WI: No Protestantism

What if, instead of Protestantism, Catholicism fragments with most Catholic nations installing an AntiPope between the 1520s and 1630s.

These AntiPopes are subservient to the nation that brought them to power and major internal reforms within the church are instituted by them. These various national churches would each follow a general philosophical tradition of their country. For example, I could see Lollardy having a massive influence on the British Catholic Church.

This thread is sort of a sequel of ideas from this thread, so bonus points to any ideas or timelines that factor in the idea of this move emerging in the from a German Revolution in the 1520s.

The idea is based off of the Medieval practice of declaring AntiPopes and the modern day Polish Catholic Church, which is separate from the Roman Catholic one.
 
Isn't that all Protestantism started out as? Anti-Pope Catholicism? After all, it's not like early Protestants had much of a framework outside of Catholicism.

Sorry if I'm wrong here.
 
Isn't that all Protestantism started out as? Anti-Pope Catholicism? After all, it's not like early Protestants had much of a framework outside of Catholicism.

Sorry if I'm wrong here.

I'm pretty sure that Protestantism was pretty anti-clerical to begin with. Protestantism was around before it was the religion of a major country and generally had a more bottom-up organization with less of a hierarchical structure. They were seen as very politically radical for a while in Europe.

There are examples of Protestant sects that borrowed a lot of their structure from Catholicism. The Church of England, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury comes to mind. That happened in the 1530s, which was only about 20 years after Martin Luther first took a stand against the church.

None ever explicitly claimed to be AntiPopes and so never directly challenged the Pope within the framework of being the true version of the same religious sect.
 
I'm pretty sure that Protestantism was pretty anti-clerical to begin with. Protestantism was around before it was the religion of a major country and generally had a more bottom-up organization with less of a hierarchical structure. They were seen as very politically radical for a while in Europe.

There are examples of Protestant sects that borrowed a lot of their structure from Catholicism. The Church of England, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury comes to mind. That happened in the 1530s, which was only about 20 years after Martin Luther first took a stand against the church.

None ever explicitly claimed to be AntiPopes and so never directly challenged the Pope within the framework of being the true version of the same religious sect.

Ah, okay. Thank you. I was thinking of the Church of England, as I knew they took a lot from Catholicism but were essentially one of the first organized Protestant sects.
 
Ah, okay. Thank you. I was thinking of the Church of England, as I knew they took a lot from Catholicism but were essentially one of the first organized Protestant sects.

The Church of England was quite a unique case, because Henry VIII split from Rome pretty much entirely due to practical reasons (England needed an heir) rather than for doctrinal reasons. Meanwhile Cranmer was already leaning Protestant, and tried to drag the Church as far as possible in that direction without annoying the King. Early Anglican ecclesiology and theology was a bit of a tug-of-war, with different factions getting the upper hand depending on the religious leanings of the current monarch.
 
What if, instead of Protestantism, Catholicism fragments with most Catholic nations installing an AntiPope between the 1520s and 1630s.

These AntiPopes are subservient to the nation that brought them to power and major internal reforms within the church are instituted by them. These various national churches would each follow a general philosophical tradition of their country. For example, I could see Lollardy having a massive influence on the British Catholic Church.

This thread is sort of a sequel of ideas from this thread, so bonus points to any ideas or timelines that factor in the idea of this move emerging in the from a German Revolution in the 1520s.

The idea is based off of the Medieval practice of declaring AntiPopes and the modern day Polish Catholic Church, which is separate from the Roman Catholic one.

Having a national Pope (which is what they'd call themselves, even if everyone else said they were just an Antipope) would kind of defeat the purpose of having a Pope in the first place, which is to lead the Church as a whole.

If you want to have a less Protestant Reformation, a better way IMHO would be to have a sort of "Western Orthodoxy" instead: a series of national Churches which share a lot of doctrines with the Catholic Church (and reject common Protestant ideas like sola scriptura, the priesthood of all believers, etc.) but don't recognise the authority of the Pope.
 

Zagan

Donor
Having a national Pope (which is what they'd call themselves, even if everyone else said they were just an Antipope) would kind of defeat the purpose of having a Pope in the first place, which is to lead the Church as a whole.

If you want to have a less Protestant Reformation, a better way IMHO would be to have a sort of "Western Orthodoxy" instead: a series of national Churches which share a lot of doctrines with the Catholic Church (and reject common Protestant ideas like sola scriptura, the priesthood of all believers, etc.) but don't recognise the authority of the Pope.
You can read something similar here.
 
