ was one person in two distinct and inseparable natures: divine and human and that Mary was the mother of God. Nestorius was deposed as Patriarch declared a heretic and sent to Antioch, then Arabia, and then Egypt where he died in 451 AD. After 433 a group of Nestorius's followers constituted themselves a separate Nestorian Church in Persia which even spread as far as China and Mongolia, Nestorianism survived until around 1300.