Changes Orthodoxy?

[thekonkoe]

This may belong in the modding sub-forum, but I'll post it here to start out with.

Is there any consideration of modeling the orthodox power structure to include the patriarchates, or other potential autocephs? While the religion was under the control of the Emperor to varying degrees while the empire lasted, the patriarch of Constantinople as well as his colleagues outside the Muslim world were quite powerful.

Just a few suggestions, and questions.

Could the patriarchates be added as potential realms? (I know from EU that adding too many slows the game, but is there a concrete limit as in do you need to get rid of a realm for each you add?)

Is there a way to model divorce? Perhaps by event. Orthodoxy allows 3 divorces and theoretically, a powerful emperor could try to increase that limit.

Is there a way to create a position of patriarch analogous to the pope? could this be done so that the person does not necessarily have territory? This is so that things that are currently limited to catholic powers can be extended to Orthodoxy, I'm thinking of things like excommunication, gaining an imperial title etc.

Does anyone else think these changes are worth making? If so, I may try to mod some of it, (I'll probably need some help on more complicated points though).

I'll try to track it down, but I think I read something recently that said that prior to the crusades the "Holy land" (Sinai and the Levant maybe Syria and Egypt) still had christian majorities in some areas. I imagine these would be dwindling as these same areas had had Islamic influence prior to the arab conquest (e.g. the iconoclasts) and large scale Arabic settlement had helped shift demographics. Still I what I read suggested that the crusades provided the final impetus for many to convert (given they're treatment at the hands of fellow Christians, and the Muslim backlash afterward). Does anyone know more about this (for example I assume these would have been mostly orthodox Christians, but could some have been in communion with Rome?

I just realized the second half of this post is largely disconnected from the first, but if I decide to mod, I'd like to know if I should change province religions.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Is there any consideration of modeling the orthodox power structure to include the patriarchates, or other potential autocephs?

If you mean if something like this will be in the official game then no.

Could the patriarchates be added as potential realms? (I know from EU that adding too many slows the game, but is there a concrete limit as in do you need to get rid of a realm for each you add?)

You could add them as (arch)-bishoprics. But if you f.e. want to add the patriarch of Constantinople as a bishopric in the province of Byzantion. Then the Byzantine Empire can't have its capital there.

The concrete limit is the number of available tags in the game. Since unlike EUIII, you can't add new tags.

Is there a way to create a position of patriarch analogous to the pope? could this be done so that the person does not necessarily have territory? This is so that things that are currently limited to catholic powers can be extended to Orthodoxy, I'm thinking of things like excommunication, gaining an imperial title etc.

No, not possible

Is there a way to model divorce? Perhaps by event. Orthodoxy allows 3 divorces and theoretically, a powerful emperor could try to increase that limit.

You can add a 'divorce' event, but the effect of that event would be that the wife dies. But you can pretend that they divorced.

I'll try to track it down, but I think I read something recently that said that prior to the crusades the "Holy land" (Sinai and the Levant maybe Syria and Egypt) still had christian majorities in some areas.

AFAIK, some cities/villages had a christian majority. But in provinces of the CK-scale there was no christian majority.

 

[Landwalker]

I don't know much about modding (by which I mean almost anything), but I imagine you could model divorce with a few events. I don't know what the exact restrictons on divorce might be under the Orthodox Church, but you could do something like "If the ruler is married and has no legitimate male sons, here's a divorce event with a MTTH of X", maybe "If the ruler is Rivals with his wife, here's another divorce event with MTTH of Y", etc. Obviously you'd want there to be more than one choice for each event, and maybe you'd lose some piety or prestige or money or some combination or whatever for opting out of the marriage, but it could be done. The biggest problem I can think of is what to do with the ex-wife -- I don't know whether or not the game has a command for "remove marriage", but if not you can always shunt her off to a monastery with a "death".

I don't think that you need to create a "position" of Patriarch in the same sense that there is a "position" of pope. You could surely add an "Orthodox Emperor-Granting" event without needing such a thing, in any case. Excommunication could surely be done as well, but it might have to be done by event rather than by "Controller of Patriarchate", which would obviously give a player less control over it. I suspect the concept of "Papal Controller" is probably hard-coded and is limited to one PC / Pope, but if it isn't, you might be able to put together an event (rather than relying on a "character" / "position" for the Patriarch) that would designate an orthodox leader as Patriarchal Controller and imbue them with all the associated powers (though this seems unlikely, particularly in the absence of a patriarch with a prestige score, which is necessary for excommunications).

