Schism leading to present day Christian Churches?

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There have been several significant schisms or divisions of the Christian church. Here is a sample:

  • 431 - Council of Ephesus which produced the distinction between the Assyrian Church and the "the rest"; provoked by disputes about the nature of Christ (Nestorianism in this case) among other things.
  • 451 - Council of Chalcedon which produced the Oriental Orthodox Church; provoked by disputes about the nature of Christ among other things.
  • 1054 The "Great Schism" when the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome excommunicated each other to produce the Roman Catholic Church vs the Eastern Orthodox Church
  • The "Reformation" of the 16th century produced three or four new branches of Christianity, namely, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, and Anabaptists. The last two subsequently spawned several more such as Methodism, Pentecostalism. Calvinism and Lutheranism also spawned new denominations. All these are collectively known as "protestant" because they protested against the authority of Rome.
  • 1552 saw another schism in the Church of the East dividing it into two factions; one entered full communion with Rome and the other remained separate until the 19th century.

This brief list does not include some very early Church divisions such as Gnosticism, Arianism, Ebionites (whose teachings influenced Mohammad), etc. All these survive today in various forms. For an introduction to much more detail, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination

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