WI: Bishop of Rome never acknowledged as Pope?

Actually I can think of a couple of earlier examples: Clement I (c. 89-99) wrote to the Church at Corinth rebuking them for deposing some priests (though I don't think he imposed any penalties on them), and Victor I threatened to excommunicate the Church in Asia about a century later during the Quartodeciman controversy.
I've heard of those two incidents as well, though I will say this. In the former instance, I don't think we know if Clement wasn't just the secretary for the elders at Rome, as I think he didn't refer to himself as bishop. The church at Corinth had thrown out its elders; the concept of the preisthood hadn't really developed yet. For the latter, Irenaeus clearly didn't think Victor's opinion held some kind of special authority, he sent a response pretty much telling him "Seriously, calm down dude."
 
Undermining the Bishopric of Rome would require more independent bishoprics in Africa (Carthage), Iberia (Toledo) and Gaul (possibly Rheims or Tours). Britain was both remote and not heavily Christian so they could have been governed from Gaul for at least a while. Of course, two of those would have fallen under Islamic rule, which would pit Rome vs. a Gaulish or Frankish counterpart in a mirror to the Avignon Papacy. Perhaps you could then create a shift in the British and Irish churches, particularly if you move in regards to the Normans and Hundred Years War (which is having a mix of butterflies and rails but what can you say?). Armagh in Ireland or Iona in Scotland are also clear possibilities, though perhaps not necessarily Catholic but a more independent strain of Celtic?
 
During the reign of Feodor I Tsardom of Moscow simply bought its own Patriarchy from Patriarch of Constantinople and when later Peter I decided that having a single head of his local church is not always convenient, he simply abolished Patriarchate and replaced it with a state-controlled Synod (pretty much "Reformation Russian style" ;)).
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
 
What you need is just thwart the Gregorian Reform. Keep Pornocracy, and make sure that apart for prestige and some pilgrim income, the Bishop of Rome is viewed and treated as just the chaplain of Count of Tusculum. Ensure that if and when the Popes do attempt Gregorian Reform in 11th century, the Kings of Castile, France and England agree with their prelates to tell the Pope to bugger off back over the mountains.
How to accomplish that?
 
Rome was not central after fall of Roman Empire. How about Europe that has no central religious authority - regionally prominent archbishops like Archbishop of Toledo for Visigothic kingdom, Archbishop of Milan for Lombard Kingdom, Archbishop of Rheims for Frankish kingdom, Archbishop of Canterbury for Britain and Archbishop of Armagh for Ireland effectively act as independent peers, and Pope´s prestige only makes him first among equals, but gives him no ability to interfere in the provinces of other primates?
Who covered Germany?
 
I've heard of those two incidents as well, though I will say this. In the former instance, I don't think we know if Clement wasn't just the secretary for the elders at Rome, as I think he didn't refer to himself as bishop. The church at Corinth had thrown out its elders; the concept of the preisthood hadn't really developed yet. For the latter, Irenaeus clearly didn't think Victor's opinion held some kind of special authority, he sent a response pretty much telling him "Seriously, calm down dude."

I know there are some who think that Rome didn't have a bishop until some time in the second century, but this has always seemed implausible to me. Aside from being an argumentum ex silentio, it's directly contradicted by, e.g., Irenaeus of Lyons, who gives a list of Roman bishops going back to Peter. As for the Quartodeciman affair, Irenaeus certainly thought that Victor was being unreasonable, but as far as I'm aware neither he nor any of the Asian bishops said "Pffft, excommunication? You're just another bishop, you don't have the authority to excommunicate your fellow bishops!", which would be the obvious reaction if they didn't think that Victor's opinion held any particular weight.
 
Wouldn't the creation of new patriarchates in the west be a good way the combat the Arian heresy there. Or the other way round, make the conversion of e.g. the Visigothic kings from Arianism to Catholicism dependent that they get their own patriarch in Toledo. And once the Visigoths have their patriarchate for Iberia it'll he hard to deny the Franks theirs. And when the controversy whether to follow the Irish or the continental rite arises in England you might get one for Britain. And once the Frankish Empire splits along the linguistic lines eastern Frankia might demand to get their seperate patriarch as well.
 
How about, Pope promptly and decisively loses Investiture Conflict? Enough princes stay loyal to Emperor, he comes to Canossa with an army, the Pope is arrested, dragged to Germany for a show trial before a council of German prelates for predetermined sentence of deposition and imprisonment in a German monastery. And the kings of France and England will not protest a puppet pope of German emperor, but neither will they obey the German chaplain - they simply exercise their established and freshly affirmed right of lay investiture of archbishops of Rheims and Canterbury respectively.
What next?
 
