The Mother of Harlots

The pastor I do not like to name did a sermon on the Whore of Babylon once.  This sermon focused specifically on her being called the "Mother of Harlots".  He views the Mother Whore as being the Roman Catholic Church (even though he's Futurist not Hisotricist), and the other Harlots as being other denominations of Christianity who broke off from Rome.  He is one of those Independent Baptists who insists the Baptists have some secret independent Apostolic Succession and so does not descend from Rome the way mainline Protestants do.

The first daughter harlot in his little timeline was the Eastern Orthodox Church who he says broke off in 1054 AD.  It fascinates me how much Protestant and Evangelical Christianity still has such a Western bias of Church History that in-spite of how much they hate the Catholic Church they'll still view what happened at the Great Schism from the Vatican's POV.  The Ancient Imperial Church was built on viewing 4 (eventually 5) important Bishoprics as basically equal, one of them left the others and yet westerners insist on viewing the east, where Christianity started and where they spoke the same language the New Testament was written in, as the ones who left the existing Church to start a new one.  Ryan Reeves on YouTube does some of the same kinds of things but understands more of the nuances then this nut.  Reeves points out how the Bishops of Rome were technically subjects of the Eastern Emperors right up until the Schisim happened, you couldn't become Bishop of Rome without the Emperor's approval.

This Pastor also says the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Constantine, because it suits him to give single individuals the credit for all denominations he rejects.  It was Constantine who moved the Empire's Capital to Constantinople which he founded, so if any Bishopric was founded by him it's that one.  Though the Bishops of Constantinople claim succession from Andrew who was traditionally Martyred in Greece near Corinth, and they have an alleged Pre-Nicene line.  Is it possible Constantine just moved a Bishop there from somewhere else?

Most bad Catholic/Orthodox doctrines were already forming well before Constantine.  Including the stuff about Church hierarchy and organization which they love to selectively quote Ignatius and Cyprian in support of.  And the Bishops of Rome were already starting to act like they had some primacy over other Bishops.

Thing is, in-spite of all that, for the first over a century it looks to me like the most powerful Bishop in Nicene Christianity was actually the Bishop of Alexandria, often associated with the School of Alexandria.  Who BTW were being called Popes already even before Constantine, while Rome didn't use the term Pope till awhile after.  In the past I'd mistakenly refereed to Clement and Origen as Bishops of Alexandria, they were not, they were heads of the School (The Greek word for Bishop means overseer, so you could call the person overseeing the School a Bishop, but that's not what people mainly mean by the Bishop of Alexandria).

At the Council of Nicaea both sides were actually lead by Alexandrians, Arius founder of the Arian Heresy was an Alexandrian.  But it was the position of the actual Bishop of Alexandria that prevailed, who was named Alexander at the time, Alexander of Alexandria, I'm sure that was never confusing.

Also present at the Council was Alexander's student and soon to be successor Athanasius of Alexandria, who was the chief defender of the Nicene understanding of the Trinity for much of the Fourth Century.  The only threats to his power were when Emperors were sympathetic to Arianism, during which time an Arian Bishop of Alexandria was appointed in his place.

The next Nicene Bishop of Alexandria was Peter II (a Peter I is known in Egypt as the last of the martyrs), who is the Pope of Alexandria named in The Edict of Thessalonica which made Christianity the state Religion of the Empire.  The Pontiff of Rome is named first, yet the language implies Peter is the real head of the new state religion.

After him came Timothy I who was a president at the Council of Constantinople, the Second Ecumenical Council.

Next was Theophilus of Alexandria, it was during his Bishopric that in 391 Paganism was fully outlawed and the Serapium was destroyed.  I also support the theory that during this time the Tomb of Alexander The Great was turned into the Tomb of St Mark.

Theophilus was succeeded by his nephew Cyril of Alexandria.  Cyril basically turned his monastic order into a Gang and used them like Storm Troopers in a power struggle with Orestes the Prefect and became the de facto Pharaoh of Egypt. He had Hypatia Murdered during that struggle.  Later he waged war against Nestorius orchestrating the sham that was the Council of Ephesus.  He also really hated The Jews.

He was succeeded by Dioscorus who orchestrated the even more obviously a shame Second Council of Ephesus.  However the downfall of the Alexandrian Bishopric's power within the Empire came at the Council of Chalcedon where Dioscorus was deposed and the Miaphysite Schism happened.  From then on the majority of the Coptic Church was Miaphsyte and so Alexandria usually had two Bishops neither of which was able to wield that much power.  But thanks to their influence the Churches of Nubia and Ethiopia are at least nominally Miaphysite.

Miaphysite Christianity would wield political Power in the Empire one last time during the reign of Justinian through his wife Theodora.  But even during this time John of Ephesus and Jacob Baradaeus were more influential then the Bishops in Egypt.

It's interesting that the Book of Acts gives us shockingly little information on the Early Church's History in Egypt and Alexandria.  Acts 2 says Diaspora Jews of Egypt were at Pentacost, but most places alluded to here still have additional Apostolic Missions to them later.  Only Egypt lacks any later references to Christians there, any Turkish regions not mentioned later in Acts are covered by the first verse of Peter's Epistle, and Peter himself was in Babylon/Mesopotamia.  Simon of Cyene took care of Cyrene and the rest were eventually visited by Paul.

Most references to Egypt in the New Testament are referencing back to the Old Testament, and Acts later has one offhand reference to an Egyptian false prophet also described in Josephus.  Apollos is called an Alexandrian, but there is no clear evidence he ever returned to Alexandria after his conversion, and we can't even be certain he was from the Alexandria of Egypt, Asia Minor had two Alexandrias, one was pretty close to Ephesus.

Traditionally Mark the Evangelist founded the Alexandrian Church.  But there are contradictory claims about when he arrived, and the Eastern Traditions distinguish him from John Mark and Mark the Cousin of Barnabas. Interestingly there was an early proto-gnostic heretic named Marcus.

Platonism and Gnsoticism flourished in Egypt, Clement of Alexandria and Origen opposed the Gnostics yet showed Platonic influences themselves.  Clement even seems to have used material from the above mentioned Heretic Marcus in Stormata.

All this was just an excuse to show how the history of Organized Christianity is more complicated then many Protestants want to make it sound. I ultimately believe there is only one Symbolic Woman in Revelation and she's Israel, Christianity itself is an offshoot of an older religion, Judaism.  But Israel was born by coming out of Egypt, Ezekiel 23 emphasizes Mizraim as where Israel's Harlotry began.