"Sometime around the year AD 36, some uneducated peasants in Jerusalem, in the Rog frontier province of Judea, started shouting from the orary equivalent of soapboxes that their erstwhile leader, a former carpenter from the north named Jesus, who had recently been savagely executed- nailed to a wooden cross-had returned from the dead...

"Beginning with the extraordinary confidence of this tiny group of Jews that their leader was alive again, over the following centuries their faith spread far and wide and developed increasingly clearly defined belief systems and patterns of worship, a distinctive set of morals and a collection of sacred writings."

TIM DOWLEY

Key figures include:

Paul the apostle

Origen Augustine Thomas Aquinas Francis of Assisi John Wycliffe Martin Luther John Calvin Ignatius Loyola John Wesley Francis Xavier Pius IX William Carey John XXIII Billy Graham and many others