Jesus started a single Church. He appointed leaders for his Church. We know who these leaders are from scripture. We also know who these leaders chose as successors.
Why do you suppose that you have the right to ignore the successors of the apostles?
The gates of Hell would have prevailed against a Church if it teaches false doctrines as the truth of Jesus.
Jesus is truth.
HAve you ever really studied the matter of apostolic succession? Do you know what the Liber Pontificales is? It is a book written by the Catholic church, with the "first few successors" part finished in about 600AD. Writing your own history that way is what everyone else in the world calls pseudohistory. But let's suppose it's correct. The argument rests on two, and only two, historical facts. First Peter appointed Linus as the next in charge. Then a French bishop, in a fight with a rival bishop in the 300's, proposed that he is correct because his teachings match those in Rome. That's it. Even if we assume the facts are correct, that's the whole argument. That's what gives the church of Rome the right to be in charge after they get Constantine saved.
Okay, Peter appointed Linus. Sure, he did, as bishop of Rome. Peter was the guy who needed a special revelation even to appraoch a gentile living in Israel with the gospel (Acts 10). Why would he appoint a person who grew up in the islands off Italy to be in charge of the Jerusalem Church? This is simply an altered fact.
So one bishop wrote one letter saying he thinks he is right because he agrees with the teachings at Rome. What did the other guy say? Maybe he agrees with Alexandria, or Constantinople. We'll never know, unless a Catholic author saved it, because the CathCh had time to tear everything up that they did not like.
Now, apostles. The CathCh says there are 13. The original 12, minus Judas, plus Matthias, plus Paul, right? Scripture teaches that Barnabas is a levite (Acts 4:36). By acts 14:14 is an apostle. Again, it is you with the peudohistory.
Or what of the Didache, quoted by the Cath Ch fathers from the first half, lost for 1000 years, recovered in a monastery restoration in the mid 1800's and proclaimed authentic by every Catholic Encyclopedia edition from then until 1919? The 1919 catholic Encyclopedia is the first to say it is false. I guess they must have read it, because it teaches clearly that there were hundreds of apostles and can be many now. (Not to mention is says you guys are doing the Eucharist wrong.)
That is an interesting take you have on the definition of the gates of hell prevailing. At any given time, 36,000 denominations are disagreeing one with another on something. But only since 1500 or so. Before that the inquisition was too strong to let anybody disagree and stay alive like that.
Yes Jesus is truth. NOt the story the Cath Ch tells in His place.