Whether the Pope (or the Papacy) is the Antichrist is quite a separate question and it is one which we will not attempt to answer or address. But as to the Church’s traditional practice from the very beginning there is no question at all. The Early Church Fathers speak unanimously.
The Didache provides the following instruction about when the Church met for services.
But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. [ANF 7: 381; ch. XIV, par. 1]
Bishop Ignatius, writing very early in the Second Century in his Epistle to the Magnesians, makes it even clearer as to which day was to be the Christian day of worship.
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death…. [ANF 1: 62: ch. IX]
The Apologist Justin Martyr is equally clear in his First Apology when he describes the weekly worship of the Christian community.
And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. [ANF 1: 186; ch. LXVII]
Clement of Alexandria details the life of the True Gnostic (a Christian) in The Stromata.
He, in fulfilment of the precept, according to the Gospel, keeps the Lord’s day, when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself.
Near the end of the Second Century, Tertullian explains Christian worship in his Apology.
We shall be counted Persians perhaps, though we do not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The idea no doubt has originated from our being known to turn to the east in prayer. But you, many of you, also under pretence sometimes of worshipping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sun-day to rejoicing, from a far different reason than Sun-worship, we have some resemblance to those of you who devote the day of Saturn to ease and luxury, though they too go far away from Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant. [ANF 3: 31; ch. XVI]
In Peter of Alexandria’s Canonical Epistle the following is laid down concerning the Lord’s Day.
But on the Lord’s day we ought not to fast, for it is a day of joy for the resurrection of the Lord, and on it, says he, we have received that we ought not even to bow the knee. This word, therefore, is to be carefully observed, “we have received,” and “it is enjoined upon us according to the tradition.” For from hence it is evident that long-established custom was taken for law. [ANF 6: 278-9; canon XV]
Victorinus in On the Creation of the World writes the following:
This sixth day is called parasceve, that is to say, the preparation of the kingdom. For He perfected Adam, whom He made after His image and likeness. But for this reason He completed His works before He created angels and fashioned man, lest perchance they should falsely assert that they had been His helpers. On this day also, on account of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to God, or a fast. On the seventh day He rested from all His works, and blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed to fast rigorously, that on the Lord’s day we may go forth to our bread with giving of thanks. And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath… [ANF 7: 341-2]
It is clear that the Christians of that time did not even wish to be mistakenly identified with the Jews and the Sabbath. How can anyone then see them every allowing themselves to be called Saturday Sabbatarians or “Seventh-Day” Christians? It is inconceivable. If we are to worship on the Church’s Day of Worship, we will worship on Sunday. The truth of this assertion cannot be plausibly denied unless one discounts all of the Fathers as “unreliable” and “Catholic.”
