who was the first person to break away from the Catholics church?

Answer 1

It depends on how you define "Catholic," for one thing. For the purposes of this answer I'll define it as the recognized Christian church at the time of the Roman Emperor (306-337 c.e.) Constantine's establishment of a law requiring everyone to rest on the Christian Sabbath. The first to break away after that was Constantine's nephew, the Emperor Julian (reigned 361–363), who is also known as "Julian the Apostate." Julian publicly rejected Christianity, and issued an edict on 4 February 362, declaring all religions equal under the law and forbidding the establishment of any official religion of the Empire. Julian was initiated into the Pagan Eleusinian Mysteries, studied Iamblichan NeoPlatonism, and worked to reduce the influence of Christian bishops while promoting a return to traditional Roman Paganism.

Julian wrote a famous work titled "Against the Galileans" (as he called the Christians). It does not survive in its entirety, but a good portion of it does survive, and is referenced in the link below.

After the Emperor Julian, the Christian Jovian became Emperor , and that was the end of Julian's revival, although Paganism continued to survive alongside Christianity.

Additionally, as the Catholic Church consolidated itself, there remained--and continue to remain--Christian sects that never were part of the Catholic Church. There were also early breakaways--The Coptic Church and the Armenian Church, for example, broke away in the fifth century c.e.

During the Middle Ages there were a number of breakaways from established Church doctrine, such as the Cathars and the Waldensians in southern France and northern Italy in the late 12th century; these breakaway movements, like Martin Luther's, were considered heresies. Unlike Luther's movement, these were suppressed, though the ideas were never completely exterminated.

The Waldensians were established around 1173 by a French merchant named Pere Valdes. They were an order of wandering missionaries who took vows of poverty and ministered to the common people, preaching in their own languages. Although the Waldensians were suppressed by the Church, they actually survived in isolated pockets all the way to the present. So Pere Valdes (aka Peter Waldo) might be considered for the title of earliest individual to establish a successful (that is, actually surviving in organized form) breakaway group. It should be noted that he did not intend for the group to be a breakaway; on the contrary, he hoped to prevent heresy by making sure that people understood and adhered to the orthodox teachings of the Church. His method was the use of local language rather than Latin, and by poor wandering missionaries who would minister directly to people's needs. Unfortunately for them, their successes caused the Church establishment to find them a political inconvenience, hence their suppression.

The most famous breakaway is of course Martin Luther, followed by Henry VIII of England.

You might like to take a look at Bart D. Ehrman's "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew." Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0-19-514183-0.

Answer 2

There wasn't complete accord from the beginning to break away from.
We know the gnostics and the Marcionites and the Pelagians largely lost their arguments, and their views became heresy.

The catholic (small "c") church seriously divided first into the Orthodox and Roman branches, based initially on the two centres of the old Roman empire. The formal division was in 1054, centuries before Martin Luther!
(150 years later Catholic Christian Crusaders attacked and sacked Orthodox Christian Constantinople...)

This, then, long preceded the Reformation where those "Protestants", *protesting* against abuses by the church attempted to reform it.
Power and politics being mixed with the theology and faith, the wars of religion then marched back and forth across Europe.

Answer 3

There were "heresies" right from the start. Many of the early councils in the Catholic church were to deal with heretical teachings and ideas of some church leaders. Not all of the heretics were defeated quietly, some became martyrs for their faith.

Answer 4

I thought it was Henry the 8th b/c he wanted to get divorced and the church wouldn't let him. Therefore, he started his own church that allowed him to do what he wanted. People have followed suit since. But since I don't buy into all of that, I can't remember for sure.

Answer 5

There is no way to tell. Martin Luther was an early and notorious dissident, but certainly not the first.

Answer 6

Well the first one who had any impact was Martin Luther.

There may have been others who did so quietly prior to that, but they are lost to history.

Answer 7

I do believe it was Martin Luther. King Henry VIII followed soon after.

Answer 8

I don't know but praise God for having mercy on them.

Answer 9

i dont know u tell me