CATHOLIC

CATHOLIC. This adjective derives from a compound of the Greek kata (according to) and holon (the whole). Its precise meaning is debated, though it probably has the original sense of “complete” or “full.” Later on, it acquires the meaning of “universal,” i.e., as in extent or territory. Ignatius of Antioch (q.v.) in the Epistle to the Smyrneans first used it to describe the church, he katholike ekklesia, and then Irenaeus of Lyons (q.v.) used it to signify the true Church of Christ in contrast to the sects and conventicles of, in particular, gnosticism (q.v.). Following Irenaeus’s use, the word became standard among Christian writers, hence its deployment in the article on the Church in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (q.v.). The later Church Slavic translation of the Greek word as sobornaya, from the verb sobirat’ (to gather), together with the substantive sobornost derived therefrom, has influenced a particular strain of Russian ecclesiology since Alexis Khomiakov (qq.v.) in the 19th c. Khomiakov, and the many who followed his lead, saw this term as expressing the conciliar and communal nature of the Orthodox Church, in particular with regard to the question of authority (q.v.) and in contradistinction to both papal centralization and Protestant divisiveness (denominationalism).