in 1453 Had Constaninople NOT fallen do you think that Christian Orthodox would be...?

Question

more influential today than the Roman Catholic Church is?

This is not a question of if you believe in God or not, it is a question of factual historical probability. What do you think would have happened if the Turks had lost and Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire did not dissolve?

I am asking this is both History and R&S to see the differences in answers.

I do not thumb down unless you are rude and cruel other wise I thumb up or not at all.

Thanks for your opinions.

Francesca - so far I agree with you the most. Had they taken back all the regions and regained their strength and former glory they could still be around today and the Orthodox Church very powerful even more so than the Roman Catholics possibly!! That is what I am getting at.

Answer 1

interesting question. It depends on what time you see the decline of the Byzantine Empire as stopping: for example, for several decades before Constantinople fell, it really only contained a few territories outside the city itself. Earlier than that the attacks on the rich agricultural lands of Anatolia had a drastic effect on the ability of CP to feed itself.

If the Turks had not captured CP they would probably not have been able to keep the Balkans, and would not have attacked Vienna. Possibly as the West started major explorations in the late 15th and 16th centuries it would have fortified CP and the Greek lands as an ally to weaken the Turkish Empire. But it is equally possible that the Turks would have come to an accomodation with CP, much as it did with the Phanar, allowing it to keep what the Greeks today call the 'New Territories' but not straddling the Bosphorus. If CP still had Anatolia (roughly Turkey today plus the new territories), though, it would have become a true 'mother church' for Christians of the Turkish empire.

I don't think it would have had the effect you ask about, by itself, because the West became more influential not because of the fall of CP, but because of the influx of classical learning into Italy and other places as Christians fled the invading Turks. The West was coming into the age of exploration; it would have found that material anyways.

Answer 2

The question must be posed in both secular and religious terms. The decline of the Eastern Roman Empire of the Byzantines, populated by Greek speakers who worshipped in the Orthodox Church coincided with the arrival of a new dynamic “freedom” preaching Muslim religion, championed by two warlike nomadic people, the “Arabs” first and the “Turks” later. This combination of a new faith that promised to enfranchise the hitherto fettered farming communities and allow the poorest to become “Top” man and the sheer force of the all conquering nomads found the Byzantines, in their “crystallized” and “feudalistic” World unprepared. There was no real “will” to resist, their was no military “backbone” any more. The “Legionary” spirit was gone, the “Christian” solidarity no more. The Latin rape of Byzantium was already a clear sign and the Western Church’s crusaders and later retreat was another. In the East Christianity was not united and no match for the new forces in both religious and military terms. The Greek Orthodox rulers had simply nothing left to oppose these dynamic invaders. Events might not have turned out so bleak had the Russian Orthodox lands (we tend to forget the 3rd Rome in this struggle) not been “raped” by the Mongols. Before they arrived the two secular powers, linked by a single religious power, had already joined forces and swept away the Kazar Empire of Jewish faith. A curious event, that favoured the Mongol victory and put paid to any future “common front” against the Muslim World. Russians and Greeks might just have managed to block the Muslim Turks, had they not gone their separate ways. Only then can we envisage a “strong” rival to Rome. Another tragic aspect of this development is the religious rivalry, camouflaged as an ethnic one (Orthodox Serbs, Bulgarians and Rumanians, Catholic Croats, Slovenes and Hungarians, Muslim Albanians and Bosnians) in the very centre of Europe. Under Byzantium this would never have happened. Consequently 1453 was really a “non-event”.

ps Sorry Francesca and Wulf, with all due respect for your opinions, but you are day dreaming. History is not made of improbable "ifs and ands". Byzantium, after the year 1000, a full 400 years before its fall, was so far gone into decadence, that it did not have the strength to "fight back"; it had frozen into a near theological oligarchy, ruled by it’s religiously inspired burocrats. In Italy Today, we still speak of “bizantinismi” when we mean a deadlocked burocracy (like the present Government). Curiously enough the "perfection" they felt for their religion and it’s influence on the State was one of the main causes of it’s downfall (see Chinese Imperial syndrome). It simply crystallized their world and blocked any chance of renewal. It's the other way round: the Orthodox religion was one of the causes of it's weakness – the rival Rome, instead, was very dynamic and the later Protestant world, even more. Theologies rarely succeed in “renewal”.
This is my opinion in "historical" terms and is by no means detrimental to the religion itself, one of the most beautiful and mystical Europe ever saw.

