Why does the Catholic-Protestant Divide as Well as the Catholic-Orthodox LinesToday So much parallels the End of Roman Expansion Into Northern Europe As Well as the Exact Division Between the Western and Eastern Empires?

[LegateLivius]

I mean if you see a map of religion in Europe the places that are mostly Protestant today are the same exact places the Roman Empire could never subdue into a permanent territory. The same cities that are Protestant majority in Netherlands are in the North, the same places the Romans could never develop colonies under their sovereignty as an example. While the predominantly Catholic places of Europe today almost the entire places Rome successfully held as colonies until the decay around the 300s and its fall in the 400s. Just look at Southern Germany which was the north most that the empire was able to expand into and you will see the regions that Roman administration ruled over are the same exact Catholic arts of Germany while the Protestant parts  are all in the north. In particular the strongest Protestant places of Germany are in the Northwest which would contain the location the defeat at Teutoburg would have taken place in.. England can even qualify because England became a Roman colony and than was abandoned but remain Roman influences for a while until Germanic invaders took over and Germanize the country. Yet the Germanic people of England would be the most Roman-like barbarians of Europe who weren't directly into the sphere of the Roman Empire.

 

To put a parallel with religion England was one fo the most religious kingdoms of Europe, so devout into Catholicism was England that they sent some of the most volunteers after France and Germany to fight into the Middle East several English kings were the head leaders of several Crusades. England was so fanatical that when Henry VIII tried to reform English Christianity after cutting England's diocese from Rome, riots broke out and the loyalty of English Catholics would be one of the prime issues that went close to destroying the newly Protestant English kingdom until Cromwell expelled all Catholics from the country during the English Civil War. And even than after becoming Protestant the Church of England was a bizarre hybrid of Catholic and Protestant doctrines, being considered the "most Catholic" of the dominant Protestant denominations, even much more than the Lutherans, esp in Church art and buildings and religious practises (creating their own unique takes on Catholic stuff like the rosary replaced with Prayer Beads) while also blending in Protestant doctrines like predestination as part of the newly formed "Anglican" Church's teaching. Thus making very eerie parallels to Rome's status as a place that was colonized by Rome but quickly fell to Barbarians shortly afterwards including a complete invasion by a Germanic tribe that altered the DNA and culture of the pre-Roman Celtic Britons-yet also keeping elements of Roman culture like architecture despite apparent Germanization of the whole country.

 

Once we get into the map of Catholic and Eastern Orthodox countries........ To start off go see the most Eastern countries that are still Catholic today before you start reaching the Orthodox majority parts of Europe. They are islands in Greece........ The same islands the Western Roman Empire continued holding after the Empire was divided into two despite being so far away in Greece! Prractically every major domain of modern Orthodox Christianity were all territory of the Eastern Roman Empire. While the Catholic countries near the Orhtodox nations like Hungary were part of the Western Roman Empire. If we want to go into another parallel, the Western  Empire never had any significant contact with people from modern day Russia but the Eastern Empire began to develop trade routes after the division and onto the Middle Ages the contact of the Byzantine Civilization with pre-Christian Russians was so great that they not only had solid trade routes but frequent cultural exchange and direct interventions with each other like sending soldiers over to one another for help, sending priests into Russia, etc and as we now know Russia is now culturally and Orthodox Christian country. Not just that but Russia would become the most fanatical follower of Eastern Orthodoxy, waging wars against the Catholic Europe and various Muslim civilizations esp the Ottomans in an attempt to prevent the fall of Eastern Orthodoxy and defend remaining free nations but even waging offensives into Ottoman territory in an attempt to free Ukraine and other places conquered by the Turks.  

 

If there's one more very scary pattern I noticed........ All the countries that would become white European superpowers during the Age of Colonialism.......... France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, and  Germany are either Catholic or have a roughly equal Catholic-Protestant plurality. Were all important colonies of the Roman Empire. In particular Spain, Portugal, and esp France were the three most important hubs of the Roman Empire outside of Italy and of utmost essential commercial territorial, and military holdings of the Empire. Spain would conquer an entire continent and create the first white Colonial Empire while Portugal would later separate from a union and hold a large chunk of South America in what is now one of the largest countries in the world. A nation so large its as big as the USA, Brazil.And Portugal would conquer a modern nation in Africa and various bits of land in Asia. While France would become a global superpower that would conquer many places in Africa and Asia as well as once holding a large part of North America. Even England qualifies because of the bizarre hybrid nature of Anglicanism and would create the largest empire I ever seen.

 

So I have to ask why are the places the Western Roman empire hold as permanent territory until the decay near the start of the Dark Ages all so Catholic today? With its three most important colonies Portugal, Spain, and France once being the most fanatical strongholds of Catholicism in the Medieval Ages and Renaissance period (even being more devout than Italy as a whole would often be across history)? Is it a simple coincidence that after England, the three most important and largest colonial powers were both once the most Catholic kingdoms of Europe and the most important territories of the Roman Empire? In addition  despite the rise of Byzantium, why did regions the Western Roman Empire held East of Italy remained Catholic all the way today despite the 1054 schism? It doesn't make sense that the few Catholic islands in Greece were able to survive with allegiance to Rome considering how the Byzantines would do reprisal towards Catholicism! Esp if you see Romania which uses a Romance Language and was very near Italy and important colony and later given to the East would become Orthodox Christian despite the heavy influence of Roman culture into it esp Latin on modern Romanian!

 

What is the reason why the division between Catholics and Orthodox is almost exactly the same today as the division of the West and East empires? Why is the Protestant and Catholic regions of Europe pretty much exactly the same as the divide between Roman territory and unconquered Germanic barbarian lands?

[Northern Neil]

I think that the reason France, Portugal and Spain (as well as Protestant England)  became great colonisers was on account of their proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. Also, what about Poland and the Czech republic? Out of the confines of the Empire, North and East of the Rhine and Danube frontiers, yet majority Catholic. Dalmatia was part of the Eastern Empire after 395, yet Croatia and Slovenia are Catholic, not Orthodox. I'm not trying to dismiss your hypothesis, but there are anomalies which run contrary to it.

[Novosedoff]

Well, I think the topic starter has completely disregarded some of the contemporary trends, even as far as Germany alone is concerned. Germany has experienced a tremendous religious shift in the past century, the number of Protestant followers has dropped below the number of Catholics, although it used to be vice versa even back at the time of Adolf Hitler. The number of non-believers or atheists (who may be not dominant yet in some places, but still quite noticeable in all mentioned countries) has been ignored too. But this all brings about the diffusion and makes European religious history look even more irrelevant especially in the context of other new geographic locations, more abundant in human resources and economic power now.

As to the question of the divisions, this aspect must be deeply inherent to the Christianity at the very basic level of its doctrines  and beyond the scope of Roman wars. Most of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches seem to follow the dyophysite Chalcedonian type of beliefs, which make Jesus Christ look like that crazy lady Phyllis Church speaking to her Mr Doggie and suffering from mental disorder of multiple personalities 🙂