Could the Ancient Church Be Both Holy and Deeply Corrupt?

Every Sunday Orthodox Christians confess faith "in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church."¹ Anyone who has read church history knows how hard that word "holy" can be to say. The same centuries that gave us martyrs, desert monks and the great councils also gave us bishops who bought their office, synods run by intimidation, and a crusading army that looted the greatest church in Christendom.

For many readers this is more than an awkward fact. Latter-day Saints, and some Protestant restorationists, argue that the early Church fell away so completely that God had to restore it. Skeptics argue that the Church was a human institution from the start, and that talk of holiness is a cover for ordinary power. Both arguments draw on the same evidence: the ancient Church was, at times, deeply corrupt.

This article sets out real scandals from the first to the thirteenth century, looks at how the Church answered them, and asks what the teaching on the Church's holiness actually claims. Christians sinned, often and badly. The question is what follows from that.

In brief

The ancient Church was never a community of the morally perfect. Paul calls the church at Corinth "the church of God" while rebuking it for factions, incest and drunkenness at the Lord's Supper. Later centuries brought clergy who handed over the Scriptures under persecution, schisms over whether they could be forgiven, canons against buying ordination, councils pressured by emperors, the violent Second Council of Ephesus in 449, and the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The Church's answer, worked out most fully by Augustine against the Donatists, was that the Church on earth is a field of wheat and weeds until the harvest, and that its holiness comes from Christ and the Holy Spirit, not from the moral record of its members or bishops. Orthodox teaching holds this today. It does not prove which church is the true one, but it means corruption alone cannot show that the Church ceased to exist: Paul never treated Corinth's sins as proof that it was no longer a church.

Thesis: The historical record shows serious and sometimes shocking corruption in the ancient Church, but the Church's holiness was never claimed to rest on its members' virtue, so the evidence of sin, by itself, supports neither a Great Apostasy nor a purely human origin.

The record: real scandals

Corinth: a sanctified church in disorder

The earliest evidence is in Scripture itself. Paul writes "to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." In the same letter he has heard "that there are contentions among you," with members saying "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos." He writes: "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles," and the case is "that a man has his father's wife!" When they come together, he tells them, "it is not to eat the Lord's Supper," for "one is hungry and another is drunk."²

Paul does not declare the Corinthian church dead. He rebukes and calls them back: "And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified." {{very-strong: The New Testament itself addresses a church as holy and sanctified while describing grave sin in it.}}

The trouble did not end with Paul. About a generation later the church of Rome wrote to Corinth again, in the letter known as 1 Clement, usually dated to the 90s. The occasion was a revolt against the clergy. The letter grieves that "the most steadfast and ancient church of the Corinthians should, on account of one or two persons, engage in sedition against its presbyters," and warns that "our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties."³ The letters to the seven churches in Revelation tell the same story in other places: Ephesus has "left your first love" and is told to "repent and do the first works."⁴

The lapsed, the Novatianists and the Donatists

Eusebius of Caesarea, writing about the years before the Great Persecution under Diocletian, is blunt about his own Church: "when on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other," with "rulers assailing rulers with words like spears."⁵

When persecution came, many Christians, clergy among them, gave way. The question of what to do with "the lapsed" split churches. In Rome, in the time of Bishop Cornelius, the presbyter Novatian, as Eusebius tells it, treated those who had fallen "as if there was no longer for them a hope of salvation," and he became leader of a party that called itself the Cathari, "the pure."⁶ Cyprian of Carthage refused this way out. Writing to Roman confessors who had left the Novatian party and returned, he said: "although there seem to be tares in the Church, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that because we see that there are tares in the Church we ourselves should withdraw from the Church."⁷

After Diocletian, the same wound reopened in North Africa. Clergy who had surrendered the sacred books were called traditores, from the Latin for handing over. The official minutes of a search at Cirta in Numidia during the persecution survive, listing the books and vessels that clergy and readers gave up. When Caecilian was consecrated bishop of Carthage around 311, his opponents objected that one of his consecrators, Felix of Aptunga, was a traditor. A rival line of bishops followed, later named after Donatus. The schism flourished for about a century, until the conference at Carthage in 411, after which it declined.⁸ The record is not flattering to either side. The same records, preserved mainly by Catholic writers, describe a synod at Cirta in 305 at which bishops, among them men who later led the council against Caecilian, were themselves accused of handing over books, and one was accused of killing his nephews. The Donatist controversy was a quarrel between real Christians about real failures.

