Let’s imagine a space where we’re not arguing over who has the “Right Belief” or the “Wrong Belief,” but simply trying to understand how these categories emerged in the first place.
In the earliest centuries, orthodoxy meant “the teaching a particular community recognized as its standard.” It wasn’t a universal seal of perfection; it was the set of convictions that helped a given group define its identity and boundaries.
Heresy, in turn, referred to teachings that departed from what that same community had agreed to uphold. The word originally meant “choice” or “school,” and only gradually took on the sense of a view judged incompatible with a community’s core commitments.
It’s important to remember that these categories were not fixed from the beginning. They developed over time as different Christian groups wrestled with Scripture, tradition, and lived experience. What counted as “orthodox” in one region or century was not always the same elsewhere. These labels reflect community decisions, not automatic indicators of truth or falsehood.
So when someone says, “the early church never taught X,” the more historically grounded question becomes: which community, in which place, and at which moment in time? Early Christianity was remarkably diverse, and the process of defining orthodoxy was gradual, contested, and shaped by real debates among real people.
So, Is The “Right Belief” What I Say It Is?