Sacred Geography
Where the faith was preached, where councils met, where communions divided and reunited — the map of two thousand years, in words.
From Jerusalem the Gospel spreads along the Roman roads and shipping lanes of the Mediterranean — north into Asia Minor and Greece, south to Alexandria, and west to Rome itself.
Five ancient sees — the great mother churches — order the unified Church: Rome in the Latin West, Constantinople as the New Rome, and the apostolic thrones of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem in the East.
After Chalcedon, the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian, and Indian churches confess the same Christology in a different terminology — the Oriental Orthodox family, unbroken to the present day.
Centuries of political, liturgical, and theological divergence culminate in mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople. The Latin West and the Byzantine East go their separate ways.
Wittenberg, Geneva, Zurich, and Canterbury become the seedbeds of Lutheran, Reformed, Radical, and Anglican Christianity — reshaping Western Christendom in a generation.
Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant missions carry the faith to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The Russian Orthodox mission crosses the Bering Strait into Alaska.
The historical center of gravity has shifted south and east. Christianity's fastest growth is now in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, while the ancient sees continue to shepherd worldwide communions.
Illuminated map plates are forthcoming.