King Thomas
Banned
By which I mean either clerical direct rule over parts of Europe like in OTL Iran, or indirect rule but a lot of power behind the scenes like in the Arab countries.
How could Christianity be kept as powerful as Islam is to this day?
- Thread starter King Thomas
- Start date
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
The problem with Iran is, todays Iran was formed much by the religious Safavids. The power, authority, land distrobution. It made the state too influental for the Shia clergy. The population wasn't too literate either making it fresh targets for religious figures.
One of the differences between Christendom and the Islamic World is that the distinction between God and Caesar was much more pronounced in the former than the latter (where Sultans were also Caliphs), and that Safavid Iran in particular was founded as an explicitly Shia state.
To get any Christian Church (presumably some Apostolic Church) into a comparable position of power, you'd want to weaken the power of secular states in Europe, allowing clerical states or much more Church-influenced dynasties to take over. Smashing both France and the Holy Roman Empire is one way to do it--if the Mongols, perhaps, burn their way to the Atlantic but don't take Rome, the Papacy and a renewed wave of monastery-building (resulting in a large array of Principality-Bishoprics) might fill the vacuum.
You'd want to break up the secular(ish) powers of Medieval Europe after the conversion of most of Europe but before the High Middle Ages.
Riain
Banned
IIUC The Orthodox states sort of embraced Caesaropapism.
Emperors such as Basiliscus, Zeno, Justinian I, Heraclius, and Constans II published several strictly ecclesiastical edicts either on their own without the mediation of church councils, or they exercised their own political influence on the councils to issue the edicts.[Wiki]
Caesaropapism was most notorious in the Tsardom of Russia when Ivan IV the Terrible assumed the title Czar in 1547 and subordinated the Russian Orthodox Church to the state. In 1721 Peter the Great abolished the patriarchate and formally made the church a department of his government formally known as the beginning of the Russian Empire.
So maybe a Byz resurgence that avoids the 4th Crusade and retains/spreads Eastern Orthodox further than OTL giving it a larger and more potent power bloc, and in turn influences developments in the West?
Emperors such as Basiliscus, Zeno, Justinian I, Heraclius, and Constans II published several strictly ecclesiastical edicts either on their own without the mediation of church councils, or they exercised their own political influence on the councils to issue the edicts.[Wiki]
Caesaropapism was most notorious in the Tsardom of Russia when Ivan IV the Terrible assumed the title Czar in 1547 and subordinated the Russian Orthodox Church to the state. In 1721 Peter the Great abolished the patriarchate and formally made the church a department of his government formally known as the beginning of the Russian Empire.
So maybe a Byz resurgence that avoids the 4th Crusade and retains/spreads Eastern Orthodox further than OTL giving it a larger and more potent power bloc, and in turn influences developments in the West?
Have it convert Arabia?
If those who OTL became Moslems become Christians instead, they will bring their attitudes with them into the Church.
If those who OTL became Moslems become Christians instead, they will bring their attitudes with them into the Church.
Medieval Europe always had the set-up where the Church and Government were related but not the same, different to the Islamic states. In Europe, the Church could be used as a tool by the Kings, but at the same time they were adversarial as much as allies. The Church could undermine a Kings power, so really from the start of feudalism local governments would do what they could to undermine the Church and enhance their own power. Of course it took centuries, but this eventually led to heightened secularism, highlighted in many protestant states and even more so after the Enlightenment.
You need to change the power structure of Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, and make it where governments and churches are intrinsically combined, and Kings serve as both political and church leaders.
You need to change the power structure of Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, and make it where governments and churches are intrinsically combined, and Kings serve as both political and church leaders.
So, Ireland prior to the 1970s and removal of the "special relationship" between the Catholic Church and the Republic, or the North and the influence of the Protestant churches on Stormount?
Given that the separation of Church and State, in the Western sense of the phrase, can date back to St. Ambrose, there's a lot of heavy lifting to do here. It also doesn't help that Mohammad, unlike Jesus, was a political and military leader. Muslims that want to strengthen the role of religion in politics can harken back to their founder, and you can't get more authoritative than that. Christians that want to do the same thing have to deal with the Gospels being full of Jesus specifically avoiding being politicized, and avoiding each 'gotcha' attempt by those that wanted to politicize him.
Could probably also just avert modernity in Europe somehow. Medieval Europe certainly meets the description of your request, as does to some degree Europe up until a few centuries ago. All we have to do is basically prevent the Enlightenment and everything that follows...
Not that that would be easy except by a very early PoD. You'd need to radically alter the trajectory of Europe, ensure that pesky banking never really gets off the ground and that mercantile activities always remain secondary to massive agricultural estates manned by tenant labor. Since the latter is the primary economic activities in so many societies, it shouldnt be that difficult.
Not that that would be easy except by a very early PoD. You'd need to radically alter the trajectory of Europe, ensure that pesky banking never really gets off the ground and that mercantile activities always remain secondary to massive agricultural estates manned by tenant labor. Since the latter is the primary economic activities in so many societies, it shouldnt be that difficult.
Maybe a late resurgence in the shape of clerical fascist regimes like Iron Guard Romania or Francoist Spain?
Though it would be very hard to make enough countries falling for it to be enough alone.
But maybe in combination with a resurgent Ottoman Empire which later falls to communism?
Then its Christian provinces in the Balkans can break away in the chaos and become very religious in response to their fight with Muslim Turks and godless commies.
Though it would be very hard to make enough countries falling for it to be enough alone.
But maybe in combination with a resurgent Ottoman Empire which later falls to communism?
Then its Christian provinces in the Balkans can break away in the chaos and become very religious in response to their fight with Muslim Turks and godless commies.
It would be interesting to see a TL in which Protestantism is stillborn. The line of separation between church and state prior to the Reformation, when it existed at all, was fuzzy. I could see a more politically powerful "church" in which the line of separation is ill-defined and Europe is "unified" (whatever unified might mean to the writer of the TL) under the Catholic church.
So, basically His Dark Materials, but without steampunk or magic.
Could work but I feel like eventually we might see movements like the French Revolution tearing down the Church.
At the time of the Reformation if the Catholic Church had seen the writing on the wall and reformed some of their corrupt practices , the Reformation would have been dead in the water.
If they weren't willing to do that giving Henery VIII a divorce would have helped.
If they weren't willing to do that giving Henery VIII a divorce would have helped.
With Emperor Charles V (Catherine of Aragon's nephew) breathing down his neck, this is rather unlikely.
But the church doesn't have a lockdown on politics. You can defy what the Georgian Orthodox Church thinks and get away with nothing but a lot of criticism, for instance. Now, it's certainly comparable to what happens in certain Islamic countries if you defy what the religious authorities want, but in many cases you can get away with it.
Sub-Saharan Africa is a bit different than Georgia or Armenia, but even there, the church doesn't seem as powerful as the Islamist-influenced Muslim clergy in places like Nigeria. Still, you would have to exercise extreme caution to go against certain Christian evangelists and leaders like Nigeria's TB Joshua. But TB Joshua isn't determining who gets elected president in Nigeria (AFAIK), nor anywhere else in Africa, and I don't see any other prominent African religious leaders doing that.
There just aren't a lot of places these days where the clergy rule the state.
Many things contributed to christianities loss of power. The fracturing into countless denominations. The loss of control oc countries by the catholic pope. The sexual revolution. Major equality movements. Just general unrest against massive spending by the church and lessining wealth for lower class christians in general. You would have to solve all of those and reduce the literacy rate for the average christian so there onnce again blindly faithful to a singular leader.
It's the 1500s accidents happen
Charles V could easily die Young.