AHC: No Orthodox Christianity

I guess there are a few ways this could come about. Any other ideas how this could happen and what effects it would have?

1. The Eastern bishops don't break with Rome. How would this affect the history of the Islamic Expansion?
2. The Balkans are as throughly Islamicized as Egypt and the Middle East, and for some reason Russia doesn't adopt the Orthodox Church. Would the Ottoman Empire still dissolve as it did, or would nationalism in the Balkans not develop as it did OTL?
3. Maybe the Latin Empire is super-successful and manages to convert most of the Balkans to the Roman Catholic Church. Then, when the Turks expand, they absorb and convert the remaining few Orthodox communities in Asia Minor, while conquering a mostly Catholic Balkan penninnsula.

That's about all I have for that.

EDIT: Lets go for limited Orthodox Christianity. So not dominant anywhere. Was just throwing some ideas out there. Please don't take the "no" as a literal 0% Orthodox population.

ChewyGranola said:

I guess there are a few ways this could come about. Any other ideas how this could happen and what effects it would have?

1. The Eastern bishops don't break with Rome. How would this affect the history of the Islamic Expansion?

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It was (argubly) Rome that broke with the Eastern Patriarchs, not the Eastern Patriarchs that broke with Rome

2. The Balkans are as throughly Islamicized as Egypt and the Middle East, and for some reason Russia doesn't adopt the Orthodox Church. Would the Ottoman Empire still dissolve as it did, or would nationalism in the Balkans not develop as it did OTL?

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Ever heard about the Copts? you know, the Egyptian Orthodox Christian, which is ammounting of about 10% of Egyptian Population ... and Ethiopia was also very Christian. And there is significant Christian minorities all over the Middle East.

3. Maybe the Latin Empire is super-successful and manages to convert most of the Balkans to the Roman Catholic Church. Then, when the Turks expand, they absorb and convert the remaining few Orthodox communities in Asia Minor, while conquering a mostly Catholic Balkan penninnsula.

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Still have the same issues as 2.

Yes, I have heard of the Copts. That's why I specifically said as Islamicized as parts of the Middle East. I am well aware that not everyone in the Mid East and North Africa is a Muslim.

Ok, maybe the Roman bishops broke with the east. I am not 100% sure it matters for the question.

So, yeah, those are the only three ideas I have to minimize the presence of an Orthodox Church. I guess I should have typed "minimal" as opposed to "no". So if anyone has some actual ideas, or ways to expand on something I said, that would be cool.

Thanks!

Considering that the Eastern Schism (no, it was the Eastern who broke. Catholics added a small part to the Nicene Creed which the Eastern saw as some kind of heresy but that really didn't add anything new to it and the Patriarchs of both Rome and Costantinople excomunicated eachother and their successors) happened in 1054...Byzantium doesn't has to plead the Latins to help it in Anatolia, suffers no Fourth Crusade (you don't sack the capital of a fellow Catholic country) and isn't conquered by the Ottomans because the empire isn't almost destroyed after the Fourth Crusade and doesn't has to face angry Anatolians while trying to recover. Byzantium then probably recovers Anatolia.

Today the Turks are either re-Hellenized and practice Catholicism or still are Catholic but remained Turkish.

Overall, quite familiar scenario, if we exclude the Catholic Byzantium part.

I think that this discussion needs to separate the "Oriental Orthdoxy" of the Copts, Armenians, and Ethiopians from the "Eastern Orthdoxy" of the Greeks, Melkites, Georgians, and Russians.

Wendell said:

I think that this discussion needs to separate the "Oriental Orthdoxy" of the Copts, Armenians, and Ethiopians from the "Eastern Orthdoxy" of the Greeks, Melkites, Georgians, and Russians.

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Agreed on that, Copts, Armenians and Ethiopians didn't adopt the Nicene Creed. Their take on the nature of God and Jesus is slightly different.

Would there have been a split between Rome and Constantinople if Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria were not swept up by the tide of Islam? Having three more Patriarch-type figures on the scene could have made things interesting.

The Kiat said:

Would there have been a split between Rome and Constantinople if Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria were not swept up by the tide of Islam? Having three more Patriarch-type figures on the scene could have made things interesting.

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Yes, such a split was growing for hundreds of years. The Papacy thought they could issue rules unilaterally, and were essentially monarchs of the whole Church. The East believe in Councils and collegiality. This, of course, partly because of the multiple eastern Eastern Patriarchs, and the unique Patriarch in the West.

So, yes, when a single Patriarch announces unilaterally that all the other Patriarchs have to obey him, it is he that causes the schism, not they. Imo.