Who Divided the Church?

In four years, we will be celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.  For these five centuries, the Reformers have been accused of dividing the Church in 1517.  Not so.

First, the Church is more than the church in the west, see eastern Orthodox Churches,  and so the presumption and assumptions of Rome in that THEY are the Church is patently false and so is the accusation against the Reformers that they divided the Church.

But secondly, immediately following the first reason,  and most importantly:  the Church was divided in 1054 by Rome when the Bishop of Rome asserted supremacy over and above all bishops to decide doctrine and worship in the filioque debate.    The Roman Bishop divided the Church in 1054, and so that is the date of division not 1517.  In the five centuries following they ossified the heresy of supremacy.  In 1054, there was not a Lutheran in sight.  The Reformation made clear the  division by Rome of the Church of and by their false doctrine of supremacy, beginning in 1054,  in The Book of Concord:  The Confessions of the Lutheran Church, especially, The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope.

Is there hope?  Yes, in Jesus Christ, sola, alone.  No hope in the pope and there is no home in Rome, only in Christ Jesus:

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (St. John  14:23

The choice is clear:

This:

or this:

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