The Church Fathers or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, particularly those of the first five centuries of Christian history. The term means specifically writers and teachers of the Church, not saints in general; usually it is not meant to include the New Testament authors, but some of their texts were considered for inclusion in the biblical canon.

Those fathers who wrote in Latin are called the Latin (Church) Fathers, and those who wrote in Greek the Greek (Church) Fathers.

The very earliest Church Fathers, of the first two generations after the Apostles of Christ, are usually called the Apostolic Fathers. Famous Apostolic Fathers are St. Clement of Rome, the author of the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas. Later, in contact with Greek Philosophy and Literature and facing persecutions, began a period called the Apologetic Fathers who tried to justify and defend the Christian doctrine against attacks from within the Hellenistic world, important Fathers of this era are St. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Hermias and Tertullian. Fathers prior to Nicene Christianity are collected in Ante-Nicene Fathers, those after are in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.

Famous Latin Fathers include the Montanist Tertullian, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate; famous

The Desert Fathers were early monastics living in the Egyptian desert; although they did not write as much, their influence was also great. Among them are St. Anthony the Great and St. Pachomius. A great number of their usually short sayings is collected in the Apophthegmata Patrum.

A small number of other Fathers wrote in other languages: Saint Ephrem, for example, wrote in Syriac, but his works were widely translated into Latin and Greek.

In the Roman Catholic Church, St. John of Damascus, who lived in the 8th century, is generally considered to be the last of the Church Fathers and at the same time the first seed of the next period of church writers, scholasticism. The Eastern Orthodox Church does not consider the age of Church Fathers to be over at all and it includes later influential writers in the term.

The study of the Fathers is known as Patristics.

See also

• Doctors of the Church

Kirchenväter Padres de la Iglesia Católica Père de l'Église 카톨릭의 교부 אבות הנצרות Egyházatyák Kerkvader Ojcowie Kościoła Padre da Igreja Cirkevní Otcovia Kirkkoisä Kyrkofader 教会父老