For the book by James E. Talmage, see The Great Apostasy (book).
Christian eschatology
Contrasting beliefs
Historicism
Interpretations of Revelation
Futurism
Dispensationalism
Preterism
Idealism
The Millennium
Amillennialism
Postmillennialism
Premillennialism
Prewrath rapture
Post-tribulation rapture
Dispensationalism
Biblical texts
Daniel
Seventy Weeks
Synoptic Gospels
Olivet Discourse
Mark 13
Matthew 24
Sheep and Goats
Pauline Epistles
2 Thessalonians
Johannine literature
Revelation (Events)
Pseudepigrapha
1 Enoch
2 Esdras
Key terms
Abomination of desolation
Antichrist
Apocalypse
Apocatastasis
Armageddon
The Beast
False prophet
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Gog and Magog
Great Apostasy
Great Tribulation
Katechon
Kingdom of God
Lake of fire
Last Judgment
Man of sin
New Earth
New Jerusalem
Number of the Beast
Rapture
Resurrection of the dead
Second Coming
Seven bowls
Seven seals
Son of perdition
Two witnesses
War in Heaven
Whore of Babylon
Woman of the Apocalypse
World to come
Christianity portal
v
t
e
The Great Apostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith founded by Jesus and promulgated through his Twelve Apostles.[1]
A belief in a Great Apostasy has been characteristic of the Restorationist tradition of Christianity, which includes unrelated groups emerging after the Second Great Awakening, such as the Christadelphians, Swedenborgians, Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Iglesia ni Cristo.[2][3][4] These Restorationist groups hold that traditional Christianity, represented by Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, has fallen into error and thus, the true faith needs to be restored.[1]
The term has been used to describe the perceived fallen state of traditional Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, sometimes claiming that it changed the doctrines of the early church and allowed traditional Greco-Roman culture (i.e., Greco-Roman mysteries, deities of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, pagan festivals and Mithraic sun worship and idol worship) into the Church on its own perception of authority.[5] Because it made these changes using claims of tradition and not from scripture, the Church – in the opinion of those adhering to this concept – has fallen into apostasy.[6][7] A major thread of this perception is the suggestion that, to attract and convert people to Christianity, the Church in Rome incorporated pagan beliefs and practices within the Christian religion, mostly Graeco-Roman rituals, mysteries, and festivals.[8]
The term is derived from the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which the Apostle Paul informs the Christians of Thessalonica that a great apostasy must occur before the return of Christ, when "the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction" (chapter 2:1–12). The Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches have interpreted this chapter as referring to a future falling-away, during the reign of the Antichrist at the end of time.[9]
^ abFoster, Douglas A.; Blowers, Paul M.; Dunnavant, Anthony L.; Williams, D. Newell (2004). The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 561. ISBN 978-0-8028-3898-8. ...to distinguish the goal of their restorationist efforts from other forms of Christianity, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, denomination, or sectarian. They viewed modern Christianity as corrupt, apostate, or spurious, while New Testament Christianity was, in the words of Alexander Campbell, "the gospel of our Lord as proclaimed originally by the apostles."
^Molloy, Michael (2017). The Christian Experience: An Introduction to Christianity. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 366. ISBN 978-1-4725-8284-3. Like other Restorationists, Russell held the theory of the Great Apostasy, the belief that Christianity had fallen away from its original purity. To the simple early message of Christianity, he believed, later teachers and political leaders had added unwarranted beliefs and practices.
^Buck, Christopher (2009). Religious Myths and Visions of America: How Minority Faiths Redefined America's World Role. ABC-CLIO. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-313-35959-0.
^Lewis, Paul W.; Mittelstadt, Martin William (2016). What's So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?: Integrated Approaches to Christian Formation. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4982-3145-9. The Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) spurred a renewed interest in primitive Christianity. What is known as the Restoration Movement of the nineteenth century gave birth to an array of groups: Mormons (The Latter Day Saint Movement), the Churches of Christ, Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Though these groups demonstrate a breathtaking diversity on the continuum of Christianity they share an intense restorationist impulse. Picasso and Stravinsky reflect a primitivism that came to the fore around the turn of the twentieth century that more broadly has been characterized as a "retreat from the industrialized world."
