text: who started catholicism?   the developement of the catholic church makes for interesting historical reading.  various doctrines to which it holds can be pinpointed to certain dates and people.  for example, the concept of sprinkling instead of immersing for baptism goes to the late 3rd century.  a man named novatian was on what he thought was his deathbed, and wanted to be baptized, so they sprinkled him. this is the first record of sprinkling in history.  when he recovered, he wanted to be made a bishop.  the entire church was outraged, because they all asserted that he wasn't baptized correctly.  so he was immersed, and became a bishop.    another interesting sidebar in the developement of catholic doctrine was the quartodeciman controversy, in the middle of the second century.  because of the bar kochba revolt in palestine, the roman government forbade all jews from being anywhere near jerusalem.  the sanhedrin was no longer able to produce its religious calendar.  not only did this impact the jews, but it impacted christianity as well, because up to that point the christians depended upon the jewish calendar to determine when to observe passover, to honor the death, burial, and resurrection of messiah.  so the bishop of rome (i believe it was anastasius at the time, i could be wrong, and i am too lazy to look it up), decided that because messiah was raised on the first day of the week, the passover would be observed on a sunday every year.  this eventually developed into easter.  anyhow, polycarp, bishop of smyrna, and the eastern churches initially rejected this move.  polycarp, who was taught by the apostle john, said that john told him that passover must be observed on 14 nissan every year, regardless of upon what day of the week it fell.  polycarp did not deny that christ arose on a sunday, and anastasius did not deny that christ was crucified on passover, the controversy was about when the lord's supper should be observed.  the development of the doctrine that infants are born sinful can be traced back to augustine, bishop of hippo, in the mid 4th century.  the introduction of musical instruments can be dated in the 600's a.d.  the developement of the current ecclesiastical arrangement of the catholic church is quite fascinating.  initially, each congregation was autonomous, and governed by a board of men known simply as presbyters (elders).  this office was also known as the episcopoi (overseers/bishops), or poimoine (pastors).  this office was quite distinct from that of the evangelists (preachers) and deacons (ministers/servants).  anyhow, ignatius, the bishop of antioch in the mid to late second century, was the first to suggest that only one of the men be called the episcopos, and the rest called presbyters.  up to that point, no one presbyter/episcopos had any more authority than any other.  the word episcopos, eventually was shortened to piscops, then to bischop, to our current form of bishop.  the term presbyters was eventually shortened to prester, then prest, and in its current form of priest.  what started to happen was that if a city had several congregations, the bishop of most affluentual of them began to gain authority over the others.  soon, all the smaller congregations dropped the bishops, but retained their presbyters, and acknowledged the authority of the bishop of the leading congregation in the town.  soon, there were five prominent congregations throughout christendom: jerusalem, antioch, constantinople, alexandria, and rome, and each of these vied for the prominence, but none was willing to give any foot to the other.  with the advent of the splitting of the roman empire into east and west, the barbarian incursions, and the advent of islam, only two congregations of these powerhouses remained to have any influence: rome and constantinople.  the story of their bickering back and forth with each other, and how i believe in 1054, thereabouts (can't remember the exact date), the bishop of rome and the