The Lost Christendom
Nobody reading these lines has ever seen Christendom. Christendom began with Constantine’s public affirmation of Christianity in the 4th century; engulfed both Eastern and, later, Western Europe; and then shaped the European colonies in the New World. It was Byzantine and Roman Catholic and (later) Protestant.
Christendom died incrementally, first in Western Europe by the mid-18th century under the pressures of the Enlightenment and its subsequent reaction, Romanticism. In the United States after the Civil War, Christendom was shredded by Darwinism, higher Biblical criticism, and secular democracy. Christendom in the East was always subservient to the state, and when the state became atheistic (Marxist) in Russia in 1917 and in Eastern Europe in 1945–1946, Christendom simply collapsed.
What was Christendom? It was the visible, public affirmation of Christianity by nations and cultures. It was Christian civilization marked out by Trinitarian baptism, profession of the ecumenical…
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The Wittenberg Door 