How about, Pope promptly and decisively loses Investiture Conflict? Enough princes stay loyal to Emperor, he comes to Canossa with an army, the Pope is arrested, dragged to Germany for a show trial before a council of German prelates for predetermined sentence of deposition and imprisonment in a German monastery. And the kings of France and England will not protest a puppet pope of German emperor, but neither will they obey the German chaplain - they simply exercise their established and freshly affirmed right of lay investiture of archbishops of Rheims and Canterbury respectively.
What next?

Probably a continuation of the status quo ante -- the Pope is still recognised as the head bishop, but his practical influence outside of Latium is extremely limited.
 
Somewhere which has, or could develop a claim to, sufficient relics or association with saints etc to be made a patriarchate by late Western Roman Empire times.

In England/Ireland perhaps? I mean, according to a bunch of saints' hagiographies, Irishmen were the evangelizers of Germany (Livinus in Belgium/Netherlands, Killian in Franconia, Coloman in Hungary/Austria) IIRC. While England/Ireland never fell under Islamic rule, it was also where Emperor Constantine was proclaimed Augustus (at York), he campaigned against the Picts etc etc. So, maybe? No?
 
You might be able to get a patriarch (or a sui juris archbishop/primate that cam become one) in northern france or southern Britain simply because of the distance from rome and size of territory.

I mean compared to the jurisdictions of the other patriarchs (at the time of their designation as such), the bishop of rome is in charge of a massive area. Even if the church isn't that big there yet, they had to assume that the west would become more and more christianized going forward.
 
This is more of an AHC. The effects of the Roman bishopric not being that important are unpredictable.

The problem here is that at the time of the Council of Nicaea, the eastern half of the Roman empire was much more Christianized than the western half. Nearly all of the participating clergy came from the eastern half. The city of Rome itself was just important enough, and the western half just important enough, to get one of the five patriarchs but not Christianized enough for two.

So to keep the Patriarch of the West from being the Bishop of Rome, you really need to screw with the time line in ways that would produce massive butterflies:

1. You could have Christianity make so little progress in the west that there is no western patriarch, but now you have changed the history of early Christianity and you probably have gotten rid of either Constantine's conversion or his conquest of the Roman Empire. This also gets rid of the Council of Nicaea itself.

2. You can make the Western half much more Christian, but again this changes the early Christianity, and there is still the problem that the second western patriarch is much more likely to be in the areas taken over by Islam (North Africa or Spain) than in Gaul.

3. Most feasible is to have one western patriarch, but the location is a different city, most likely Milan. In this case history unfolds as IOTL, just with the Pope based in Milan and not Rome.

Now #3 is a realistic POD and while you still get one Pope in the Western Church, the history of the Papacy starts to diverge from the OTL history of the Papacy for several reasons. First, Rome after much of its sanitation infrastructure was destroyed in the sixth century, was malarial and you had lots of Popes dying at inopportune times that wouldn't happen if the Papacy was in Milan, or trying to leave Rome which again wouldn't happen. Second, the Byzantines were actually pretty successful in controlling the Popes in the sixth and seventh centuries and for geographical reasons it would have been harder to project power to Milan. Third, a completely different local aristocracy. So butterflies would accumulate but you still get one line of Popes in the Western Church, just different individual Popes.

This is the best answer; many of the others are more concerned with post-Classical answers, which don't really yield major Christian centers unless they constantly roll sixes in trying to become one of the Major Seats. For example, while Toledo was a relevant center in the V-VII Centuries, it never even came close to making the cut; and Lyon was a much more possible seat for Gaul, with the right kind of ancient roots and a solid scholar/worship presence that could, via POD, be morphed into a leading role for the West. Carthage was the other obvious contestant. Jerusalem as a seat was not as relevant either, and it was way too far from the Imperial center to be supported - it wanted a central seat to pressure, but one it could feasibly influence.

OP, the Papacy is not overly relevant to Nicaea - unless you make Alexandria the new main seat. My best guess is that if no primus inter pares emerges early, that role is successfully claimed by Constantinople with major government support (as they did in the 4th Century, just without any strong opponent) and it may well evolve in a caesaropapist approach with Autocephaly actually becoming the invention of Western and not Eastern polities.
 