There can be only one pope, if more than one person claim to be the pope he must consider that the other claimants are anti-popes. What is possible is that different regions get patriarchs that are almost fully independent in administrative tasks and everyday practices, which probably is enough to appease most of the rulers. But they need to be in full communion with the doctrine and tradition of Rome. You can even make the pope less powerfull giving to ecumenic councils the ultimate power about dogmatic questions, but if the church is not universal it is not catholic.
 
There can be only one pope, if more than one person claim to be the pope he must consider that the other claimants are anti-popes. What is possible is that different regions get patriarchs that are almost fully independent in administrative tasks and everyday practices, which probably is enough to appease most of the rulers. But they need to be in full communion with the doctrine and tradition of Rome. You can even make the pope less powerfull giving to ecumenic councils the ultimate power about dogmatic questions, but if the church is not universal it is not catholic.

I suppose you could theoretically have a situation where every (major) country has its own Antipope, each claiming that he's the one true Pope and all the rest are just pretenders, but this seems pretty unlikely and unstable (since having so many claimants to the Papacy would be a sign that something had gone very wrong, there'd be huge pressure to find a way to solve it and find one Papal candidate whom everybody can agree on).
 
Protestanism was the religion of the people and, while having those who preached, did not require a priest to whom one must confess one's sins in order to get forgiven by God (I guess you can say they cut out the middle mad); and initially, revolted against the miraculous icons and saints from which Catholicism made a lot of money from and ended up being prayed to in and of themselves, rather than God being the sole petitionee. (i.e., one prayed to a particular saint for a safe delivery in childbirth). Being able to read the Bible in the vernacular made people aware of just how far away from the scripture the Catholic church was at that time. (Adding priests for confession, saints, icons.) It was a natural result of intellectual evolution of the people. Not sure it could be butterflied away under a different Catholicism; some of Catholic dogma (priests & confession) was what they were 'protesting' against, the priesthood of the believer put lie to the very idea of a Pope - whatever he was called.
 
What if, instead of Protestantism, Catholicism fragments with most Catholic nations installing an AntiPope between the 1520s and 1630s.

These AntiPopes are subservient to the nation that brought them to power and major internal reforms within the church are instituted by them. These various national churches would each follow a general philosophical tradition of their country. For example, I could see Lollardy having a massive influence on the British Catholic Church.

Because then, you'd have Orthodox Christianity which has the autocephaly system, mostly working the way you would want to; each Archbishop is the sole head of his own nation's hierarchy, the main difference to your implied system being that in autocephaly, you have to keep full communion which can be hard to justify with strong local theologies.
Also, the whole point of being 'catholic' is to be universal - and it probably was, for example, one of the main reasons most of the then-world conquest oriented nations stayed in. Always provides a useful way to declare you're holier than others, and Papal diplomacy was an useful outlet back then.
 
Being able to read the Bible in the vernacular made people aware of just how far away from the scripture the Catholic church was at that time. (Adding priests for confession, saints, icons.) It was a natural result of intellectual evolution of the people.

The Reformers held all sort of doctrine which aren't found in Scripture (including, ironically, Sola Scriptura), or at least aren't found any more explicitly than stuff the Catholic Church believes in. Plus, if being able to read the Bible led people to Protestantism, we'd expect to find a correlation between education levels in a region and the success of the reformation, but AFAICT there isn't really one.
 
Having a national Pope (which is what they'd call themselves, even if everyone else said they were just an Antipope) would kind of defeat the purpose of having a Pope in the first place, which is to lead the Church as a whole.

If you want to have a less Protestant Reformation, a better way IMHO would be to have a sort of "Western Orthodoxy" instead: a series of national Churches which share a lot of doctrines with the Catholic Church (and reject common Protestant ideas like sola scriptura, the priesthood of all believers, etc.) but don't recognise the authority of the Pope.

I'm pretty sure that Protestantism was pretty anti-clerical to begin with. Protestantism was around before it was the religion of a major country and generally had a more bottom-up organization with less of a hierarchical structure. They were seen as very politically radical for a while in Europe.

There are examples of Protestant sects that borrowed a lot of their structure from Catholicism. The Church of England, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury comes to mind. That happened in the 1530s, which was only about 20 years after Martin Luther first took a stand against the church.

None ever explicitly claimed to be AntiPopes and so never directly challenged the Pope within the framework of being the true version of the same religious sect.

Well, there is the example of Henry VIII, who was the first in a long line of "national Popes" in the form of the English monarchy. Similarly, the Lutherans and the other "magisterial" protestants tended to have some hierarchy. I think the question of church lands means that even without Luther, a number of monarchs are going to be very curious about some change in doctrine.
 
