That’s the title of an excellent post by Orthocath, an ex-Eastern Catholic (now Eastern Orthodox) blogger. His point is that Protestants frequently claim things like Catholic Eucharistic theology are Medieval inventions … completely ignoring that the Eastern Orthodox hold virtually identical views, despite the Great Schism of 1054. And to those Protestants who would suggest that the Great Apostasy simply had happened by 1054, Orthocath raises the stakes by bringing up the Coptic Church in Egypt, which has been in schism from the Church since 451 A.D. Yet look at how similar their liturgy looks:
If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, just skip to about 2:15 in, with a vested priest kissing and praying over the bread. If you DO want to watch the whole thing, Orthocath explains where you can find the rest. Orthocath concludes:
The Coptic Church demonstrates that a liturgical and sacramental theology permeated the Christian Church 600 years before the East-West Schism. At the very least, we can say that at the time of the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), a Protestant theological approach is light years away. Did it exist before then? Were there Christians in the Early Church who looked like the Evangelicals of today? If so, they left no mark in either the Ancient Churches nor in the writings of the Church Fathers in East or West.
Well said.
(h/t Mark Shea for pointing out this post)