The church fathers who came from paganism were more or less under the Hellenistic influence of idolatry and superstition. Obviously, they did not know or abide by the Old Testament and therefore interpreted the New Testament according to their own understanding. They slandered the Jews, who could not accept their trinity doctrine, calling them murderers of Christ and of God, and persecuted and cursed them in the newly invented Trinitarian formula “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Already in the year 321, they were prohibited by decree to observe the Sabbath, which God Himself had commanded them to keep: “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” (Ex 31:12-18). Some of their synagogues were even used as pigsties. That was the beginning of the Anti-Semitism sown by the church which has persisted to this day. Time and again it escalated into pogroms, and it reached its horrific climax in the Holocaust during the “Third Reich” from 1933-1945.

“In honor of the trinity,” the cruelest crimes were committed against a countless number of people of different faiths. In the seven Crusades (between AD 1096 and 1270), millions of people died in the name of the “triune God.” On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II called for the expulsion of the “unbelievers” from Jerusalem and a takeover of the holy sites, and the people called out: “Deus lo vult!” – “God wants it!” On Friday, July 15, 1099, the great massacre at the hand of the crusaders began in Jerusalem: Up to 80,000 Muslims, Jews, and others were murdered by the crusaders – and all of that “for the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”!

The crusaders’ main objective was to put an end to the Muslim rulership in Jerusalem and to establish the authority of the church. Their pretext was their concern over the so-called “Church of the Holy Sepulchre” in the center of the city. In reality, however, the empty tomb of Christ is located outside of the city; this is how the Evangelist John wrote it: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.” (Jn 19:17+41; Mt 27:32). At that time, they were aiming to establish a new Christian world order with “the Kingdom of Jerusalem” under the rule of Gottfried von Bouillon.

In the chart shown below, we also see the large number of victims even among the crusaders. The middle column shows the original number of participants in each Crusade; the last column lists the number of remaining crusagers upon arrival in the Holy Land.

(Source: Alfred Läpple, Illustrierte Geschichte der Kirche)

There are varying opinions about the number of the ones murdered between the 13th and 18th centuries, those who fell victim to the so-called “Holy Inquisition”; in any case, there were many thousands of them. After many Jews all over Europe had died at the stake and many others had fled, all those who did not want to convert to the Catholic faith had to leave Spain by July 31, 1492. Thereafter, Catholic Spain was declared to be “free of Jews.”

The Bartholomew’s Day Massacre during the night of August 23/24, 1572, was the beginning of a massacre of thousands of Huguenots in France. In the course of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th and 17th century, which dates back to Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), thousands of Protestants were driven out of their homeland by force and many lost their lives. “For,” it was claimed again and again, “there is no salvation without the church.” How can a church that is stained with so much blood possibly invoke Christ and the God of love? To which city might Rev 18:24 be referring: “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”? That was the question posed by revivalist preachers.

Upon closer examination, nothing within the state church, which came into existence in the fourth century in the Roman Empire, is in agreement with God or God’s Word and the Early Church. Especially after the split of the church in 1054 into the Greek East church and the Latin West church, which later gave rise to the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches, they both proceeded to build their own traditions without adhering to the Bible and to what Peter, John, James, and Paul had proclaimed, taught, and practiced as apostles commissioned by God. The apostles did not, for instance, beatify or canonize the dead. Likewise, the LORD Himself only ever addressed His message, including the nine beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5), to the living: “But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.” (Mt 13:16).

The association with the dead is expressly forbidden in the Holy Scripture (Lev 19:31). Mary had fulfilled her particular task with the birth of Jesus Christ and is mentioned for the last time in Acts 1:14, when she was among the 120 who were waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. For the Church of Jesus Christ, she is neither mediator nor advocate, and no “Hail Mary” was ever recited in the early days of Christianity. The Holy Scripture testifies only of the bodily ascension of the Redeemer (Lk 24:50-52; Acts 1:11), not of an ascension of Mary.