The Reformers held all sort of doctrine which aren't found in Scripture (including, ironically, Sola Scriptura), or at least aren't found any more explicitly than stuff the Catholic Church believes in. Plus, if being able to read the Bible led people to Protestantism, we'd expect to find a correlation between education levels in a region and the success of the reformation, but AFAICT there isn't really one.

My point wasn't what you're saying, my point was that the Roman Catholic church had added a lot to its dog and pony show that wasn't scriptural. People who were dissatified used the scripture to justify their rebellion. The rebellions against the 'only church' started with educated people. The appeal of the priesthood of the believer became widespread. Of course, differing viewpoints occurred. These are human beings we're talking about. I think it was inevitable as human thought progressed, Protestantism began and spread. Just as the viewpoints on other subjects has changed as human thought has progressed. (Royalty as Divinely Appointed, for one - secular papism, if you will.)
 
Protestanism was the religion of the people and, while having those who preached, did not require a priest to whom one must confess one's sins in order to get forgiven by God (I guess you can say they cut out the middle mad); and initially, revolted against the miraculous icons and saints from which Catholicism made a lot of money from and ended up being prayed to in and of themselves, rather than God being the sole petitionee. (i.e., one prayed to a particular saint for a safe delivery in childbirth). Being able to read the Bible in the vernacular made people aware of just how far away from the scripture the Catholic church was at that time. (Adding priests for confession, saints, icons.) It was a natural result of intellectual evolution of the people. Not sure it could be butterflied away under a different Catholicism; some of Catholic dogma (priests & confession) was what they were 'protesting' against, the priesthood of the believer put lie to the very idea of a Pope - whatever he was called.

What???

First, Protestantism was the religion of the upper crust, wealthy burghers, nobility and monarchs. Reading the bible in the vernacular is irrelevant if one can't read or afford an expensive book.

The veneration of saints was also a popular thing. Contrary to learned theologians, the common people considered heaven to mirror the social structure they lived in. You just didn't appeal to the king or emperor if you had grievances, you went to the local lord or city councillor. Mirroring that, you prayed for the intercession of a saint, not directly to god. Abolishing the veneration of saints, while it had solid theological reasons, was mostly done to grab all those gold and jewel-encrusted shrines and to shut down those channels the pesky commoners had to reach God. It wasn't popular at all.

Neither was the dissolution of the monasteries. Those provided a social safety net for the poor. Slashing that to piss away the loot for parties and palaces was basically what killed the Wirtschaftswunder of the late middle Ages and started the rapid decline of the commoners' rights and powers in the modern Age (I'm talking about actual power, like the public's right to demand that the authorities pardon the convicted at a court Hearing, not entirely theoretical and toothless stuff like 'popular sovereignity').
 
I'm just curious, the popes accrued to themselves quite a bit of political power. Some, during the Reformation called the pope more a king than a priest. Now, if you have a bunch of different antipopes, said gentlemen (maybe women, since in folklore there was a Pope Joan) are going to be claiming that political authority in whichever nation they get set up in. The pope was considered by some to even outrank the emperor (the emperors denied this and it got ugly OTL), and had the power to make or break kings at their will. Which means that (for instance, France) is going to be divided between what the king decides in Paris, and the "pope" decides in Avignon (?). Both are going to be claiming to have power over the other (king trumps pope, since pope is a French subject; pope trumps king since all kings are answerable to God), which is possibly going to lead (IMHO) to an increase in the commonality of there being Henry II-St. Thomas Becket-type conflicts... Basically, you're turning a monarchy into a diarchy since there are now two kings (for all intents and purposes) claiming to be God's anointed. Could get messy...
 
Isn't that all Protestantism started out as? Anti-Pope Catholicism? After all, it's not like early Protestants had much of a framework outside of Catholicism.

Sorry if I'm wrong here.

Really? Luther's doctrinal beliefs were pretty clearly spelt out...
 
Because then, you'd have Orthodox Christianity which has the autocephaly system, mostly working the way you would want to; each Archbishop is the sole head of his own nation's hierarchy, the main difference to your implied system being that in autocephaly, you have to keep full communion which can be hard to justify with strong local theologies.
Also, the whole point of being 'catholic' is to be universal - and it probably was, for example, one of the main reasons most of the then-world conquest oriented nations stayed in. Always provides a useful way to declare you're holier than others, and Papal diplomacy was an useful outlet back then.
The Orthodox consider themselves just as universal as Catholics.
 
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