Buying the altar: simony

The ancient collection known as the Apostolic Canons, which speaks in the apostles' name, orders: "If any bishop, presbyter, or deacon, shall obtain possession of that dignity by money, let both him and the person who ordained him be deposed," comparing the offender to Simon Magus, who in Acts 8 offered the apostles money for the power to give the Holy Spirit.⁹ The Council of Chalcedon in 451 had to repeat the point at length in its second canon, against any bishop who "should ordain for money, and put to sale a grace which cannot be sold."¹⁰ Buying office was a real practice, and the Church's own law named it a sin and punished it.

Emperors and councils

Christian emperors brought imperial power into church politics. In 359, under Emperor Constantius II, bishops summoned by imperial command to Ariminum (Rimini) accepted a creed later recognized as unfaithful. About twenty years later Jerome described the aftermath in a famous line: "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian." Jerome's point, in context, is that many of these bishops had been deceived rather than converted to heresy, and that they repented and were received back.¹¹

The worst case is the Second Council of Ephesus, convoked by Emperor Theodosius II and opened on 8 August 449 under the presidency of Dioscorus of Alexandria. It deposed Archbishop Flavian of Constantinople, who was sent into exile and died a few days later. Testimony given later at Chalcedon described secretaries prevented from taking notes, soldiers brought into the church and bishops signing under fear. The Catholic historian John Chapman, who accepted much of this testimony, still cautioned that the claim that Dioscorus himself struck Flavian "may be exaggeration."¹² Pope Leo of Rome called it a meeting "not of judges but of robbers," which is why it is remembered as the Robber Council.¹³ {{strong: The Second Council of Ephesus (449) was conducted under heavy pressure and was reversed by the Council of Chalcedon two years later.}} In fairness, the Oriental Orthodox churches, which did not accept Chalcedon, venerate Dioscorus as a saint and read these events differently.¹⁴

The Fourth Crusade and its world

By the twelfth century, relations between Greek and Latin Christians were poisoned on both sides. In April 1182 a Constantinople mob, unleashed during a coup, massacred many of the city's Latin residents.¹⁵ In April 1204 the army of the Fourth Crusade, which had set out for the Holy Land, stormed and sacked Constantinople. Pope Innocent III wrote to his legate in 1205 that the crusaders' swords were "dripping with Christian blood," that they had "ripped silver plates from the altars," and that the Greek Church now "sees in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness."¹⁶ Eight centuries later Pope John Paul II told Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew that he shared "the same indignation and sorrow that Pope Innocent III expressed."¹⁷ The sack did lasting damage, and the split between Orthodox and Catholics cannot be told honestly without it.

How the early Church answered: wheat and weeds

The ancient Church argued this out itself. The Novatianists and Donatists gave one answer: a true Church must be a pure Church, and clergy who had seriously sinned could not hand on the grace of the sacraments. The Church as a whole gave another.

Its most thorough defender was Augustine of Hippo, in his writings against the Donatists from around 400. He drew on Christ's parable of the wheat and the tares, in which the master forbids the servants to pull up the weeds: "Let both grow together until the harvest."¹⁸ The Church on earth, Augustine argued, is a mixed field. Only God separates wheat from weeds, and only at the end.

His second argument concerned the sacraments, whose grace does not depend on the holiness of the minister. Commenting on John the Baptist's words about Christ, "This is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit," Augustine wrote: "Peter may baptize, but this is He that baptizes; Paul may baptize, yet this is He that baptizes; Judas may baptize, still this is He that baptizes."¹⁹

Augustine did not say that sinful members were simply part of the holy Church in the same way as the faithful. He said that bad men "do not belong to the holy Church of God, though they seem to be within it, inasmuch as they are covetous, robbers, usurers, envious, evil thinkers, and the like," while the Church in the full sense, the "bride without spot or wrinkle," is found "in the good, and holy, and just."²⁰ The Church contains sinners but is not defined by them.

The Orthodox position

Dogma. The Church is holy. This is in the Creed of 381. But the Creed does not say that the Church's members are sinless, and no council ever taught that.

