Dictionary

Great Church en · PROPN

Etymology

Calque of Koine Greek μεγάλη ἐκκλησία (megálē ekklēsía). In sense of “orthodox Christian church”, cf. Celsus (2nd century) describing mainstream Christian believers, quoted in Origen, Contra Celsum, 5.59: “Σαφῶς γε τῶν ἀπὸ μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας τοῦτο ὁμολογούντων […] ” (“Certainly, the members of the Great Church agree […] ”).

Meanings

1. (historical) The orthodox Christian church of antiquity, after 380 CE the established church of the Roman Empire, especially as distinct from smaller Christian movements or heresies.
   • Round about AD 600 there was a main body of Christians constituting the Great Church, which later divided into the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches of today; but there were also important bodies of Christians who had been expelled from the Great Church as heretics, notably those often known as the Monophysites (Jacobites and Copts) and the Nestorians. 1991, William Montgomery Watt, Muslim–Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions, page 1:
   • Such was the view held within the Great Church of the third and fourth centuries, from which all our existing forms of Christianity can trace their descent. 1981, Christopher Butler, The Theology of Vatican II, revised edition, page 104:
   • Although Chalcedon seemed to offer the possibility of their reconciliation with the Great Church, this hope was not fulfilled. 1995 [1989], Aloys Grillmeier, Theresia Hainthaler, translated by John Cawte and Pauline Allen, Christ in Christian Tradition, volume 2/2, page 1:
2. (historical) Hagia Sophia before the fall of the Byzantine Empire or one of the churches that previously occupied its site, the Great Church of Constantinople.
   • We must remember that the Byzantine rite is basically the rite of the Great Church, and in a cathedral the size of Hagia Sophia to have done all this in the church itself just before the transfer of gifts would have taken an enormous amount of time. 1975, Robert F. Taft, The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and Other Pre-anaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, page 33:
   • At Constantinople, on the other hand, it appears that the bishop of the city, while based at the Great Church, preached according to a developed system in other churches of the city also. 2000, Wendy Mayer, Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom, page 42:
   • The ‘Great Church’, as it was called, standing at the heart of the city of Constantinople, may serve as a fitting visual symbol of Eastern Christendom. 1990, Kallistos Ware, “Eastern Christendom”, in The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity, page 123:
3. (qualifier:Eastern Orthodoxy) The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
   • The Great Church managed to regain its essentially ecumenical character that was challenged in the Middle Ages by the ecclesiastical independence of Ohrid, Peć and Tărnovo. 2010, Eleonora Naxidou, “The Transition from Ecumenical Tradition to a Multinational Perspective: The Historical Evolution of the Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire”, in Empires and Peninsulas: Southeastern Europe Between Karlowitz and the Peace of Adrianople, 1699–1829, page 149:
   • Central Europe and eastern Europe (Muscovy/Russia) came under the jurisdiction of the so-called Great Church, or Patriarchate of Constantinople (the New Rome) 2002, Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of Central Europe, revised edition, page 1907:

Forms

wikipedia: Origen · wikipedia: Contra Celsum · wikipedia: Celsus