CHURCH HISTORY: SAINTS AND SINNERS

09/16/2026–05/26/2027
WEDNESDAYS, 6:30–8:30 PM
Offered by Saint John Vianey Seminary Lay Division

This year-long lecture course surveys the history of the Catholic Church across two thousand years from its origins all the way to the present day. The class begins in the world of the Roman Empire, examining the birth of Christianity in the ancient Mediterranean, the persecution of early Christians, great Fathers of the Church like Augustine and Athanasius, the summoning of councils, the promulgation of creeds, and the triumph of Christianity as the world converted from paganism to faith in Christ. Next, with the fall of the Roman Empire, the class turns to the setting of the Middle Ages, when medieval civilization was united under the banner of Christendom, a golden age filled with monks, friars, knights, and great saints like Thomas Aquinas and Francis of Assisi, as soaring Gothic cathedrals towered over the towns of Europe.

Finally, the class reaches the history of the Church in modernity (the historical period in which we now live today) by exploring historical themes undergirding our present age, such as the rise of Protestantism, the spread of Catholicism beyond Europe to Asia and to the Americas, the history of the Church in the United States, and challenges to traditional Christianity posed by modern movements such as the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and secularism.

The course presupposes no previous familiarity with the Church’s history. Instead, it provides a comprehensive survey of the Catholic Church’s efforts over two thousand years to fulfill her spiritual mission in historical time and space, introducing a full cast of popes and bishops, emperors and kings, monks and crusaders, saints and sinners, in addition to so many others, along the way.

Cost: $495.00 | This course is presented live at Nativity of Our Lord.