Some ideas stemming from the discussion:

1. The primus inter pares among the five patriarchs winds up being Alexandria, Constantinople, or, much less likely, Jerusalem. Alexandria is the most likely contestant but it means Alexandria winning the fifth century doctrinal wars and that has significant butterflies. Constantinople would produce some butterflies because the Eastern Empire would have to be more powerful and more involved in Church affairs, when IOTL it was probably as powerful and involved in Church affairs as it reasonably could have gotten.

Also, its hard to keep Jerusalem in Christian and Roman control, against the Persians as well as the Arab Caliphate. Alexandria is more doable, especially since if it wins the 5th century doctrinal controversies Egypt would be a center of the empire and the Egyptians more supportive of the empire (who lost the province to the Persians as well as the Arabs) but again you get massive butterflies.

Then you have to have the dominant patriarch in Alexandria or Constantinople create a second patriarch in the West and to somehow avoid the church in the West from just splitting off. IOTL Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, which was on the upswing in the 10th and early 11th centuries, getting more powerful was a major reason why the Western church separated from what became the Orthodox church.

2. Constantine or one of his successors decides, or is convinced by his advisors, that the organization of the Church should mirror the administrative organization of the late Roman Empire more than it did IOTL, and that each Praetorian Prefecture should get its own senior Patriarch. This is a more promising approach than the first option.

The late Empire was divided into four prefigures, from west to east Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and the Orient. Of these, Illyricum was the smallest and least important and seems to have been created last. It happened to be the main recruiting ground of the Roman Army. The Orient encompassed most of the Eastern Empire and contained four of the five senior patriarchies, and had by far the highest population of Christians in absolute and percentage terms. Originally the Eastern Empire was co-extensive just with the Orient, but when Theodosius re-divided the empire among his sons, the elder son, Arcadius, got Illyricum as well and that may be when a separate prefecture was created for the area (most of the Balkans). The efforts of the Western Empire to get it back complicated the imperial response to the Goths.

In addition, the two official capitals of Rome and Constantinople (the Western Emperors were usually resident at Milan or later Ravenna) retained their own Prefectures.

In this timeline, the Emperor intervenes and arranges for each of the Orient, Italy, and Gaul to get its own Patriarch. Illyricum is not created yet and had a minor patriarch anyway at Salonika. Rome and Constantinople still get their own patriarchs. ITTL, the Patriarch of Jerusalem is not created and Antioch is either relegated to minor status or given jurisdiction of Syria, Mespotamia, Armenia, and Christians in the Persian Empire exclusively as a sixth Patriarch and is removed from ecclesiastical politics within the Roman Empire.

So in addition to Rome and Constantinople, plus maybe Antioch as described above, Alexandria makes the cut as the Patriarch of the Orient (you could also make the schism with the Copts worse and have Antioch be the Patriarch of the Orient). Patriarchates are created for Italy and Gaul, most likely at Milan and Lyons. Now you have there Patriarchs in the West, at Rome, Milan, and Lyons, and three in the East, at Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, perfectly balanced. This is due to an imperial intervention, for administrative convenience, so the distributions of Christians at the time doesn't matter.

If the Caliphate arises on cue and takes over the same territories, well now there are three Western Patriarchs and Constantinople is the only Patriarchate in eastern territory and is much more important. And the Ottos and their successors may opt to favor Milan as the senior Western Patriarch instead of Rome. The Kings of France will try to boost the status of Lyons.
 
As a side note, Milan seems to have been destroyed during the 6th century Gothic wars. There is almost nothing remaining of late Roman Milan, despite the place being the imperial capitol for a long time. ITTL with a senior Patriarch at Milan, either the Patriarch relocates to Ravenna or much of the devastation doesn't happen.
 
I don't think a Constantinople victory means an Empire more involved with Church politics - OTL Empire already went as deep as necessary, going as far as to create new Christologies - monothelism and monoenergism - to serve their political needs. Now, an Alexandrian Papacy may prove an interesting challenge, especially if the Greek world stays strong in rejecting Monophysitism.

I think that if the Empire survives under a no Papacy scenario, Milan may well overtake Rome as the Patriarchy of Italy; there just is not enough space for two of them, and a stronger Byzantine Empire means a marginalized Rome while a successor state is more likely to boost Rome tor Prestige reasons instead.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Well unless you really want to go off the rails with an ATL, the bishop of Rome is going to be an important figure in the church, its just a matter in what way.

Part of the reason he became so important us because he really didn't have any peers in the west. Fix that and it should reduce the power the pope accumulated
Yeah this. There were no other bishops of note. Elevate a few more and the dynamics would be very different
 
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