I definitely think that these changes could be worth making, though. Particularly the addition of Emperor for Orthodox factions.

As far as changing province religions, I don't think that's really necessary -- a lot of the Christians living in Muslim lands weren't quite "Orthodox" , but rather Copts, Monophysites, and the like, and historically had some resultant conflicts with Constantinople. By 1066, while there may have been some areas that had Christian pluralities (or even majorities), these were probably minor enough, rare enough, and/or divided enough (i.e. split among multiple "creeds" of Christianity) to justify leaving a province as a whole as Muslim. I doubt that any Christians east of, say, Tunisia, would have been in communion of Rome anyway. The church around Alexandria was quite independent, and Jerusalem and Antioch kind of fluctuated between doing their own thing and cooperating with Constantinople.

Cheers.

 

[truth is life]

As far as changing province religions, I don't think that's really necessary -- a lot of the Christians living in Muslim lands weren't quite "Orthodox" , but rather Copts, Monophysites, and the like, and historically had some resultant conflicts with Constantinople. By 1066, while there may have been some areas that had Christian pluralities (or even majorities), these were probably minor enough, rare enough, and/or divided enough (i.e. split among multiple "creeds" of Christianity) to justify leaving a province as a whole as Muslim. I doubt that any Christians east of, say, Tunisia, would have been in communion of Rome anyway. The church around Alexandria was quite independent, and Jerusalem and Antioch kind of fluctuated between doing their own thing and cooperating with Constantinople.

Well, you *could* reasonably represent those provinces which had Christian pluralities or majorities as Orthodox-Heretic. As you say, those areas are probably "closer" theologically speaking to Constantinople than Rome, or at least politically/physically. Ofc, the gameplay implications of that are probably not realistic at all. It would be nice if the game had more than just "Catholic" and "Orthodox" (and it would be very nice if it split Islam into "Sunni" and "Shi'ite" properly as well, rather than using character traits). Even nicer would be if distinct heresies and such could appear and spread, with differing effects and what not on provinces.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

If you do want to make some provinces orthodox you could at the same time add the 'heretic' trait to that province.

 

[LlywelynII]

It's a fun idea, but a little off:

a) The Christians in those territories weren't Orthodox: the Syriacs were Nestorians and the Egyptians Coptic. You can call that Orthodox + heresy if you want, but at the time it was more than that, esp. for the Copts who had long had their separate Patriarch and territory extending to Ethiopia.

In any case, by this point, they considered the Constantinopolitan patriarch a heretic and wouldn't've considered themselves part of his church, let alone his comrade. Instead, the Catholics and Orthodox churches just appointed their own men as titular holders of the same position in pretense: you could install them, but only by force of arms, and they wouldn't be at all independent of the main church.

b) There were Christian majorities or moieties long after the Islamic invasion, but by the CK period, the provinces as a whole had probably converted everywhere, including Iraq and Egypt, except for Nubia and the Bejas to their east. The only legitimate conversion I could see would be shifting 'Qena' province to Orthodox to represent the Beja. Even there, the Banu Kanz & co. had probably overrun the place by 1066 because of the region's gold rush.

Basharious might know a little more: he's from a family of Arab Christians.

c) The game could use a divorce event for all the faiths. It would kill the woman, but just say she went to a convent. There should be some pretty strong maluses including at least 25% chance of excommunication, though. Royal divorces were a big deal at the time.

d) I don't know about the Catholics, but the Orthodox were also pretty serious about limiting remarriage to 3 tries. If we're aiming at realism, you'd need a 100% excommunication event for that. Maybe even a excom + heresy or some special marker so that you could keep the regular reconciliation events from firing until he's a bachelor again.

e) The game already has some Patriarch events and you could include more and include more Orthodox-flavory events, but there can't be anything that mimics excommunication. (The Greeks had anathema, but afaik it wasn't wielded with quite the same force. Anyone who was anathematized was already and more importantly an outlaw in the name of the emperor and that was the important sanction.)

 

[unmerged(76802)]

I definitely think that these changes could be worth making, though. Particularly the addition of Emperor for Orthodox factions.

Doesn't the Byzantine Empire make that redundant, though? The Byzantines are usually the strongest Orthodox country, and their ruler is already called Emperor. plus, I don't think the East ever had the same kind of church dominance that would allow a Patriarch to crown someone Emperor. The State was above the Church in the East.

