Hi Matt,
I have been trying to find out for myself (historically) how the Christ's Ministry turned into the Roman Catholic Church.
I found your original question intriguing and have been looking through some sites concerning the origin on the Catholic Church.
The word Catholic coming from the Greek word katholikos, which means “according to the whole” “general” or “universal.” So they believe the,
Church is the faithful body of believers on earth in communion with the apostolic authority established by Jesus Christ in union with the successor of Peter the chief of the apostles. (taken from The Catholic Church: The Church of the Early Fathers By Jim Anderson') What is becoming clear to me is that the false church was already being established even while the Apostles were still alive.
Acts 20:29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
v. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.
Paul was aware of these false teachers that did not have the Holy Spirit and they were teaching erroneous things. These false teachers knew about the miracles that Christ preformed and even believing in His resurrection, just like today's church. But being the 'called' not having the Holy Spirit, they can not understand spiritual things. So I believe they began right after Christ's resurrection to build the false/Catholic church.
This is an indication of how the false church was raised up as the true church, from 'The Early Church Fathers by Sebastian R. Fama'
The earliest of the fathers are known as the Apostolic Fathers. Their writings come to us from the first two centuries of Church History. They were the immediate successors of the Apostles. Three of them were disciples of one or more of the Apostles. Clement of Rome was a disciple of the apostles Peter and Paul. Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna were disciples of the Apostle John. Naturally we would expect that those who were taught directly by the Apostles would themselves believe and teach correctly. The first reference to the 'Catholic Church' occurs in a letter written by St. Ignatius of Antioch. In his Letter to the Smyrnaeans written in 107 AD,
“Wherever the bishop is, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” This is a statement from Clement,
"because by it the figure of grace is found in the water, recognizing those who are baptized in the name of the Blessed Trinity." I found that all of these early 'fathers' that I checked into a bit had these unscriptural statements and expounded the virtues of the Catholic church. What I believe is that the Catholic church was right there being set up in the beginning along with the true church.
I don't think that the true believers ever met in a church building, but instead met in peoples homes. These true believers were always small in number and I believe it was probably secretive.
The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. brought about the dispersion of Jews and Christians from that city, so this is the catalyst that caused early Christianity to grow apart from Judaism and established itself as a predominantly gentile religion. The church was persecuted in the first centuries because they refused to offer sacrifices to the Roman gods or to defer to Roman rulers as gods. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in 313 and by 380, Christianity was declared the official religion of the Empire by Constantine I. The chruch grew rapidly from the start and now the Catholic Church is the world's oldest and largest institution.
Some of this info came from 'History of the Roman Catholic Church' in Wikipedia, but the internet has numerous sites concerning the early church history.
mercy, peace and love
Kat