Did the Roman Empire Not Fall But Survived Unto Medieval Europe into Today Morphing Into Roman Catholic Church?

[LegateLivius]

I had this chat with Caldrail by PM last year. I will quote some things I stated on an internet chat room.

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I mean its pretty strange the most devoutly Catholic places were the strongholds of the WEstern ROman Empire As someone who grew up Catholics the parallels of the Eastern ORthodox regions and Latin Rites regions exactly match the Byzantine territory and Western Roman Empire Its pretty shocking. Also shocking that the places dominated by Islam were traditionally places Rome had difficulty holding Such as the Persian territory and the Outreamer. As well as Tunisia (where Roman Republic traditional enemy Carthage was and is now a Muslim majority culturally Arabic country) Hell Islamic countries are the same places Alexander the great had some of his most difficulty such as modern Afghanistan! Now here is where it starts getting into Norse culture and religion

 

 

I will start with Netherlands All the places that are solidly Catholic today were places ROme traditionally held in Netherlands While the mostly Protestant North was places Rome could never subjugate Literally the shape of the division between Roman territory and Germanic Netherlands matches the divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism And indeed all the places Rome had difficulty in such as Germania Are now Catholic Protestant plurality Hell the places Rome never touched today are mostly Protestant Such as Sweden and Norway England is a strange repeat of this phenomenon England remained with Roman culture and Latin language after Rome fell briefly But would later become Germanic. With Germanic gods I mean the Church of England shows the hybridization of Catholicism and Protestant doctrines I mean the places that had Germanic religion strongest esp Norse specifically Are now Protestant majority While the places that had frequent contact with Rome and would adopt a lot of Roman religions are Ctholic today Does anyone find it eery? I know its not specifically a Norse religion topic but I had to bring it up since the most Protestant places today was where Germanic religion was strongest for the ancient world and later into the first half of the Medieval ages

 

 

If I want to add to it

 

 

Tunisia today is an Islamic country

 

 

It is where Carthage was and guess what........?

 

 

It is the area where illegal aliens into Italy starts!

 

 

Literally Muslims go from Tunisia into Italy by boat!

 

 

The first Punic War was a naval war if that brings up some scary parallels

 

 

In addition Egbyt and north Africa is now Muslim

 

 

Many NOrth African states including Carthage was influenced by Egyptian culture including religion

 

 

Doesn't it seem strange Egyp

 

 

sphere of influence is now Muslim?

 

 

While we are at it

 

 

The WEstern ROman Empire never had much inrteraction with Kiev and Moscawrd

 

 

But the Eastern ROman Empire did before it even adopt Christianity

 

 

Moscawrd, Kieve, and other place=Modern Russia

 

 

People often wonder why Russia became Orthodox so quickly

 

 

But if you look at pre-Christian Eastern Rome

 

 

There was already strong ties being built with the land that is now Russia

 

 

Lots of conspiracy theories I know

 

 

But I can't help but think looking at current geography that the Roman Empire never fell

 

 

And arguably the reason religion dominates region such as Islam dominating the Outreamer is because of the influence of Ancient Rome

 

 

I almsot forgot to point this out

 

 

The first white colonial superpowers were Romance language catholic countries

 

 

Or had a large catholic population

 

 

Spain, France, and Portugal in particular

 

 

All three oft he MOST IMPORTANT centers of the ROman Empire outside of Italy

 

SPAIN and PORTUGAL COLONIZED an ENTIRE CONTINENT with the population and size much smaller than Rome

 

 

France colonized a lot of places in Asia

 

 

While a Protestant government, the Netherlands had a large Catholic population and colonized the 7th largest country in the world

 

 

Germany was 50/50 Catholic Protestant and it would become a colonial power

 

 

England is the outlier but as I mentioned the Church of England is a hybrid and so is British culture of Germanic, LAtin, and Celtic anyway

 

 

Its like the spirit of the Roman Empire had survived and repeated itself in the era of white European colonialism

 

 

Russia could barely get anything and Greece had to fight to win its indpendence against Turkey in a war very similar to the Persian invasion

 

 

They even fought around the region thermopylae was against the Ottoman in a big battle

 

 

The Protestant North (mostly Germanic countries as I mentioned) never got around colonialism except for Germany

 

 

And Germany far lagged behind similar to how Germania was the most undeveloped part of the European proper of ROme's Empire

 

 

Sorry for the long write

 

 

But parallels like these are FUCKING AMAZING

 

 

I believe Rome NEVER DIED

 

 

It simply morphed into the Vatican

 

 

ANd even revived the Empire in Europe until the Byzantine Catholic Schiism event

 

This was from a live discord chat so I'm sorry its dijointed and which is why I put it in quote. But what do you think of the observations? Its very eery the area Catholic Netherlands stops at is in a peninsula shape in Northern Netherlands-which was the same place the last successful Roman colonies in the country was in! And all the rest of northern Netherlands is Protestants and literally resembles Germanic lands. Same with Greece-a few islands remained Catholic even after the schiism and those islands were the same exact place that the Western Roman Empire still held even after the empire was divided despite the rest of Greece being the Byzantine Empire.

