Surviving Byzantium's reaction to the Protestant Reformation?

[Fabius Maximus]

A schism does not lead to Protestantism, it leads to schism.

Nor does protesting the worldliness of the Church necessarily lead to schism... Plenty of people have done so whilst still remaining Catholics, some even getting canonised as a result (e.g., Catherine of Siena, Francis of Assisi, Antony of Coma).

 

[Fabius Maximus]

If the Byzantine Empire had survived and essentially taken the role of the Ottomans as an eastern Gunpowder Empire, how would they react to a Reformation (similar to the OTL Protestant Reformation) occurring in the Catholic world?

I dunno. What's Greek for "Pass the popcorn"?

 

[Christos]

I dunno. What's Greek for "Pass the popcorn"?

Δωσε μου το ποπκορν

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Δωσε μου το ποπκορν

Χάριν σοὶ ἔχω.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

German Lutheran reformers did try to contact Eastern Orthodox theologians. They were rebuffed.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

German Lutheran reformers did try to contact Eastern Orthodox theologians. They were rebuffed.

Apparently during the English Reformation there was a proposal that the Church of England should try and become, essentially, a Western Orthodox Church in communion with the See of Constantinople, although this ended up coming to nothing.

 

[Towelie]

This is assuming that the Byzantines do not seek reunion with Rome in an effort to stay alive, I would presume.

But the reaction would be something along the lines of official distance kept and unofficial relationships with the least radical of the Protestants (like the Lutherans, for example; keep in mind that Luther was very much troubled by the idea of Greek Christians being outside the communion of Christ according to standard German Catholic teaching of the time, and was one area in which the first cracks started to form in his Catholic outlook, even before his uninspiring trip to Rome).

As for the Anabaptists, Calvinists, and NonTrinitarians, I think the Byzantines would be outright hostile to them. It is not as if the Eastern Church did not have controversies and heresies of its own, after all. Doctrinal issues between west and east were not nearly as bad as liturgical and political issues, after all, and the Catholic line was probably the closest to the Greek Christian line as things stood.