Some Religious Dates

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Here are a few religious dates that might be useful to put into the campaign for EU2:

1439 False "ecumenical council" of Florence. Majority of Orthodox attendees either later recant or flee to Roman Catholic countries. "Union" only lasts in Polish territory and disappears everywhere else, leaving small pockets of Uniates (Roman Catholics who use the Eastern liturgy).

1458 Orthodox Church in Russia becomes autocephalous (no longer looking to Constantinople as her administrative head Hierarch). This is not a religious schism, but it does mean that Constantinople's Hierarchs can no longer count on tithes from Russia.

1589 Moscow's Metropolitan (chief Russian Hierarch) recognized as a Patriarch by other Orthodox Patriarchates.

1595-96 Under pressure from Polish rulers, Orthodox Christians in Ruthenia and Ukraine are forced to embrace Rome as their religious master.

1620 Orthodoxy re-asserts in the Ukraine.

1632 Peter Mogila elected first Patriarch of Ukraine, establishes theological school at Kiev that becomes the second major Orthodox school of theology (Halki near Constantinople is the first) and a center of fine culture.

1686 Ukrainian autocephaly is cancelled and the Church there is made appendant to Moscow.

1698 Uniatism established in Transylvania.

1794 Russian missionaries (Orthodox) first reach Alaska under St. Herman.

 

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1458 Orthodox Church in Russia becomes autocephalous (no longer looking to Constantinople as her administrative head Hierarch). This is not a religious schism, but it does mean that Constantinople's Hierarchs can no longer count on tithes from Russia.

Is this contingent upon the fall of Constantinople to the Turk? If Constantinople had never fallen, it's quite probable the Russian Orthodoxy would never have taken this step.

 

[Derek Pullem]

On a related topic, given that the Avignon Popes had only just been eliminated in 1417, will there be a risk of a catholic schism. Or even better could a powerful RC country declare its own Pope (see Ariel's AAR for a hilarious alternate reality of the Canterbury Popes).

 

[Carolus Rex]

Impressive list Dogface.

 

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Russia's autocephaly is contingent upon the Council of Florence. Within a year of the Constantinopolitan-appointed Orthodox Metropolitan of Moscow returning as a Uniate Cardinal from Florence (1539), he found himself under arrest and facing deposition by the Russian Bishops who had not attended Florence. He was allowed to escape to the west rather than be lynched after losing his Episcopal seat. From that point onward, Constantinople and Moscow were more distant, and candidates from the south didn't appear to reoccupy the vacant seat, if I recall aright. Thus, the Tomos of autocephaly was really only a recognition of a _fait accompli_ of at least a decade before.

Constantinople's fall in all likelihood only hastened what had been started after Florence. Serbia had been autocephalous for some time, and the Russians had come to resent Metropolitans who didn't even know Church Slavonic. The tail would only be able to wag for so long. If Moscow could get Jerusalem's recognition, for example, then Constantinople would ultimately have little choice but to eventually go along. Orthodoxy never had the top-down administrative structure that Rome had imposed in the West.

However, the idea of Moscow being "Third Rome" would require Constantinople to fall.