Consequences of Christian Persia

Tjakari

Tjakari

I've gone through literally hundreds of threads and I occasionally come across threads regarding Nestorian Persia. These threads are usually what POD is required, or why such a thing would be unlikely or why such a thing would only hurt the Sassanid position or whatever dynasty is in place during the conversion.
My question isn't how or why such a thing would be possible, but what are the consequences of a Persian Empire converting to Nestorianism or any other sect?
 

Lalli

We might see Nestorian Central Asia and perhaps partially Nestorian India. This would make world very unrecognsible.
 
Tjakari

Tjakari

Lalli said:
We might see Nestorian Central Asia and perhaps partially Nestorian India. This would make world very unrecognsible.
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That would depend on how strong the missionary work would be, and I doubt an emperor could force the faith on the entire empire let alone central asia.
 

carlton_bach

Ultimate Paragon said:
Yeah, it seems pretty unlikely to me.
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Not sure there. Persian courtly culture as the aspirational thing in a large chunk of Central Asia - basically, right up to where Chinese is the in-thing. IOTL it came packaged with Islam, and the rulers who converted spread that faith pretty effectively. ITTL it might well go with Christianity. It would still have to contend with Buddhism, but Islam - assuming it exists - is an unlikely rival except maybe in the Indian Ocean littoral, and Hinduism might well stay as non-missionary as IOTL. Nestorian Christianity enjoying a success in the region similar to Islam IOTL is not that unlikely.
 

Malta

Depends on which branch converts the Iranian nobility. The primarily Aramaic branch centered on the Assyrian subjects in Assyria or the Persian Script based in Fars.
 

Roger II

ramones1986 said:
What script will they be using in writing Dari/Persian?
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Probably either a variant of Estrangelo script or possibly a form of Pazend/other Middle Persian writing system; my money is on Pazend/Pahalvi as the usual script for Middle Persian OTL with Syriac-based scripts for Syriac language religious texts. The bigger problem is that there's really no way for the Sasanian empire to realistically convert to Christianity; it was very much a state that was founded on Zoroastrianism in the way the Byzantine Empire was founded on Orthodox Christianity.
 

SvoHljott

But how do you propose making Persia Christian?

The only reason Persia became Islamic is because of the collapse of the Sasanids (and thus the collapse of the state-sponsored religion, Zoroastrianism).

Christianity was spreading in Mesopotamia, but not amongst Persians. I can't see the Persians wanting or needing to become Christian - if anything, without Islam, they will become more strictly and orthodox Zoroastrian.
 

Malta

Roger II said:
Probably either a variant of Estrangelo script or possibly a form of Pazend/other Middle Persian writing system; my money is on Pazend/Pahalvi as the usual script for Middle Persian OTL with Syriac-based scripts for Syriac language religious texts. The bigger problem is that there's really no way for the Sasanian empire to realistically convert to Christianity; it was very much a state that was founded on Zoroastrianism in the way the Byzantine Empire was founded on Orthodox Christianity.
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My same thoughts on the matter. It would have to be a non-Persin Iranian force and definitely not the Sassanids of course that would likely mean a nomadic army force, Iranian or Turkic which would introduce the same system of social-ethnic stratification similar to OTL.
 

Basileus Giorgios

SvoHljott said:
The only reason Persia became Islamic is because of the collapse of the Sasanids (and thus the collapse of the state-sponsored religion, Zoroastrianism).

Christianity was spreading in Mesopotamia, but not amongst Persians. I can't see the Persians wanting or needing to become Christian - if anything, without Islam, they will become more strictly and orthodox Zoroastrian.
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This is true: but at some point, I'd imagine the tensions between the Iranian aristocracy and their Mesopotamian subject peoples are going to have to be resolved one way or another: and I believe that Christianity was spreading into Iran proper, just considerably more slowly than in Mesopotamia where it was probably the majority by the beginning of the seventh century.

Ultimately I don't know enough about the Sasanian state to properly comment on the matter.
 

Malta

Basileus Giorgios said:
This is true: but at some point, I'd imagine the tensions between the Iranian aristocracy and their Mesopotamian subject peoples are going to have to be resolved one way or another: and I believe that Christianity was spreading into Iran proper, just considerably more slowly than in Mesopotamia where it was probably the majority by the beginning of the seventh century.

Ultimately I don't know enough about the Sasanian state to properly comment on the matter.
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Hard to say.

Rew Ardashir was essentially the head of the Fars Metropolitan Diocese and was essentially also the de facto independent center of a split within Nestorianism based in things like ordination but also more importantly language. Pahlavi was used in Rew Ardashir and at least its satelite colonies in India while Syriac script was used in Ctesphion.

The picture on this though only sheds that a great number of members if the merchant class on the eastern rim of the Sassanid economic sphere. Yaz. The First even sent the Cathlicos to deal with a piracy dispute in the region. This does make the case at least for Persian conversion amongst the eastern merchant class but not really any other slice of society.
 

gochisox

Could something along the lines of greater Roman oppression happen and the remaining Christians flee to Persia, there it would work just as Christianity did in rome in otl just bottom up conversion, I can't see top down working well because of rome/Byzantine pressure and constant war between the two
 

Malta

gochisox said:
Could something along the lines of greater Roman oppression happen and the remaining Christians flee to Persia, there it would work just as Christianity did in rome in otl just bottom up conversion, I can't see top down working well because of rome/Byzantine pressure and constant war between the two
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Not likely, as the Zoroastrian priesthood was much more organized and much more into burning apostates then the Christians of this timeframe.
 
Tjakari

Tjakari

Malta said:
Not likely, as the Zoroastrian priesthood was much more organized and much more into burning apostates then the Christians of this timeframe.
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And I was under the notion that apostasy was a mostly Abrahamic thing, and everyone just thought of it as more cultural betrayal.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Here's an idea: could Persia end up Christian through an Armenian king who can potentially inherit the Persian throne should some dynastic crisis happen? Though Armenia itself might be affected by the larger Persian population, Armenian Christian influence can seep into Persian culture.
 

Malta

Tjakari said:
And I was under the notion that apostasy was a mostly Abrahamic thing, and everyone just thought of it as more cultural betrayal.
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Hahahaha. No. Kartir was a total dick to everyone even fellow Zoroastrians. He is the guy that got Mani killed.
 
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