Are you some sort of "Christian" and 1.1 billion of them believe there's a center of Christianity in Rome and St Peter's Basilica, and another Othodox 400 million believe there's a center in Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia. Right there you're already some 10% ignorant person if you don't answer this, correct? The Orthodox Churches form a whole federation with each other each country has a Church in Orthodoxy. Yo'd have to answer that to be any respected Christian whatsoever. That's the title of the post.
I am not sure I understand the intent of the OP, but if one is to discuss "Christianity" and its origins and authenticity, the first century is a good place to start. Jesus and his apostles gave same very pointed warnings about an apostasy that was to occur after they were gone. This apostasy (
a·po·sta·siʹa comes from the verb
a·phiʹste·mi, literally meaning “stand away from.”) was a foretold event, so we have a warning about a "falling away" from the truth of Christ's teachings in the early history of the church.
In his parable of the "wheat and the weeds" Jesus said that the devil would sow "weeds" of counterfeit Christianity in the same field as he had sown the wheat. He did this "while men were sleeping".
What does this mean? It is believed that the "weeds" in this parable were well known to Jewish farmers. It is "bearded darnel" and it is often called "wheat's evil twin". It so resembles wheat in the early growing stages that it is impossible to tell the difference until the harvest time, when they do not resemble one another at all. Both were to "grow together" until then.
This is a powerful illustration because the ones who were "sleeping" were doing so spiritually. (2 Peter 2:1-3; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; Acts 20:29-30) They were not awake to the gradual drawing away from the truth taught by Christ and the introduction of a substitute truth taught by men...these also introduced a substitute god...a trinitarian godhead.
The Roman Catholic Church is the official birth of Christendom. Instituted by an astute politician who saw a way to consolidate his religiously divided empire by blending the Christians and the pagans into one "Universal" (Catholic) religion. But this could never have happened if Christianity hadn't already been in a sad and sorry state. After all, it had three centuries for the foretold rot to set in.
So from the Bible's perspective, there is nothing surprising about what transpired in the last 2 millenniums. It was foretold, and it happened just as Jesus and his apostles said it would. What we see in the world today are the "weeds" of false Christianity, competing for the people gullible enough to actually believe that what they are practicing is genuine Christianity.
According to Daniel, it was only at the "time of the end" that God would provide the necessary knowledge to separate out a people and give them a thorough 'cleansing, whitening and refining' (Daniel 12:4; 9-10).....there was so much spiritual impurity to remove. Some thought that the Reformation would clean up the rot and unite true Christians in the faith and get rid the travesty that the Roman church had perpetrated.....but all it did was fragment them even further.
So here we are......deep into the time of the end and people are completely confused as to what constitutes real Christian teaching....and what doesn't.
So where are they to go from here?