^Discoveries, Amazing. "Sun Worship | Paganism and Catholicism | Buddhism, Hinduism and Catholicism". amazingdiscoveries.org. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
^Newcomb, Harvey (2003). Great Apostasy: Being an Account of the Origin, Rise and Progress of Corruption and Tryanny in the Church of Rome. Kessinger Publishing. pp. ix. ISBN 978-0766178847.[permanent dead link]
^Talmage, James E. (1973). Jesus the Christ (40th ed.). LDS Church. pp. 745–757. OCLC 2012826.
^Socrates, Church History, 5.22, in Schaff, Philip (July 13, 2005). "The Author's Views respecting the Celebration of Easter, Baptism, Fasting, Marriage, the Eucharist, and Other Ecclesiastical Rites". Socrates and Sozomenus Ecclesiastical Histories. Calvin College Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
^DeGarmo, Braxton (15 September 2019). Still Here!: Surviving the End Times. Christen Haus Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-943509-35-5. Amillennialism has been the primary perspective of the church though most of history and still outside of the U.S., as well as in the orthodox (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) and reform (Presbyterian and Lutheran) groups within the U.S.
The GreatApostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith...
Apostasy in Christianity is the repudiation of Christ and the central teachings of Christianity by someone who formerly was a Christian (Christ-follower)...
Daniel and Revelation, pp. 437–449 Matthew 24:22 Newcomb, Harvey (2003). GreatApostasy: Being an Account of the Origin, Rise and Progress of Corruption and...
the sacrament of the Aeon." Anti-Catholicism Barbēlō Book of Daniel GreatApostasy Rastafari § Babylon and Zion The Two Babylons Woman of the Apocalypse...
since the time of a "GreatApostasy" that began not long after the ascension of Jesus Christ. According to Mormons this apostasy involved the corruption...
Apostasy in Islam (Arabic: ردة, romanized: ridda or ارتداد, irtidād) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or...
the crime of apostasy. The apostate can avoid prosecution and/or punishment if he or she confesses of having made a mistake of apostasy and rejoins Islam...
frequently involve mutual accusations of heresy, and also that of the GreatApostasy. In Roman Catholic teaching, every heresy is a schism, while there may...
a belief that historic Christianity lost the true faith during the GreatApostasy and that the Church needed to be restored. The term has been used in...
Restorationism emerged after the Second Great Awakening and collectively affirms belief in a GreatApostasy, thus promoting a belief in restoring what...
Some Catholic critics[who?] state that Protestant acceptance of the GreatApostasy implies their non-acceptance of the apostolic succession in the Catholic...
the original principles of Christianity, referred to by them as The GreatApostasy, occurred after the ascension of Jesus Christ, marked by the corruption...
prior to a thousand-year reign of the saints but subsequent to the GreatApostasy (and to any tribulation). Premillennialism is a view alternative to...
traditional Christianity, claiming all churches of his day were part of a GreatApostasy that had lost the authority to direct Christ's church. Mormonism does...
believed in a restoration of national Israel, he believed there would be a greatapostasy and that Christ would return to establish a literal earthly kingdom...
16th–18th centuries, felt that the Early Church had been led into the GreatApostasy by the Papacy and identified the Pope with the Antichrist. Luther declared...
mentioned in Hadith as the Greatest Armageddon or Al-Malhama Al-Kubra (the great battle). The "mount" of Megiddo in northern Israel is not actually a mountain...
historicist view which identified the Roman Catholic Church as a persecuting apostasy. Due to resistance from Protestant historicists, the preterist view was...
(ἀνομίας, anomias), man of rebellion, man of insurrection, or man of apostasy is a figure referred to in the Christian Bible in the Second Epistle to...
be followed by a final and ultimate temptation to sin – in this case, apostasy – caused by the antichrist. Yet there are three things that hasten the...
scholars, however, who discount the idea of a final apostasy, regarding the gospel conquest ignited by the Great Commission to be total and absolute, such that...
v t e Palmarian Church History Catholic Church GreatApostasy (Modernism & Second Vatican Council) Traditionalist Catholicism Our Lady of Palmar Thục consecrations...