WI: Oriental Orthodox Byzantine Empire?

By the 7th century, the population of Syria, Palestine and Egypt were Oriental Orthodox Christians as opposed to the Chalcedonian-leaning Eastern Roman emperors. This might have been one of the reasons why they were 'lost' to the Chalcedonian Byzantines so easily. In addition, the Byzantines' major allies in the East - Armenia, Axum and the Ghassanids - were all Oriental Orthodox Christians.

With a POD between the Council of Chalcedon and the OTL Arab conquests, how could the Byzantine Empire, including Constantinople and Asia Minor, become majority Oriental Orthodox Christians? If successful, how different would things have been?
 

Red Orm

Banned
One seemingly "simple" (as far as such things go) theological debate, the Iconomachy (Iconoclasts versus Iconodules) was actually a tug of war between East and West, where Syrian or at least Eastern-influenced emperors (such as Leo III) supported the destruction of icons, and emperors who were more tied to the Balkans or Anatolia supported the veneration of icons. The Eastern position was heavily influenced by the success of Islam, and the iconoclasts typically believed that destroying icons (as the Old Testament commands) would lead to God's favor and military success. Of course what the elites believed, and whether they were just exploiting this socio-religious phenomenon in order to oust their enemies from power and reward their supporters and friends, is a different matter.

Long story short, have the iconoclasts win, and you may indeed see even more Eastern practices become part of the official religion based in Constantinople.

Otherwise I can think of preventing Islam's rise at all, or at least having the empire more successful against it, which would lead to Heraclius's compromise of Monothelitism become more popular (being seen as militarily successful, again showing God's favor) which was considered by the hardcore Chalcedonians to basically be an oriental heresy.
 
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