Common teaching. The holiness of the Church comes from God. Fr Thomas Hopko's handbook The Orthodox Faith, published by the Orthodox Church in America, puts it this way: "The Church is holy because God is holy, and because Christ and the Holy Spirit are holy. The holiness of the Church comes from God. The members of the Church are holy to the extent that they live in communion with God." He adds that "the earthly members and institutions of the Church cannot be identified as such with the Church as holy," while its doctrines, sacraments, Scriptures, services and saints can be called holy "because of God's presence and action in them."²¹ Orthodox worship builds this into the moment of Communion, when the faithful say: "I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first."²² A Church whose members approach the chalice confessing themselves the first of sinners has never claimed a sinless membership.

Scripture grounds this in the relation between Christ and His Church: Christ "loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her," so "that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing."²³ The holiness is His gift, and its completion is still to come.

Theological opinion. Augustine's wider theory of the sacraments, including how sacraments performed outside the Church should be regarded, raises questions this article does not try to settle. On the narrower point at issue here, the unworthiness of a priest inside the Church, Orthodox teaching and Augustine agree: Christ acts in the sacraments, and the priest will answer to God for his own life.

The Catholic Church says much the same. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in words taken from the Second Vatican Council, says the Church is "at once holy and always in need of purification." It adds that "all members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners," and that "the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time."²⁴ Classical Protestantism also rejected the Donatist position. The Westminster Confession teaches that "neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it," and that "the purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error."²⁵ On whether a sinful Church can still be the Church, the main Christian traditions largely agree.

Why this matters for the Great Apostasy claim

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that "after the deaths of the Savior and His Apostles, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. Because of this widespread apostasy, the Lord withdrew the authority of the priesthood from the earth."²⁶ In Joseph Smith's account of his First Vision he was told that the churches of his day "were all wrong," that "all their creeds were an abomination," and that "those professors were all corrupt."²⁷

Stated at its strongest, the argument is not simply that early Christians sinned. Latter-day Saints point out that the New Testament itself predicted a "falling away" (2 Thessalonians 2:3) and warned that "savage wolves will come in among you" and that men "from among yourselves" would draw disciples away (Acts 20:29-30).²⁸ They see the moral corruption of later centuries as a symptom of something deeper: a loss of revelation and of priesthood authority. On that reading the scandals above are evidence that the Church had already lost its divine authority.

The historical record makes this hard to sustain. First, the corruption starts too early to mark a turning point. If grave sin among Christians proved apostasy, it would have begun at Corinth under Paul himself.

Second, the Church resisted and corrected its own corruption from within. Clement rebuked the Corinthian revolt, councils condemned simony, the bishops caught at Ariminum repented, Chalcedon reversed the Robber Council, and a pope condemned the sack of Constantinople. A body that had lost all divine life would be unlikely to keep producing saints who called it to repentance. That is an argument, not a proof, but it fits the evidence better than total collapse does.

Third, the warnings about "wolves" and a "falling away" do not say the whole Church would cease to exist, and Christ said: "on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."²⁹

Fourth, the real question is authority and doctrine, not morals: did the Church keep its bishops in succession, its sacraments and its apostolic faith? The site examines that question in Did Christianity Disappear After the Apostles? and in the infographic The Biblical Case Against Total Apostasy. Evidence of corruption, however grave, does not answer it either way.

Objections and replies

"'The Church is holy, its members are sinners' can never be disproved"

A skeptic may say that if no amount of sin counts against the Church's holiness, the claim is unfalsifiable. This is a serious point. The reply is that the claim ties the Church's holiness to things that can be examined: whether its faith, Scriptures and sacraments stay continuous with the apostles, and whether it keeps producing holiness and repentance. And because the Church's own law named simony and violence as sins, the scandals can be judged by its own standard. What the claim rules out is using Christians' moral failures, on their own, as the test of whether the Church exists.

"Councils were coerced, so none of them can be trusted"

Some Latter-day Saints and skeptics argue that if emperors could pressure councils at Ariminum and Ephesus, the councils that defined the Trinity and the person of Christ deserve no more trust. The reply is that the Church itself did not simply accept whatever a council decided. Ariminum and Ephesus II both had imperial backing, and both were rejected. The Orthodox Church holds that a council is recognized as ecumenical through its reception by the whole Church over time, not by the number of bishops who signed or the power behind them; see how the Orthodox Church knows which councils are ecumenical. It is fair to add that this answer has limits. Chalcedon also met at imperial command, and the Oriental Orthodox churches reject it. Reception is a real criterion, but it is applied by the very communities that disagree.

