Nobody said nothing happened or the church died for 1500 years after Jesus acceded.
Both Zemirah and myself have posted in detail how, where the church was flourishing. This is history rewritten and lies by the Catholic historians which aggrees with the hundreds upon hundreds of forged documents, history, oral history that has been revealed to be forged, which also has been posted in detail even the Christian orthodox church has a great deal of documentation revealing the forged documents.
What history does reveal that the Catholic church would like buried is the 1700 years they persecuted mass numbers of Christians for being non catholic and holding only to the precious scriptures. They try to excuse these killings focusing them as restricted to only the crusades, but history says otherwise.
The reformation was a continuation of the previous 1500 years not a discovery. It was Luther revealing the 95 false doctrines and posting them, not as a discovery but in retaliation to the ongoing Catholic church killing Christians.

The breakdown in arguing is history and revisionist history, forged documents from the earliest founding years that became the foundation of the Catholic church. If revisionist history has been accepted and indoctrinated as the only truth, then actual history that is in direct conflict becomes heritical teaching. I'm learning that believers in many churches are convinced that regardless of documents being validated as actual, the default still is churches claims to possess the true documents. Any evidence even Empirical (I know you understand the meaning of Empirical) evidence is dismissed.
So how is it possible to discuss in light of "if the church says its true, Damned be anything saying otherwise.
I use the Mormon Church as a prime example because both Christians and Catholics agree they are a cult with false teachings and the same frustration exist when they default to" but the book of Mormon says"..... Give them empirical evidence of actual history that is documented, validated as empirical and they dismiss it as anti-Mormon lies and hate because" the church says so " and" the book of Mormon "says so. Indoctrination is a powerful tool as we also see in Islam having the very young children memorizing the Quran/Koran and what becomes their response when actual history, empirical evidence is served up to them...." lies, because Mohammed says " and the Koran says".

Using the Mormon and Islam from Christianity perspective can you see a common thread in these two false beliefs? (rhetorical) they both have writings "Additional" to the Bible that contridict the Bible. They both have leaders that established the "Additional" writings claiming they are from God.
Using the same applications of catholic oral traditions (extra writings), leaders claiming they are from God yet they contridict the first original Bible in the exact same way as the Mormons and Muslims..
Logical reasoning in believing the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob..believing in Jesus as Saviour would be to default to the original and test all things by it. I can add the Jehova witnesses to the exact same pattern of following additional writing and a leader that says so..
With that said unless one steps aside from "because the church says" and researches the validity of "actual history" claims by Christians it becomes a circular discussion.