>>777881
In general I've learned form a mixture of scripture, the writings of the church fathers and a few anonymous christian authors, The saints and a bit of secular history. A lot of the Church's history is recorded in European history. You just can't trust most academics, or more accurately formal educational institutions like Schools and Colleges. Most historians I've read from, listened too, or spoken too don't take the hyper-negative view of the church that academia does. My grand father was a high school history teacher from the 60s - late 80s and was devoutly christian. He basically helped me and my siblings unlearn the "academic" teachings about church history.
As for doctrine and development/growth of the church, start with the Apostolic Fathers, then the Greek, Latin, Syriac and Desert Fathers, with a primary focus on the Eight Doctors of the Church. Most if not all of the Latin texts are available freely online, but it tends to be mixed results for the Geek, Syriac and Desert Fathers. In particular (and I have no clue as to why this is the case) finding anything by St. Basil available freely was borderline impossible. I had to buy a book intended for theology students in order to get decent access to his works, and even then it's a relatively short collection.
From there on you just build your way up through the Saints and Doctors until now.