Moving Papacy

The basis for the christian focus point in Rome bases off the fact that Rome simply was the most important city in the world at that time ... so ... how to get the Christian focus to move to the city which at whichever point in time were the most important city in THE major nation in the christian world (say moving to Constatinoble in the Dark ages and later to Paris and London ... would probably later on after the tradition is established be cause for some issues between empires)

Is this even possible?
 
The claim to primacy of the Bishops of Rome as Popes is based not only on Rome being the "most important city at the time" (that's dubious anyway - when these claims emerged, Constantinople was arguably already more important), but on its past role as the (former) capital of the Empire and on the succession of St. Peter, who, according to the Catholic faith, was designated by Christ to be the leader of the Church. So a Papacy more or less as we know it, would still claim the title of "Bishop of Rome", even if it was based elsewhere (as it did when it was based in Avignon IOTL). A scenario I could see would be the Saracenes capturing Rome during the 8th century and the Pope fleeing, probably not to Constantinople (where he would be just an exile playing second fiddle to the Patriarch), but somewhere North, perhaps to the Frankish kingdom as the most powerful Christian power in the West. Then, a tradition maight arise that the seat of the Pope is at the court of the pre-eminent monarch of the West, even if Rome would be re-conquered later and even though the Popes would never relinquish the claim to the Bishopric of Rome. But that would make for a very different Papacy, that would be much more dependent on the pre-eminent wordly ruler.
Another scenario would be the Byzantine emperors trying to keep the papacy under control by having the Bishop of Rome reside in Constantinople. But for that to work, they'd need to stay in control of Rome for a much longer time than they did IOTL, and, to me, that also doesn't look like an idea that would have meade sense at the time.
 
Last edited:
As Wannis said, the claim for roman papacy is certainly not the demographical importance of the city, but the apostolic foundation of the roman church, affirmed and acknowledged since the roman synod about the Council of 381 in Constantinople : while Constantinople bishop claimed the first rank after Rome before Alexandria and Antioch, the bishop of Rome claimed (and received) the acknowledgment of his primacy due to Rome "being the first bishopric seat of Peter the apostle" and to powers given by him.

Now, it was the first mention of such, and not widely accepted on its time. If you manage to butterfly the pretension of Constantinople to rule over eastern Christianity, you may delay the roman pretension long enough to weaken it.
One of the big issues is that the apostolic foundation of a church was a powerful tool in the ecclesiastical power.

Others churches than patriarchates have claimed being founded by apostles, but they were too small in this period to have a real voice. You would certainly have to boost churches of North Italy (as Milan or Aquilea) and to weaken Roman church (probably more persecution on it) to weaken roman pretensions.

Of course, it wouldn't make the papacy moving, and could actually quite crush papacy concept if over-done, but it would give slightly less obstacle to pope moving.

Another big problem is that bishops are supposed to live within their churches. While the rule was quite ignored in later times, it was still really important then and the bishop of Rome can't do that without a real reason (destruction of Roman church entirely, something quite hard to achieve after first wave of Christianization).
Even a conquest by Lombards seems unlikely to chase pope off (and Saracenic conquest proposed by Wannis is definitly ASB without a PoD that could butterfly as well North African conquests. When they took Rome OTL, it wasn't enough to chase the pope from Rome anyway).
What you need is a general crisis of the western Church (Great Schism, French takeover of papacy, etc.), and when the crisis is over...Well, they simply turned back to the city.

A successful Byzantine takeover of the papacy, forcing the pope in exile to Constantinople (as it happened OTL) and forcing the successors to do the same is really implausible, would it be only for the rivality between Constantinople patriarch and the pope that would make the papal exile not really worthwhile.

What you ask is quite hard to do actually : crushing the legitimacy of roman maintain, the apostolic foundation, is as well crushing papacy. And once you have it, the pope began to be quite inamovible.

And remember, "Dark Ages", outside Britain of VII/VIII centuries is meaningless. It's for naming a period where, not having contemporary written sources, it's historically "dark".
Others uses of the word vanished away in the same time Charleston ceased to be trendy.
 
In addition to the apostolic foundation, the Bishop of Rome's primacy was also based on Rome having the graves of both Peter and Paul. Removing away from Rome means they lose this plank to their claim.
 
The graves did little for Rome's primacy. What mattered was the foundation of the church rather than them : while the tradition over St. Peter's grave under the basilica (admitting it's genuine) strengthened the claim, it didn't created it and it was actually posterior.

Even, even removing the graves wouldn't really matter eventually : the relics would be translated to Rome even if they were disposed elsewhere.
 
I didn't know that something like that actually happened - when was that?

From memory, it happened to Pope Vigil that was forced by Justinian to reside in Constantinople and to Martin I due to his opposition against monothelism. I think it happened maybe to another one, but I'm not sure about it.
Usually, political and/or religious pressure were enough for the emperors : you'll notice that both are linked with reappearance and vanishment of byzantine authority in the Latium, the first possibly tied to a strengthening of authority after the conquest while the other a tentative to maintain it (after Martin I, popes gained more power at the point to be exempt of taxes and minting their own coins, while keeping byzantine standard)
 
Not exactly : when they controlled it really, they didn't need to use this as they had other, more direct ways. They used this when their power on Rome was more unstable, or not affirmed enough, that they had to make the pope come to Constantinople in order to effectively control it.
It's really telling that it happened in the latter period of Gothic Wars for Vigil, during the Arab Conquests for Martin I (By the way, he wasn't much on exile on Constantinople, than in Cheronesos and stripped out its papal title)
 
Top