The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early, often influential theologians, some of which included eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come. The term is used of writers or teachers of the Church, not necessarily "saints", and not necessarily ordained, though many are honoured as saints in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches, as well as in some other Christian groups.
Two notable Church Fathers, Origen Adamantius and Tertullian, were never canonized as saints by the Catholic Church. Origen, though the seminal influence on the Greek Church, expressed views on the pre-existence, transmigration, and apokatastasis of souls that were later condemned as heretical, while Tertullian, generally credited with one of the first lucid and theologically sound Trinitarian formulations and an orthodox Catholic Christian, adopted later in life some of the beliefs and practices of the heretical Montanist sect.
Read more about Church Fathers: Apostolic Fathers, Greek Fathers, Other Fathers, Modern Positions, Patristics
Famous quotes containing the words church and/or fathers:
“Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell
And many a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Souls’ Night.
And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;
For it is a ghost’s right....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Even if society dictates that men and women should behave in certain ways, it is fathers and mothers who teach those ways to children—not just in the words they say, but in the lives they lead.”
—Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)