Papacy Endures News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

And how, against all odds, the papacy endures. ♪ this is something that has never happened before. the vatican this morning publicly displayed what's believed to be bone fragments from st. peter, an apoll stle o jesus christ, and the world's first pope. >> pope francis is the 266th leader of the catholic church. for the last 2,000 years, despite an ever-changing world, catholics have looked to the pope as a beacon of faith, morality, and divine guidance.

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Them under islam. >> islam had swept through what we now say is modern turkey and were getting fairly close to constantinople itself. >> when you can see muslims across the water, it's time to find which christians are left to help you. >> emperor aleki i of constantinople writes to the bishop of rome for help. >> he's asking 200 knights to help defend his city. what he gets is something entirely different. he's in part responding to an appeal from alexis. as the leader of the church, he's looking to improve the spiritual well-being of his people, but he's also a

The members of that church were, a kind of hierarchy, sort of modelled on the roman army. >> bishops were the most senior church members in that particular city. >> because rome was the capital and the center of the empire, the bishop of rome becomes the leader of the other bishops, a position that will eventually become known as pope. for 200 years after peter's crucifixion, christians roman emperors. persecuted by until an unlikely hero emerges. >> constantine was a great military commander. and when it was his turn to become a junior emperor, he decided to fight his competition. >> constant...

Standard of living is very low. >> rome was virtually gone. >> as rome falls, and consta constantnoble flourishes, much of the terminology becomes greek instead of latin. the bishop of rome begins to referred to as the great word for father, papas, or pope. during this period of barbarian invasions, there is no centralized government left in ro rome. the church is the only institution capable of serving the needs of the rest of the country. >> the people of rome were enormously dependent on rome as a state. not as a state that oversaw things between god and man, but a church that oversaw food ...