Months ago I made a thread about what would happen to the pope if a ressurgent byzantine empire took over Rome after the great schism, and most of the people agreed that in this case the Pope would flee north and stabilish another papacy on a city in the north

In this case, where and why would this new papacy be based?
 
What's the next secure and economic important christian Metropolis outside of byzantine hold hands? I guess that will be the new papacy base in the north!
 
It's really hard to think of such exile being maintained for more than one or two generations : Papacy legitimacy was far too tied with its relation with Rome to really survive a permanent exile so far from it. Avignon Papacy was essentially a thing because Avignon was as much a pontifical territory than the Italian cities (as Perugia) popes often resided semi-permanently.

Either Papacy-in-Exile vanishes after a while, with whoever is set in Rome becomes the religious head in the west; either this papacy in exile becomes a peripherical schismatic movement without much relevance.

I think that people greatly exagerate the opposition between Rome and Constantinople, as if both were somehow autistic enough to act as Crusader Kings AI : in the case of a Byzantine reconquest of Rome, it's likely that the emperors would put someone there as a religious head for the West, being far less concerned to curb down Latin church, than making it "compatible" with their own cesaropapism.
Roughly speaking, a return to pre-VIIth situation, except with a much more defined Latin church.

THe real, and growing, difference between Latin and Greek churches never really went to the point they weren't porous enough to reach agreement on the institutional level (popularily, it's another story, but it was much more obvious in Byzantine population than for Latins).
 
The Byzantine Empire would have to have a lot of power to hold against the forces in the north, since there would be constant assault. I would bet that they would found a new Papacy in Paris Or even farther north.
 
If there were to be a Pope in the north, it might be in Mainz; the Archbishop of Mainz was declared was styled "Primas Germaniae", and the see of Mainz was referred to as a "holy see" (like Rome and unlike anywhere else).

There's a few reasons why it wouldn't happen, though: first, the Pope might try to hold onto his title as Bishop of Rome, and an Archbishop of Mainz who was not Pope might not like having the Pope live in his city; and second, whatever Pope does the fleeing might have a bad relationship with the contemporary Emperor
 
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