Answer 3

I see a lot of arguments here about the "inevitability" of the Byzantine Empire's collapse. Whether these arguments are correct or not, I think they miss the point. The Eastern Church did a huge job of evangelizing in its first millennium, with its biggest success being the conversion of the Slavs (Russia, Serbia, etc.) I think this process would have continued if the Ottoman Empire had not moved in. The Ottomans were an impediment to the spread of Orthodoxy because of their religion (Islam), not because of their status as occupiers per se. If they hadn't invaded, the Byzantine lands likely would have been divided among new Roman Catholic and Orthodox dependencies, and Orthodox petty states. This is essentially how the western Europeans responded to invasion from Goths and others. There's no reason to believe that small Orthodox petty states wouldn't eventually organize themselves into regimes capable of large regional influence. The real irony, though, is that Ottoman occupation is often seen as a major factor to explain the remarkable lack of change of Orthodox theology over the last millennium. It has been argued that the Orthodox focused too much on the preservation of the faith against Islamic influence to have time for major theological wrangling. Also, the Ottoman practice of dividing the administration of ethnic groups would have made it more difficult for new theologies to spread from one ethnic group to another, and thus from one ethnic church to another, further putting the brakes on change. What this all means is that the Orthodox Church may have lost its chance to spread during Ottoman rule, but today it is gaining unlikely converts who find it appealing to stick to ancient traditions in a modern world.

Answer 4

They will be concentrated in rusia, bulgaria, middle east down to india, and isolate the islamic states. Two religion will dominate Christian Orthodox and Roman Catholic. Islam will be minority like judaism.

Answer 5

There at least two differnt scenerios here.
I'm an Eastern Orthodox convert who has studdied Russian and Blakain history. Since Orthodoxy has never been centralised like Rome the cities don't matter much but as for imperial history I would like to know your scenerio.
First are you talking about the turkish invaders ebing stopped an Anatolia during the Middle ages? In this case there would be very litttle differnce as the trade routes that build constantinople were being cut when trade routes around africa and later the Americas were discovered. The differnce is the Balkains would have become Russian vassel states and history would have been filed with wars between Russia and Hungary. The other way would be if the Coptic schism did not happen as this crippled the Eastern Roman Empire internaly during the Muslim invation and led to the mideastern provines falling to the Muslims like dominos. Now if they had sayed united and kept the Muslims pinned in Arabia and maintained Orthodoxy would be way influential the Greeks and Russians would have had basicly absolute control of the most profitable trade routes in the Midle ages.

Answer 6

By 1453 the Eastern Empire had gone thru two centuries of diminishing power. The city was sacked by crusaders, so the military and political strength of the Western church was acendant. The Fall of the city was in many ways a liberation for the Orthodox church. It could concentrate on spritual development. The political banner was picked up by Russia. It influenced Russian policy toward the Balkans and the Turks.

Answer 7

This is a difficult question to answer. Religion, history and influence are all human activities.

Clearly history teaches us that the Catholic Church is not opposed to using ANY tactic that helps to spread and strengthen its hold on the people.

The question is: Would the Christian Orthodox church limit itself to being honest, serving God and helping its members?

Power and the pursuit of power is the true anti-Christ.

Answer 8

Yes I think the Orthodox church might have been the major player in todays world if the Byzantine empire had not fallen.

which has me thinking - did the catholic church deliberately choose to not come to the rescue (of Constantinople) so that the orthodox church would fall?

Interesting question, but I would say YES, the catholic church deliberately chose to not help, because they knew it would benefit them greatly.