Challenge/WI: Orthodox Iberia

With as late a POD as possible, make the Iberian peninsula an Orthodox Christian region, with the Pyrenees as the frontier between Roman Catholic France and Orthodox Spain.
 
Could you define orthodox? It's a word with many meanings for the medieval period (where such change is most likely, or less unlikely to happen).
It was used for Latin rites up to quite late (and therefore Iberia was Orthodox) by exemple.

I suppose you meant by that, having Iberia using Greek rites? Gonna be hard. I can see Greek rites having a better hold on "Spania" (the part of Iberian peninsula taken by Byzantines) and trying to impose Greek Christianity.

OTL they didn't tried that because the population was mainly Latin and already boiled up by Arian Goths. Imposing new rites would have possibly led to a greater reject.

But, let's assume they are sucessful at least putting a clergy along their views. You need Byzantines doing better and Goths doing worse (maybe no conversion of their kings) to allow a Byzantine maintained presence in southern Spain.

Of course, preventing Islamic takeover of Africa would be necessary, at short term.

Eventually, you may end with a southern Spain being half-"mozarab", half-greek rites, something that *could* widespread more in the peninsula but wouldn't be Orthodox by far. Latin Christianisty with Hispanic/Greek rites, more likely.
 
Would it turn out like in Russia, where there liturgy was more like the original until the Czar decided to update it for future goes at claiming dominion over Greeks? What ties would the Iberians have with the various Orthodox?
 
Would it turn out like in Russia, where there liturgy was more like the original until the Czar decided to update it for future goes at claiming dominion over Greeks?
I don't really understand that : do you mean an Christian spanish king suddenly decides to turn Orthodox by claiming domination on Greeks? That seems unlikely.

What ties would the Iberians have with the various Orthodox?
Assuming we're talking about a period where Orthodox is defining Greek rites as irremediably different of Latin's (so not before the XII century), they were limited. Mostly trade, while religious ones were virtually non-existent.
 
Make the Late Visigoths (say ... ~550) convert from Arianism to the Othodoxy claiming the patriach in Constatinople their religious leader, instead of the Pope in Rome due to some PoD'ish disargeements with him (might merely be the fact that the Pope is to close for comfort while the Pathriach is nice and far away and might not demand more than lip service)
 
Make the Late Visigoths (say ... ~550) convert from Arianism to the Othodoxy claiming the patriach in Constatinople their religious leader, instead of the Pope in Rome due to some PoD'ish disargeements with him (might merely be the fact that the Pope is to close for comfort while the Pathriach is nice and far away and might not demand more than lip service)

Well, of course, there wasnt a real split between Rome and Constantinople yet, but, yes, the Iberians could deny the direct rule of the Pope. Later, that could end with them being labelled Orthodox.

Edit: since St James the Greater (ie Santiago) is reputed to be buried at at Santiago de Compostela, Iberia could even have its own Patriarchate. If Constantinople and arrange for Andrew to have been buried there, the Iberians can do the same for St James. All you need is for someone sufficiently holy to have a vision of where the grave is, a couple of centuries early....
 
Last edited:

katchen

Banned
The Caliphate would obviously prefer that the Iberian Christians who were their dhimmi affiliate with a Christian Patriarchate such as Antioch (Syrian Orthodox) that was also dhimmi. Which was exactly the point, I suspect, of Iberian Christians keeping up the faith with Rome--as an act of defiance against Muslim overlords. For Constantinople to have worked, the Eastern Roman Empire would have needed to have a resurgence in the Western Mediterranean and conquer places like Catalonia and Valencia. Then we might see at least a Catalonian Orthodox (and possibly Basque Navarre) Church. But the 800s-1000s was when the Byzantines were fairly weak.
 
Well, of course, there wasnt a real split between Rome and Constantinople yet, but, yes, the Iberians could deny the direct rule of the Pope. Later, that could end with them being labelled Orthodox.

Obviously ... the differences between the Rome and Constantinople at this point was barely noticable (but it did exist, at least to a certain degree) ... but Visigoths prefering to sort under Constantinople (and Rome is in no way strong enough to manhandle them) for political reasons is certainly on the road towards being acknowledged in hindsight as Orthodox, and from the Visigoths there is a 'more-or-less' direct line through visigoth refugee nobles setting up shop in Asturias, to Leon/Castille and onwards

Some way to more successfully roll Arianism into the acknowledged subset of Orthodox denominations might go some way as well, having it seen as less of a heretic gnostic version, and more of a regional variant on line with the Oriental Church, with its own Patriarch sitting ... somewhere, not quite sure where a logical center for them to sit would be.
 
1) Arianism is a no-go. The only reason it lasted so long was gothic rulers needed it to prevent the fusion of roman and german elites (fusion often made at the benefit of roman cultural set, including orthodoxy)? While germans converting to orthodoxy was common, the reverse was are as hell.

Putting it simply, with a population overhelmingly orthodox (with important roman elite supporting it, critically in urban settings), there was no way Arianism could eventually survive much longer, without talking about the possibility of arian conversion.

2) There's a confusion between Latin Christianism and Roman rites. Rites are the particular regional form of Latin Christianism (as Ambrosian rite in Northern Italy, Lugdunese rite in Lyon, and so-called Celtic rites, actually quite different from each others). The changes were about Liturgy and how mass and sacraments were made at best. While it could be significant enough to be noticed, they were totally compatible and recognized by Rome.

In no way it was a mark of different Christianism. Period.

3) Orthodoxy as we understand it, aka organised Greek Christianism opposed from Rome didn't existed before the XII century. Admittedly before that, Greek Christianism was already quite distinct but was already firmly controlled by Constantinople.

Its expansion was made along diplomatic and Byzantine interest line. There was no reason to try to impose greek rites to Iberian population, except for making a big "fuck you" to Rome (something unwise, considering Byzantium often asked for Roman support before the XII century) and ignoring the refusal of population (if they refused Arianism, they weren't really keen about being imposed Greek rites, something that would have meen imposing non-Iberian clergy eventually)
 
Top