AHC/WI: Orthodox France

I think that one of the Kings of France married a Russian once, maybe she introduced Orthodoxy to France in this TL and it took off?
 
The semi-alliance the Franks and the Pope had against the Lombards could end with the pope getting annoyed (e.g. if the Franks lose too many times against said Lombards, putting the Papacy in danger) and the Franks switching to a more eastern style of Christianity, eventually creating a "Frankish/French Orthodox Church".
 
First, the whole Orthodox/Catholic distinction doesn't formally exist before the XIth century, while it's admittedly only one part of the whole separation process that began in the VIth and ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1204.

For any practical concern, the rites aren't enough different between Latin and Greek Christianities before the Carolingian era and the official adoption of the filioque.

As for "succession laws", and contrary to the average Paradox Interative game experience, you just don't change religion because you feel like it. "Francia converts to Orthodoxy" isn't, in any way, an answer. Giving the overhelming Latin Christianism rite in Gaul since the Vth, and the power of the clergy, it's simply not viable as such.
Limiting the pontifical power as well : remember that the pontifical power is essentially the result of Carolingian and Ottonian takeover, wanting to have a legitimized enough head of religion to impose their own conceptions.

So : for having France "switching" to Orthodoxy, meaning a Greek conception of Christianity, you need at earliest a 800 PoD. I'm not sure you could have such, not without radically different TL (such as a Byzantine bukkake TL).
Before, even with a Byzantine presence (say an exarchate of Gaul during Mauricius' reign after Gondovald's revolt), the religious difference wouldn't be marked enough, and would be probably absorbated back by Latin political entities (as it happened in the Exarchate of Ravenna).

Now, if we could get something close enough of the OP, we could have a Peppinid-screw TL; with the revival of Merovingian power in the late VII or early VIIIth centuries. No strong papacy, still a tool of either Byzantines, Lombards or Franks, sometimes overlapping themselves.
It would mean that you won't end with a so radical religious separation between East and West, and that the union of the Churches may be still salvagable historically, ITTL maybe trough Byzantine influence (and therefore, having Latin Christianity more close to Byzantine standards).
 

Redhand

Banned
I think your best bet is to have the reconquests of Justinian much more successful and include Southern Gaul. From there, the Byzantines establish an Orthodox center in Narbo and use it to reconvert the populace. The Byzantines eventually take about half of Gaul before the province splits off over time from being too far flung, but Orthodoxy is there to stay and the Franks use the Orthodox church as their means to convert the Germanic tribes and Northern Gaul.
 
Greek Churches in the time of Justinian didn't differed fully from Latin Churches.

The main difference was essentially that the head of the said church was on the imperial court, and that the others were on the royal courts. It's not like the exarchates churches led a ground for Orthodox rites afterwards (even disregarding that we're arguing about "Let's make a pesant revolutionnary being in charge of a country in 1400, and let's assume that it makes the country turning communist 600 years after" scale of PoD-consequence).

Hell, if something, attacking what was probably your main support, religiously speaking, in the region would end with a Byzantine Spania-like multiplied by 10 : frontal opposition, including identitary, and removal of most administrative (including religious) features once taken back.
 

Redhand

Banned
Greek Churches in the time of Justinian didn't differed fully from Latin Churches.

The main difference was essentially that the head of the said church was on the imperial court, and that the others were on the royal courts. It's not like the exarchates churches led a ground for Orthodox rites afterwards (even disregarding that we're arguing about "Let's make a pesant revolutionnary being in charge of a country in 1400, and let's assume that it makes the country turning communist 600 years after" scale of PoD-consequence).

Hell, if something, attacking what was probably your main support, religiously speaking, in the region would end with a Byzantine Spania-like multiplied by 10 : frontal opposition, including identitary, and removal of most administrative (including religious) features once taken back.

While the Byzantine state was an excellent vehicle for Orthodoxy, the fact that it survived in regions where the Byzantines were ousted from and morphed into their own versions and developed their own state apparatus for Orthodoxy. Georgia and the Balkans are prime examples of this, and even Russia can be argued has similarities in planting Orthodoxy in a foreign land and allowing it to grow. France in my view is ripe for this as it has a barbarized populace of many tribal backgrounds in a transient, agrarianizing state that equates religion for politics and power in the short run. The fact that they have the power over Latinized Romano-Gauls means that they can use Orthodoxy for their own means and even gain Byzantine support.

The Papacy being Byzantine would of course help matters.
 
While the Byzantine state was an excellent vehicle for Orthodoxy, the fact that it survived in regions where the Byzantines were ousted from and morphed into their own versions and developed their own state apparatus for Orthodoxy.
I don't really see which facts you're talking about, to be honest.
It never did in regions with predominant Latin Churches, whatever in Spain, Italy (and most probably Africa), and more did with regions that either didn't had a clerical organisation before Byzantine influence, or in regions that were under huge political dominance.

