How much the Catar church can be expanded without turning ASB?

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In OTL the Cathars were basically neutralized as a big religious group, to the point that I failed to find any surviving Cathar group on the internet. I was wondering, how big could the Cathars get? Could France, Spain or a independent Aragon become Cathar?
 
That map doesent seem super accurate and the link between Albigensian catharism and heresies in the balkans hasn’t been proven

Though they may not be directly descended, it is the same wider Gnostic-Manichaen religion/mindset at work within the Cathar beliefs and that of the many iterations seen in the Mid East among the Paulicians.
 
1) it's a bit difficult to tell what, precisely, some of the heretical groups actually believed, as the surviving records tend to be from the Church's side, and their attitude was often 'These are heretics. Heretics believe X, Y and Z, therefore these guys believe those things.'. Without distinguishing between which groups believed X, which Y and which Z.
2) a significant heresy in the backyard of Catholicism, when crusades were in fashion? Really hard to see them surviving, let alone expanding.
3) iirc, to be 'perfect', you were supposed to be celibate. Asking your entire group to be celibate is a) a hard ask, as it so goes against humanity instincts and b) it makes it hard to raise the next generation of believers. Look at the Shakers, and other groups that espoused celibacy in the Second Great Awakening in the US - they all died out.
 
1) it's a bit difficult to tell what, precisely, some of the heretical groups actually believed, as the surviving records tend to be from the Church's side, and their attitude was often 'These are heretics. Heretics believe X, Y and Z, therefore these guys believe those things.'. Without distinguishing between which groups believed X, which Y and which Z.
2) a significant heresy in the backyard of Catholicism, when crusades were in fashion? Really hard to see them surviving, let alone expanding.
3) iirc, to be 'perfect', you were supposed to be celibate. Asking your entire group to be celibate is a) a hard ask, as it so goes against humanity instincts and b) it makes it hard to raise the next generation of believers. Look at the Shakers, and other groups that espoused celibacy in the Second Great Awakening in the US - they all died out.

Couldn't their southern holdings in occitania survival in some way?
 
Sandwiched between orthodox Gaul, Spain and Italy? When you can 'win salvation' by joining a Crusade next door instead of having to go all the way to the Holy Land? No, I don't see that as at all likely.

And a Cathar revival later? Could it happen? Maybe during the protestant reformation on a scenario that the situation in France get's out of control
 
1) it's a bit difficult to tell what, precisely, some of the heretical groups actually believed, as the surviving records tend to be from the Church's side, and their attitude was often 'These are heretics. Heretics believe X, Y and Z, therefore these guys believe those things.'. Without distinguishing between which groups believed X, which Y and which Z.
2) a significant heresy in the backyard of Catholicism, when crusades were in fashion? Really hard to see them surviving, let alone expanding.
3) iirc, to be 'perfect', you were supposed to be celibate. Asking your entire group to be celibate is a) a hard ask, as it so goes against humanity instincts and b) it makes it hard to raise the next generation of believers. Look at the Shakers, and other groups that espoused celibacy in the Second Great Awakening in the US - they all died out.

I would disagree with this assessment, we receive much of our information regarding the Cathars directly from the practitioners and what they believed, just borne through the the medium of the Church, which documented the issues at hand. Take for instance, the Parmiers register, which is compiled of a long set of accounts and discussions with Cathars and people from the region of the Foix. I suggest everyone to review this set of accounts, they are quite intriguing and insightful for the student of history. The accounts do not read like something that is manufactured by the Church or the secular monarch, one may seek out the depictions given by the lawyers of Paris against the Templars to find evidence of a truly artificial set of evidences and accounts. Meanwhile, the Parmiers register depict a much more realistic day-to-day belief system of the peasantry of the Foix and consequently at least a fair percentage of whom were Cathars.
 
This is a fascinating topic. I would say the answer depends on what you mean by "survive" and "without being ASB". With regard to survive, I would say it is plausible that a secretive version of Catharism could possibly survive until the present day, although I think it is unlikely. The last known Cathar Prefect was burned at the stake in 1321 and this is traditionally considered the end of Catharism. If a few more had managed to stay hidden in remote areas of Langedoc, or the Pyrenees perhaps you could see them surviving until more tolerant times. The Waldensians provide a potential example. Specifically, the Waldensians emerge around the same time and claim to have survived until the protestant reformation at which point they align with the reformed church. However, to my mind this also highlights the implausibility of Cathars pulling off a similar feat. Specifically, the Cathars were radically different from other forms of Christianity. The Waldensians were able to align with the reformation, and argued that they prefigured it. The Cathars could not argue that they prefigured the reformation in any way. Therefore, they would likely have to "hide" for another 3-4 centuries. That seems highly unlikely but at least possible. It also raises the question of significance. If a few isolated villages quietly maintain the tradition is this really "surviving". If they are more open the Inquisition gets them.
The Inquisition gets to the issue of "without being ASB". For example, imagine that in 1201 Pope Innocent III gets killed be a runway beer cart and never issues the Bull calling for the crusade in 1204 and then a series of weak popes come to power such that there is never an inquisition perhaps the Cathars survive. However, this would result in such a dramatically different world that our world would be unrecognizable. This is not technically ASB but I think such a large POD would mean that Cathars would not survive until today because "today" would not exist in any meaningful form.
Overall I would suggest that the probability of the Cathars surviving until today is exceptionally improbable. They were too different and there were too many very powerful forces against them.
 
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