Oldest institution in the world?

[Magister Eckhart]

Religion in general is the institutionalisation of the very earliest Divine Revelation - it is the necessary structure that helps Man to comprehend the incomprehensible. Since Divinity and the Divine has existed longer than Mankind, the revelation of Divinity took place as soon as Homo sapiens graduated to humanity and became able to perceive it. Therefore, religion is the oldest institution.

[Odoacer]

Some of the obscure eastern sects of Christianity are surely as old or older. There are tons of 'Popes' and 'Patriarchs' and 'Katholikosses' out there. We just know piss all about them, and after a brief root around on Google, I've lost the enthusiasm to investigate the age of any of them further.

The problem here is going to be continuity. All of the other ancient sees have had significant historical discountinuities owing largely to Muslim conquests.

Rome's ecclesiastical continuity is based on all sorts of legends and fictions. There probably has been a Christian presence there since Peter's day, but the nature of it until the third or fourth century is arguably comparable to the Hinduism that has been disqualified of 'institution' status in the posts above. The various schisms and antipopery and so on that characterises the early history of the Roman Papacy should be taken into account too.

Well, even supposing we could discount Peter, there has been an episkopos of the Church of Rome since at least A.D. 64 or 67 (depending on the source), which is when Linus took office. This is virtually indisputable. My opinion is that the nature of the office no doubt changed from what it was initially, but basically there has always been some kind of official ecclesiastical structure in Rome since that time on. You may argue that Christianity is comparable to Hinduism, but the Church of Rome is another matter.

[ikki]

Many people say the Catholic Church. Are there any older ones?

Cthulhu worship, already the ancient voormis and the serpentmen that preceded those... let alone even older races

[Wulfhere]

There's also the Priory of Sion, of course, which was founded in 1,956,720 BC.

[Gaztelu]

Why isn't the Orthodox Church considered the world's oldest institution?

[Wulfhere]

Why isn't the Orthodox Church considered the world's oldest institution?

Because it's a diffuse and uncentralised branch of Christianity.

[Magister Eckhart]

Why do we need to name a specific church/tradition/etc. Religion itself is a social institution, as I've said above.

[Wulfhere]

Why do we need to name a specific church/tradition/etc. Religion itself is a social institution, as I've said above.

In which case Zoroastrianism probably wins.

[Gaztelu]

Because it's a diffuse and uncentralised branch of Christianity.

Uncentralised? Isn't the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople the center of the Orthodox Christian world?

[Wulfhere]

Uncentralised? Isn't the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople the center of the Orthodox Christian world?

No. There are many autocephalous churches. But that's not the point. The Patriarchate of Constantinople might itself be regarded as the oldest institution, were it not for the fact that it was founded in the 4th century and clearly isn't.