This site went "live" in September 2007. It is very much the work of an individual "enthusiast" for the subject rather than the work of a group or a company. Over the next few weeks and months there are plans to develop the site further so that it becomes a valuable resource for information about the Early Church and significant original language texts (with English translations). It is hoped that the distinctive features of the site will be (i) its wide range of links to materials about the Early Church and the Early Church Fathers; (ii) its carefully presented Greek and Latin texts (with translations, morphology and lexicon links, and often textual notes). The texts will mainly be extracts rather than complete works. The aim is to add at least one new text each week, as time permits with other commitments, until the site has a set of textual extracts covering a wide range of subjects. If you have any feedback, ideas or maybe even requests for particular texts then do use the email link above.

The priority in the initial development phase has been the completion of the site indexing system (Alphabatical, Chronological, Textual and Thematic) so that it can give swift access to texts, information and weblinks about the life of the Early Church.  Work on the structure and main entries for this is now pretty much complete. (Please report any problems through the email link above.)  There is an extensive set of links to information about most of the writers, leaders and main characters in the history of the Church during its first five centuries. Spend some time exploring the menu system.  There is, for example, information about the Ecumenical Councils, other early Church Councils, Creeds, the major controversies, the Popes, the Bishops and the Roman Emperors throughout this period. Be aware that some of the public domain resources available through the links are far from being contemporary - e.g. Wace Biography, Catholic Encyclopedia, Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Smith Biography. (See link for "External links" below.) It will be helpful also to look at more contemporary publications (e.g. the books mentioned in the "Bibliographies") which may take account of more recent scholarship and textual discoveries.

Original language texts can be found through the "Texts" Menus at the top of each page. Texts can also be located through the "Themes" Menu.

The priorities and plans now are:-

1. To add additional original language texts. Currently there are about 80 original language texts on the site. More will be added over the next months, covering important issues that faced the Church in the first five centuries of its life. Information about recent updates and a complete list of texts on the site can be found by clicking here. The best way of keeping up to date with the latest developments is to take advantage of the RSS feed whose link is above or in the URL address bar. While the work on consistent presentation is addressed (see 2 below) it is likely that, on average, only one new text will be added each week.

2. To bring consistency to the presentation of the original language texts. The aim is that all should have:- a) textual notes where available, b) morphological links to the Perseus website, c) morphological links to a locally based  version of the Perseus morphology, i.e. on the earlychurchtexts server, d) a brief introductory note. This is not currently the case for the texts that were the first to be uploaded. It is hoped that this can be addressed by the summer of 2008.

3. Consideration of preparing versions of the texts (including notes) which can be easily printed. This "printing" facility may possibly be on a modest subscription basis which would help the future development of the site.

If the site does not appear to be functioning correctly then click here. Mac users please note that the site, as currently configured, may be incompatible with Safari, particularly the original language text pages. It should work with Firefox which can be downloaded here.

Click on the links below for further information.