 

[truth is life]

Doesn't the Byzantine Empire make that redundant, though? The Byzantines are usually the strongest Orthodox country, and their ruler is already called Emperor. plus, I don't think the East ever had the same kind of church dominance that would allow a Patriarch to crown someone Emperor. The State was above the Church in the East.

Well, there are some unique benefits to being "Emperor" which are not reflected by the Byzantine super-king. Bonus prestige for one thing, I believe (I've never gotten big enough to be Emperor). The Russian principalities have a habit of becoming quite strong as well, and the player might understandably want to become Emperor of Rus (and Khazaria, and Lithuania, and Finland, and...ah...Georgia, say).

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Well, there are some unique benefits to being "Emperor" which are not reflected by the Byzantine super-king. Bonus prestige for one thing, I believe (I've never gotten big enough to be Emperor)

The prestige bonus is the only benefit of having the Emperor-trait.

 

[performer]

In my upcoming mod, I use a concept of different patriarchs (russian patriarchy, greek patriarchy ...)

 

[thekonkoe]

Just a personal note, the Syriac Christians were not Nestorian. This is a result of incorrect labeling by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox observers at the time. The Syriac Church like the Copts recognized the ecumenical councils until Chalcedon, and although they had some beliefs similar to Nestorius, they were not founded by him nor agreed with him on all points. The Assyrian Church of the East which was more truly Nestorian had relocated East for the most part long before the start of the game in 1066.

Using orthodox heretics is probably the best way to model them, since although they were outside of the Church, they conceivably could come to a compromise.

 

[LlywelynII]

Not Nestorian.

And the Monophysites aren't really monophysites but miaphysites, etc. I was coming at it from the game's Catholic bias.

Plus, the current climate of ecumenicalism really wasn't the medieval standpoint: reconciliation would've meant loss of face on somebody's side. The arguments were very often about regional pride, the existing climate of religious belief, and (most importantly) who gets the church's tithe money more than about any real christological point. Annexation by the west = gradual "reconciliation" to their POV & Peter's pence. Bizarre conquest of the west = "reconciliation" on your terms & their tithes paying for your cathedrals. No conquest either way = waiting around for the 20th c. to have conferences and photo ops. (The Muslims would've been more hostile to approved Catholic/Orthodox subjects than people who have nowhere else to turn; a lone Syriac state converting for foreign help is easily plausible, but I don't see them not backsliding once they realize no one cares enough to come save them or that the Byzantine emperor expects them to pay taxes at his rate on top of the tithe leaving the country. And they still wouldn't be Syriac: true believers would continue their faith and just venerate the "martyrs" you produce oppressing them for political benefit.) My 2c, anyway.

Using orthodox heretics is probably the best way to model them, since although they were outside of the Church, they conceivably could come to a compromise.

The problem is that with the current events that 'compromise' would show up within the first few decades of game play the vast majority of the time and/or the heresy would spread arbitrarily into the empire in a completely unrealistic manner.

You'd have to redesign the whole system.

Much easier to use the jewish tag and edit the name, until you feel you deserve to have a church reconciliation, although you'd have to be careful about holding Antioch or Jerusalem in the meantime and include a few extra conversion events for yourself.

 

[performer]

So, question: which different patriarchies would you prefer for the 1066 scenario?

 

[LlywelynII]

Well, the only one not implemented that's under Xian control at game start is Antioch.

 

[performer]

No, you misunderstand me. I want to use patriarchs, like the pope, but I have to now which different patriarchs would make sense in 1066.
1. Konstantinople / Byzantion
2. Rus
3 ...? ...

and so on.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

In my TASS-mod I have used one of the user-defined-traits to represent a 'patriarch'.

It also includes an event, which lets every kingdom ruled by an orthodox ruler make his diocese bishop into a patriarch.

It also includes several other events, that where made by Gigau for his mod.

 

[performer]

I know these concepts, but I will use a different one, using specific patriarchies.

So, any ideas?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I know these concepts, but I will use a different one, using specific patriarchies.

So, any ideas?

What do you want to do with patriarchies ? How are you going to represent them ?

 

[performer]

Quite similiar to the pope, though the orthodox church has some specific tendencies which are quite different from the monolithic catholic church. But the first step will be to "simulate" patriarchs so they act like the pope.