Is it possible to reverse the religion demographics of East Asia and Europe with a Christian East Asia and Pagan Europe and what POD is required for this.
Christian Asia Pagan Europe
- Thread starter kasumigenx
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Max Sinister
Banned
A very early one, I'd say, maybe before Constantine.
Idea: AFAIK there were more Christians in the eastern provinces than elsewhere. So, there's a Christian uprising in the East, the pagans flee to Europe, the emperor decides to cut losses and kicks out the Christians from Europe to the new state. Or they leave deliberately. Since the Roman Empire has the strong fortress of Byzantium (if it isn't yet, it'll become now) and the navy, the Christians have no chance invading Europe, and expand eastwards and southwards instead. Of course, it's hard to believe that noone in one or two millennia ever makes it into Europe... also, Persia should convert willingly, because I don't see the Christians conquer it. Maybe a POD while there's a Parthia?
Idea: AFAIK there were more Christians in the eastern provinces than elsewhere. So, there's a Christian uprising in the East, the pagans flee to Europe, the emperor decides to cut losses and kicks out the Christians from Europe to the new state. Or they leave deliberately. Since the Roman Empire has the strong fortress of Byzantium (if it isn't yet, it'll become now) and the navy, the Christians have no chance invading Europe, and expand eastwards and southwards instead. Of course, it's hard to believe that noone in one or two millennia ever makes it into Europe... also, Persia should convert willingly, because I don't see the Christians conquer it. Maybe a POD while there's a Parthia?
Basically you'd need a recently enlarged and somewhat oppressive Iranian Empire around the turn of the millenium in control of Judea. This could provoke the religious turmoil that started Christianity in OTL, though an eastern empire may not get quite the same response as the Romans did, and would give the religion a more easterly direction to spread within the empire. Religious crusading takes place into central asia and India as with Islam in the OTL. Meanwhile monotheism stays a fairly foreign idea to the west.
In 39-40 BC, the Jewish leaders invited the Parthians to conquer Judea. They won; Herod fled to Rome where he got help to retake Judea. With a massacre of the innocent butterflies, we could have the Parthians hold the province and still maybe have Christianity arise as iOTL.
More likely, perhaps the Zealots try something around Herod's death ~4BC right after Jesus' birth. They end up inviting the Parthians in again, and the Parthians somehow come and survive the Roman reconquest. So, we have the newborn Jesus growing up in a Parthian Judea. I'd say this'd work, if we could manage a Parthian victory. The circumstances would be different - would the Sanhedrin have as much autonomy under the Parthians as under the Romans? - but Christianity could definitely emerge.
A long-reigning Julian the Apostate forces Christianity out of the elite circles of the Roman Empire and the Christians go East en masse?
They might get a better reception among the Persians due to the changed religious situation--when the Roman Empire became Christian, Persian Christians were persecuted.
They might get a better reception among the Persians due to the changed religious situation--when the Roman Empire became Christian, Persian Christians were persecuted.
A while back, I had the idea of Julian forcing tens of thousands of Christians to sail beyond the Western European coast, with a couple thousand of them landing in the New World and founding "New Jerusalem". This doesn't meet the question of the OP, but I think it'd be an interesting way to migrate Christianity out of Europe.
The First half is plausible, the Second Half is not really.
Japan and Korea are large portions Christian, Neostorian Christianity has a chance, etc.
Rome banning the Religion helps, but soon you have Monotheists comming in a conquering with there many advantages.
I don't think Julian would outright force them to do anything, unless maybe they'd rebelled. He was intelligent enough to know that persecution is often counterproductive, creating martyrs rather than obliterating a belief system.
The Romans routinely beat on the Jews and monotheism can have its disadvantages--look at how the ideological disputes within Christianity facilitated the Islamic conquest of Egypt.
But Rome gets beaten to a pulp and Monthiests come from Asia very quickly.
Disputes are very helpful to a region, War and Plague are the things that help push technology forward.
Merry
Not just Egypt. It fractured the entire empire and its successor states.
Steve
Buddhism helps a country become united and helps the indigenous religion instead of destroying it, that is what Buddhism has that Christianity does not have.
1. How does this scenario happen?
2. That depends--Constantinople persecuted the Monophysites and they were all too happy to welcome the Muslims. The Aztecs preyed on the other Indian tribes, who were all too happy to help the Spanish.
The only problem is how would the Christian religion be promoted in Asia, I think parts of India could go Christian actually.