Lutherans and Anglicans also call themselves catholic, with a small c
Catholic comes from a Greek word meaning general or universal, and the Roman church holds no monopoly on it. Orthodox Christians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and others all recite a creed affirming one catholic church, and each claims to be a rightful heir of the original faith of the apostles.
The key text is the Nicene Creed in the form set at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which professes belief in a church that is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. In this lowercase sense, catholic means the complete faith offered to everyone, with no part of the teaching and no group of people left out. A fifth-century formula known as the Vincentian Canon summed it up as what has been believed everywhere, always and by all.
The capitalised Catholic usually means the church in communion with the pope. But catholicity is also claimed by the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and groups that broke from Rome, including Old Catholics. Many Protestant denominations use the word to insist they belong to the historic mainstream defined by the early councils and creeds, and most Reformers believed they stood in continuity with that tradition rather than outside it.
Every schism tested who could claim the word. After the Council of Ephesus in 431 affirmed Mary as Theotokos, the God-bearer, largely Persian dissenters went their own way. Chalcedon in 451 declared Christ fully divine and fully human in two natures, and Alexandria rejected its terms. The split of 1054 divided a Western camp from an Eastern one, and the Council of Florence convened in 1438 to heal it, bringing some Eastern churches back into union. After the First Vatican Council proclaimed papal infallibility, small groups in the Netherlands and German-speaking lands formed the Old Catholic Church.
Those using the word in a middle sense tend to share a recognisable checklist: continuous descent from the early church, apostolic succession of clergy, belief in Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, the sign of the cross, candles, vestments and incense, the liturgical year and devotion to the saints. Roman Catholic tradition counts seven sacraments, while Protestants generally recognise only baptism and the Eucharist.
Source: Catholicity