The church fathers who came from paganism were more or less under the Hellenistic influence of idolatry and superstition. Obviously, they did not know or abide by the Old Testament and therefore interpreted the New Testament according to their own understanding. They slandered the Jews, who could not accept their trinity doctrine, calling them murderers of Christ and of God, and persecuted and cursed them in the newly invented Trinitarian formula “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Already in the year 321, they were prohibited by decree to observe the Sabbath, which God Himself had commanded them to keep: “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” (Ex 31:12-18). Some of their synagogues were even used as pigsties. That was the beginning of the Anti-Semitism sown by the church which has persisted to this day. Time and again it escalated into pogroms, and it reached its horrific climax in the Holocaust during the “Third Reich” from 1933-1945.

“In honor of the trinity,” the cruelest crimes were committed against a countless number of people of different faiths. In the seven Crusades (between AD 1096 and 1270), millions of people died in the name of the “triune God.” On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II called for the expulsion of the “unbelievers” from Jerusalem and a takeover of the holy sites, and the people called out: “Deus lo vult!” – “God wants it!” On Friday, July 15, 1099, the great massacre at the hand of the crusaders began in Jerusalem: Up to 80,000 Muslims, Jews, and others were murdered by the crusaders – and all of that “for the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”!

The crusaders’ main objective was to put an end to the Muslim rulership in Jerusalem and to establish the authority of the church. Their pretext was their concern over the so-called “Church of the Holy Sepulchre” in the center of the city. In reality, however, the empty tomb of Christ is located outside of the city; this is how the Evangelist John wrote it: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.” (Jn 19:17+41; Mt 27:32). At that time, they were aiming to establish a new Christian world order with “the Kingdom of Jerusalem” under the rule of Gottfried von Bouillon.

In the chart shown below, we also see the large number of victims even among the crusaders. The middle column shows the original number of participants in each Crusade; the last column lists the number of remaining crusagers upon arrival in the Holy Land.

(Source: Alfred Läpple, Illustrierte Geschichte der Kirche)

There are varying opinions about the number of the ones murdered between the 13th and 18th centuries, those who fell victim to the so-called “Holy Inquisition”; in any case, there were many thousands of them. After many Jews all over Europe had died at the stake and many others had fled, all those who did not want to convert to the Catholic faith had to leave Spain by July 31, 1492. Thereafter, Catholic Spain was declared to be “free of Jews.”

The Bartholomew’s Day Massacre during the night of August 23/24, 1572, was the beginning of a massacre of thousands of Huguenots in France. In the course of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th and 17th century, which dates back to Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), thousands of Protestants were driven out of their homeland by force and many lost their lives. “For,” it was claimed again and again, “there is no salvation without the church.” How can a church that is stained with so much blood possibly invoke Christ and the God of love? To which city might Rev 18:24 be referring: “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”? That was the question posed by revivalist preachers.

Upon closer examination, nothing within the state church, which came into existence in the fourth century in the Roman Empire, is in agreement with God or God’s Word and the Early Church. Especially after the split of the church in 1054 into the Greek East church and the Latin West church, which later gave rise to the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches, they both proceeded to build their own traditions without adhering to the Bible and to what Peter, John, James, and Paul had proclaimed, taught, and practiced as apostles commissioned by God. The apostles did not, for instance, beatify or canonize the dead. Likewise, the LORD Himself only ever addressed His message, including the nine beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5), to the living: “But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.” (Mt 13:16).

The association with the dead is expressly forbidden in the Holy Scripture (Lev 19:31). Mary had fulfilled her particular task with the birth of Jesus Christ and is mentioned for the last time in Acts 1:14, when she was among the 120 who were waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. For the Church of Jesus Christ, she is neither mediator nor advocate, and no “Hail Mary” was ever recited in the early days of Christianity. The Holy Scripture testifies only of the bodily ascension of the Redeemer (Lk 24:50-52; Acts 1:11), not of an ascension of Mary.