Georgia and the Balkans are prime examples of this, and even Russia can be argued has similarities in planting Orthodoxy in a foreign land and allowing it to grow.
Except that in these case, it answered to a political necessity : Georgian states were often clients of the Empire, and put on a leash including religiously; as for Russia we're more close of a political entity trying to emulate an imperial model to structure itself (sort of mix between mimetism and political program). Eventually, it was the result of geopolitical situations and diplomacy from the Empire whom religion was only a part of it.

We were quite far of a "Let's prozelyte for the kick of it" (Latin Christianity tended to be more dynamic on this regard, would it be only thanks to the absence of real unifying feature where each state ending to do it for its own interests).

France in my view is ripe for this as it has a barbarized populace of many tribal backgrounds in a transient, agrarianizing state that equates religion for politics and power in the short run.
Then your view is awfully outdated. First, "Barbarians" were deeply romanized at this point (and were such since the IIIrd century at least) along Late Imperial lines.
From what we know, Franks (as almost all Barbarian states) followed closely these lines administrativly, fiscally and of course religiously.

I'm not even sure to know what you try to mean by "Latinized Romano-Gauls". There was no such thing if you mean "totally like Latin Romans", and Barbarian cultural referents after their entry on Romania was pretty much the same than the Roman population (at the exception of political culture, based on a kingship rather than citizenship, but even that ended to merge by the VIIth century).

From Constantinople point of view, Francia was probably more looking like, if not an objective ally, at least the representent of Orthodox Christianity (in the "non heterodoxial" meaning, not "Greek Christianity") in Western Europe face to Homean powers. You didn't have real tentatives during the conquests because it would have been an idiotic move, politically-wise.

The only real tentative of intervention I can think of is during Gondovald's tentatives to gain kingship in the regnum, and that's more a by-product of the support of Orthodox/Catholic factions amongst Goths whom the Roman/Austrasian alliance would have favoured. And it wasn't really supported besides "Hey, there's some gold. Good luck!".

The fact that they have the power over Latinized Romano-Gauls means that they can use Orthodoxy for their own means and even gain Byzantine support.
Again, for all that matters, you don't have a real difference between Latin and Greek Churches at this point. At the very best, it was a liturgic difference that most wouldn't have really noticed.

You don't have such before the 800, and you really have to wait the XIth century to have a formal distinction.
In Justinian era, Western and Eastern Christianities were essentialy the same.
 
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Wouldn't a surviving Arian Chruch, being closer to Constantinople than Rome and a later communion between regular Eastern Orthodox Church and the Arians do the trick?

Say Clovis I staying Arian, instead of joining up with the roman rite ... Sources disargee on exactly what he was before (and the primary source is highly biased and rather untrustworthy) and when he converted. But there is religious letters between him and the bishopcy of Reims suggesting that he was some variant of Christian already, even from before earliest estimated conversion, which were prompted by his wife most likely whom grew up a 'proto-Catholic' in a court filled with Arians in Burgundy.
 
Wouldn't a surviving Arian Chruch, being closer to Constantinople than Rome and a later communion between regular Eastern Orthodox Church and the Arians do the trick?
Well first, you didn't have something as an "Arian Church".
It may sounds as a point of detail, but theologically, the non-Orthodox Barbarian peoples were on a distinct ground, called Homean. (The whole "Arian" thing comes form Orthodox sources that used old heresies names to discredit heterodoxial beliefs, as they used "Manicheans" for anything heretical in Classical Middle Ages).

Then, you didn't have a "transnational" Church, but each kingdom forming its own religious entity (whatever Orthodox or Heterodoxial), with the king calling councils, syndods or simply taking care of religious issues himself.
You simply lack the structure to have a communion between these that wouldn't be based on political pressure.

The big problem with Homean Christianity was its growing identitary feature. While it was at first a way to get closer to Rome, especially considering Homeism was more or less issued to Arianism, arguably, in a time where it was dominant in Rome; it ended by being a marker of Barbarian identity to prevent the full merge of Barbarian and Roman populations in Italy and Spain.

It didn't worked well, but it didn't prevented conflicts about it (as with Ermenegild). You might have it appearing earlier (Alaric II tried something about it on his own time, while I doubt it would have worked), but it would be essentially an inner political matter and less interesting from Constantinople (that was very about theological "purity", in the sense that anything not impulsed from the imperial court was to be fought) than an outright conversion to Orthodoxy that was backed by important factions in the West.

You may, if Homeism remain a thing in Romania, have a similar Christianity between Barbarians and Romans on this regard, and call them Orthodox. Not much more than Franks being considered as such in the Vth century in a time where Catholic/Orthodox distinction didn't existed., though.

Say Clovis I staying Arian, instead of joining up with the roman rite
There's no good source about him being Homean, and every source we have point out the contrary (especially the fact he was baptised, when Homean baptism was considered valid by Orthodox and never made again when converted).

I know it's a view you hold strongly, but apart from Ian Wood, nobodies argues that anymore before the overhelming lack of evidence.
 
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