The history of the Christian church is a fascinating story. Since the ascension of Jesus and the birth of the church at Pentecost, the followers of Christ have experienced persecution and martyrdom, established orthodoxy and orthopraxy, endured internal division and social upheaval, and sought to proclaim the good news "to the end of the earth." How can we possibly begin to grasp the complexity of the church's story? In this brief volume, historian Jennifer Woodruff Tait provides a primer using seven sentences to introduce readers to the sweeping scope of church history. Among the sentences: "No one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion." -The Edict of Milan (AD 313) "Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance from the Father." -The Nicene Creed (325) "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." -Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses (1517) "The church is confronted today, as in no preceding generation, with a literally worldwide opportunity to make Christ known." -The Edinburgh Conference (1910) Pick up and read. The story continues. The accessible primers in the Introductions in Seven Sentences collection act as brief introductions to an academic field, with simple organization: seven key sentences that give readers a birds-eye view of an entire discipline.

Sophronius was one of the most influential figures spanning the ecclesiastical troubles in East and West during the sixth to the seventh centuries. Poet, hagiographer, dogmatician, homilist, and liturgist, he was a widely-travelled monastic who had close ties with the see of Rome and an unrivalled knowledge of the workings of the anti-Chalcedonian churches, revealed in his Synodical Letter. Sophronius despatched this epistle to other church leaders when at an advanced age he became patriarch of Jerusalem in AD 634. The letter was read out at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680-1, and provided the only sustained rebuttal of the monoenergist doctrine which was used by eastern emperors and church leaders alike as a political strategy to unite Christians in the early Byzantine empire.
Pauline Allen provides the first complete annotated translation of the Synodical Letter into a modern language. A comprehensive introduction situates the work in the context of the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451). It is accompanied by a dossier of translated documents by other writers of the time which illustrate the progress of the debate and its political and ecclesiastical repercussions in the first half of the seventh century.