"The Church was so corrupt by the Middle Ages that the Reformation was necessary"

Many Protestants agree that the Church never disappeared (the Westminster Confession says "there shall be always a church on earth") but argue that medieval corruption required a reformation of doctrine and practice. An Orthodox reader can grant much of the moral case. The disagreement with the Reformers lies elsewhere: on what the apostolic faith is, not on whether churchmen sinned.

"Talk of holiness protects the powerful"

This objection has real force today, when the abuse of power in churches is a matter of public record. The ancient teaching, at its best, points the other way. The canons ordered simoniac clergy deposed, and Augustine taught that bad clergy, whatever their office, do not truly belong to the holy Church. The Church's holiness belongs to Christ, so no bishop can claim it as a shield. When the doctrine is used to protect the guilty, it is being misused.

What we can say confidently

• The New Testament describes serious sin in early churches, including Corinth, while still calling them churches of God.
• Persecution produced widespread lapses among clergy and laity, and the Novatianist and Donatist schisms grew out of disputes over how to respond.
• Simony was a real practice, and the Apostolic Canons and the Council of Chalcedon legislated against it.
• Emperors pressured councils, notably at Ariminum in 359 and Ephesus in 449, and both outcomes were later reversed.
• Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204, and Innocent III condemned the violence in writing.
• The Church rejected the view that a true Church must be pure, and Orthodox, Catholic and classical Protestant teaching all affirm that the Church's holiness does not depend on the virtue of its members or ministers.

What remains disputed

• How far the hostile accounts of the Robber Council are exaggerated, and how Dioscorus should be judged; Chalcedonians and Oriental Orthodox still disagree.
• How widely simony was practiced in any given period; canons show it existed but not how common it was.
• {{debated: Whether the Church's record of self-correction counts as positive evidence of divine guidance, or is simply what any long-lived institution does.}}
• Whether the Church as a whole lost its authority, which is a question about succession and doctrine that the moral record alone cannot settle.

Conclusion

Could the ancient Church be both holy and deeply corrupt? On the evidence, yes, and it was. The scandals are not inventions of the Church's critics; many of them come from the Church's own writers, who recorded them in order to condemn them. Eusebius blamed his own generation. Innocent III condemned the crusaders. Augustine refused to pretend that the field held only wheat.

The Orthodox Church does not claim a sinless past. It claims something both humbler and bolder: that Christ has not abandoned His Church, that His Spirit still works through sacraments celebrated by sinful priests for sinful people, and that saints have kept appearing in every age, often in the middle of the corruption around them. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," wrote St John.³⁰ A Church that knows that about itself can face its history honestly. It confesses its members' sins and goes on confessing that the Church, because it is Christ's, is holy.