 

WHat do you think of this pattern?

 

In addition another chat is happening right now on reddit and someone brought this up.

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The discord room was the same one also insisting that Byzantiums lost because they are more Greek than Roman culturally
And lack the fiery aggressive expansionist nature of the Roman empire that would survive through the Western Catholic Church
And people on the room also argued that the Roman Empire near its end had barbarian soldiers making up most of its ranks and it fell when the barbarians legions revolted against Rome.
One poster went s far as claiming the Roman Church was able to beat Muslims back because it hired barbarians into the Western European feudal system as knights
Citing it was the conversion of the Franks, Anglo Saxons, Teutons, Danes, and esp Normans that gave the Catholic Church the aggressive warriors it needed to push back Islam and even counterattack
While the Byzantines was too Greek like
The user was arguing its proof of the Roman civilization ability to adapt and adopt foreigns is repeated through the Catholic Church's rapid conversion of Northern European with priests and later assigning Northern Europeans as the knights of Europe
That is why the Roman Catholic Church is the true successor to Rome and not the Byzantine Empire he says
Because they successfully passed Roman civilization to places that never impacted it during the Empire such as Sweden while also keeping Europe in a social triangle similar to plebs and patricians why the Roman Empire never collapsed but survived as Catholic Europe
Can't wait to see your dissection!
The whole discord room was arguing the Byzantines were too intellectuals like the Greeks to have a true feudal system similar to the Roman divide of slaves, plebs, and patricians
So they lacked the ability to produce resources to defend Byzantium and Eastern Christian soldiers lack the fanaticism and bloodthirst to keep waging war unlike the converted Normans and other Barbarians who were baptised into the Catholic Church of the Western lands of the fallen Western Roman Empire
Arguing the reason Russia became Orthodox is because Russia was in the sphere of the Byzantium Empire
And Russia has more of a right as successor to Rome than the Ottomans and Coptic Church and otehr regions did.........
That is if the Vatican didn't exist as the remnant of Roman civilization that brought peace, order, stability, and prosperity to Western Europe and later civilized NOrthern Europe
(not kidding the Roman civilization discord Room really believed the Popes were the next successors to the last Roman Emperor!)

 

What do you guys think? Its common to see on the internet lately esp in religious forums the claim that the Roman Empire never fell but transformed into the Vatican. They point out the same thing as the quotes above-that not only was it aspects of Roman civilization that brought order into Western Europe but a number of people point out the divisions between Protestant and Catholic Europe are eerily similar and the same places where Roman Catholic majority domain ends before entering Orthodox Eastern Europe are the same exact places that the Western Roman Empire held before the divided line with the Eastern Roman Empire was located! I mean look at a map of the Netherlands and Germany and see just how the Catholic majority places are shaped almost exactly the same as locations the Roman Empire could never colonize when they were barbarian pagans! See the Catholic majority islands of Greece-note that they were the same places that the Western Roman Empire still held in the East after Diocletian divided the Empire in two? Is it just an eerie coincidence? Honestly this leads me to believe the Catholic Church took over the Roman government and made the Empire survive not just unto the Middle Ages but even onto today! The Vatican is the 3rd Rome! Actually I'd argue  the Medieval Byzantium was never the successor to Rome but was simply a continuation of the Western and Eastern Roman divide this time with the Catholic Church until it fell to the Ottoman Empire! Now that the Western Roman Church is the only church of the 5 original Holy Sees that still survives, it shows how Rome survives as a superpower, arguably even greater than ever before since the Roman Catholic Church is over tenfold larger than the Roman Empire's largest population count at its peak!

 

Caldrail begs to differ and believes the empire permanently fell. But he states that it should not be a surprise that much of the provinces that were the most vital territories outside Italy before the Empire was divided are mostly Catholic today because Roman Catholicism was basically a cult created by a Roman emperor and Catholicism is simply a Roman take on Christianity.

 

So whats your take on this? Yay or nay?

Edited October 31, 2020 by LegateLivius

[caldrail]

The Western Empire was subject to a takeover bid from the Goths, and their leader Odoacer soon obtained permission from the Pope to become King of Italy (and received support from the Roman Senate which persisted for a century or two after 476ad). The Eastern Empire always thought of itself as Roman. Those in the west did not, seeing a more Greek society and looking down their noses at it.

It is worth noting that our current preconception of Roman Emperors stems from western experience of the Byzantines. An odd irony, that our ideas of Roman government are based on something Italians sneered at back in the day.