Notes

1. Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381), article on the Church, as given in Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 1, "Church," Orthodox Church in America, oca.org. ↩
2. 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1:11-12; 5:1; 11:20-21; 6:11 (NKJV). ↩
3. 1 Clement 47 and 44, trans. John Keith, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 9 (1896), newadvent.org. On the dating to the reign of Domitian, see John Chapman, "Pope St. Clement I," Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 4 (1908), who reads the letter's opening reference to "sudden calamities" as the persecution under Domitian; scholars differ on the exact date. ↩
4. Revelation 2:4-5 (NKJV). ↩
5. Eusebius, Church History 8.1.7, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 1 (1890), newadvent.org. ↩
6. Eusebius, Church History 6.43.1, McGiffert trans. Eusebius calls him "Novatus." ↩
7. Cyprian, Epistle 50.3 (ANF numbering), to Maximus, Urbanus and the other Roman confessors, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (1886), newadvent.org. ↩
8. John Chapman, "Donatists," Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 5 (1909), newadvent.org: the surviving minutes of the search at Cirta during the persecution, the synod of Cirta in 305, the consecration of Caecilian by Felix of Aptunga (Chapman spells it "Aptonga"), and the schism's flourishing from 311 to the conference of 411. ↩
9. Apostolic Canons, canon 29 (some editions number it 30), trans. Henry R. Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 14 (1900), newadvent.org. Simon Magus: Acts 8:18-24. ↩
10. Council of Chalcedon (451), canon 2, Percival trans., NPNF2 vol. 14. ↩
11. Jerome, Dialogue Against the Luciferians 17-19, trans. W. H. Fremantle, NPNF2 vol. 6 (1893), newadvent.org. The editor dates the dialogue to about 379; Jerome dates the creed by the consuls Eusebius and Hypatius (359). ↩
12. John Chapman, "Robber Council of Ephesus," Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 5 (1909), newadvent.org. ↩
13. Leo the Great, Letter 95, to the Empress Pulcheria, dated 20 July 451, trans. Charles Lett Feltoe, NPNF2 vol. 12 (1895), newadvent.org. Chapman (note 12) notes that "Latrocinium" was Leo's name for the council. ↩
14. OrthodoxWiki, "Dioscorus of Alexandria," orthodoxwiki.org (accessed October 2026), which states that he is considered a saint by the Coptic, Syriac and other Oriental Orthodox churches. ↩
15. "Massacre of the Latins," Wikipedia (accessed October 2026), a tertiary summary; contemporary accounts include the Greek historian Niketas Choniates and the Latin chronicler William of Tyre. ↩
16. Innocent III, letter to Peter of Capua, papal legate, dated 12 July (1205), Ep. 136, Patrologia Latina 215, trans. James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962), 208-9, as reproduced ("adapted from Brundage") in the Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University). ↩
17. John Paul II, Address to His Holiness Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, 29 June 2004, §3, vatican.va. ↩
18. Matthew 13:29-30 (NKJV). Augustine applies the parable, citing Matthew 13:29, in On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4.9.13 (NPNF1 vol. 4). ↩
19. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.7, trans. John Gibb, NPNF1 vol. 7 (1888), newadvent.org. The Gospel words are John 1:33. ↩
20. Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists 6.3.5, trans. J. R. King, rev. Chester D. Hartranft, NPNF1 vol. 4 (1887), newadvent.org. ↩
21. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 1, Doctrine and Scripture, "The Symbol of Faith: Church," section "Holy Church," Orthodox Church in America, oca.org. ↩
22. Orthodox Church in America, "Before and After Holy Communion," oca.org. The words echo 1 Timothy 1:15. ↩
23. Ephesians 5:25-27 (NKJV). ↩
24. Catechism of the Catholic Church §827, vatican.va. The first phrase quotes Lumen Gentium 8; the other two are the Catechism's own words. ↩
25. Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) 27.3 and 25.5, text of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, opc.org. ↩
26. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Apostasy," Topics and Questions (2023), churchofjesuschrist.org. ↩
27. Joseph Smith-History 1:19, Pearl of Great Price, churchofjesuschrist.org. ↩
28. 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Acts 20:29-30 (NKJV). ↩
29. Matthew 16:18 (NKJV). ↩
30. 1 John 1:8 (NKJV). ↩

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• Clement of Rome. First Epistle to the Corinthians. Translated by John Keith. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1896. newadvent.org.
• Cyprian of Carthage. Epistles. Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.
• Eusebius of Caesarea. Church History. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890.
• Augustine of Hippo. Tractates on the Gospel of John. Translated by John Gibb. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 7. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888.
• Augustine of Hippo. On Baptism, Against the Donatists. Translated by J. R. King, revised by Chester D. Hartranft. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 4. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.
• Jerome. Dialogue Against the Luciferians. Translated by W. H. Fremantle. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 6. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.
• Leo the Great. Letters. Translated by Charles Lett Feltoe. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 12. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.
• The Seven Ecumenical Councils (including the Apostolic Canons and the canons of Chalcedon). Edited by Henry R. Percival. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 14. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1900.
• Innocent III. Letter to Peter of Capua (1205). Translated by James Brundage in The Crusades: A Documentary History, 208-9. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962. Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Hopko, Thomas. The Orthodox Faith, vol. 1, Doctrine and Scripture. Orthodox Church in America, oca.org.
• Orthodox Church in America. "Before and After Holy Communion." Prayers, oca.org.
• OrthodoxWiki. "Dioscorus of Alexandria." orthodoxwiki.org.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Chapman, John. "Donatists" and "Robber Council of Ephesus." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. (His "Pope St. Clement I," vol. 4, 1908, is cited for the dating of 1 Clement.)
• "Massacre of the Latins." Wikipedia. Accessed October 2026.

Sources from the traditions discussed (Catholic, Protestant, Latter-day Saint)

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. §827. vatican.va.
• John Paul II. Address to His Holiness Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, 29 June 2004. vatican.va.
• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646). Text of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, opc.org.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Apostasy." Topics and Questions, 2023. churchofjesuschrist.org.
• Joseph Smith-History 1, in The Pearl of Great Price. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. churchofjesuschrist.org.