Orthodoxy vs Catholicism: who is the chicken and who is the egg?

[Tigranes]

I did not want to open a new thread, but for some reason I anticipate a lot of discussions on this very plain subject. Why is Christianity being founded as Catholicism and not as Orthodoxy? In the first post I will outline the proposed changes, while in the second will lay down the case for Christianity to be named as "Orthodoxy" and not "Catholicism" at foundation.

Original design:

# Added Orthodoxy
# founded when the Apostolic Palace is built
# holy city assigned according to priority list beginning with historically Orthodox civs
# to be eligible for the holy city, you need to be alive, Catholic and not control the Apostolic Palace

I can understand how we arrived at this sequence based how mod was developed, but now, after everything is said and done wouldn't it be more logical to have:

# Added Catholicism
# founded when the Apostolic Palace is built
# Orthodoxy is being replaced with Catholicism (with temple conversion) according to priority list beginning with historically Catholic civs. Human player can chose only if he was not the one who has built the Palace.
# Catholic holy city is logically the city with Apostolic Palace!

Church of the Holy Sepulcher will be very logically (excuse my repetitions) the Orthodox Shrine. Today it serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the building is shared between several Christian churches of Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by Roman Catholics.

St. Peter's will fit nicely next to Apostolic Palace as a Shrine for Catholics. St. Peter's Basilica is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and remains the largest church in the world. If any Cathedral is worthy to be a Wonder in our game -- St. Peter's can fill the bill. And yet Mod representing World's history does not have it for players to enjoy .

Sistine Chapel, which is a Chapel in ... Apostolic Palace, might require the Palace to be built, although I mention the Chapel as a side note, it is not my focus at the moment.

Finally Hagia Sophia, again very logically, cannot be Orthodox shrine and will go back being regular Wonder with any effect, including the vanila one. Why it should not be a Shrine? Well, shrines in the game are associated with particular religion, whereas Sophia was converted to mosque and then to museum in real life. NO matter how many turns you play our Shrines never convert.

This way we will wrap up with 72 Wonders of the World. 72 is much more symbolic that 71.

 

[Tigranes]

So lets trace developments in our game and in real life to understand who is the chicken and who is the egg.

If no one discovered Theology -- Christianity is being founded in some obscure city in the East. I have seen it in Tuspa many times for example. If no one discovered Theology by 100-200 AD I would rather see Christianity founded in Jerusalem with 80% probability, but this can be too deterministic for some people. ( As a side note I cannot understand why -- if you tolerate Varanasi almost always being Hindu holy city -- what is wrong with Jerusalem which has the corresponding "prerequisite" for Christianity -- Temple of Solomon? ). Now ... East is very fitting place for Orthodoxy Holy city to be. Currently, while all the neighbor cities in the East switch to white crosses holy city stays as a gray cross It will look more organic if West goes gray and East stay white.

Also currently Apostolic Palace relocates Catholic Holy city. In my honest opinion this is not a very consistent with the regular rules for another holy cities and shrines and generally is not the most simple and elegant mechanics. You also get free Orthodox Shrine in your former holy city, while others (except protestants) have to use Great Prophet for the shrine. Not fair!

With my idea original Christianity (Orthodoxy) will retain it's Holy City status, no odd relocation and one would need to spend some time to get Great Prophets and create Shrine for BOTH creeds, just like in history, no free cookies anymore. Obtaining AP gives you enough benefits already, and yet if you want to exploit right now you can chose to be Orthodox, get the free Hagia Sophia and then change back to Catholic.

Ethiopians are required to found Catholicism, which sounds a little odd, now it will be called Orthodoxy, they are in majority Oriental Orthodox Christians.

On 600 AD start Catholic Holy city, Apostolic Palace and future St. Peters will be in Rome, while Jerusalem will have Temple and Holy Sepulcher, with Orthodox Holy city and simple Catholicism there. This will provide big incentives for Crusade.

Finally, historically original Christianity was spreading from East to West. Catholics evolved more from 4rd century Christianity than Orthodoxy, as the name suggests. Bishop of Rome gradually claimed being somehow the only head of the Church (symbolized in our game by Christian civ building an Apostolic Palace). Meaning concept of Roman Catholicism came after 4rd-5th century concept of Pentarchy -- the concept of universal rule over all of Christendom by the heads (or Patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

I don't think this is even up debate... Catholicism essentially began because the Archdiose of Rome (1 of 5 others) didn't turn up to an Ecumenical council; decided he get away with starting his own Church because the Greeks were beset with a dozen catastrophes at the time.
Also Ethiopia trying to found Catholicism feels a little strange.
There isn't any reason convert to Orthodoxy ingame though, vs 2+ production per Catholic building and only one good wonder, the Spy Church of Moscow.

On a side note, adding the symbols from RFCE wouldn't be out of place? Seeing as two symbols are nearly identical.

 

[Tigranes]

There isn't any reason convert to Orthodoxy ingame though, vs 2+ production per Catholic building and only one good wonder, the Spy Church of Moscow.

True! That is exactly the reason you do build an AP in a first place in my version of events! You've been (Orthodox) Christian as France, for example, got tired of "hummer-less" Christianity with no central authority and built a Palace to become Catholic! "progress" goes from original Orthodox to later Catholic! How odd is it to be asked if you want to convert to Orthodoxy after you yourself built a Palace emboldening Pope to make universal claims!

Staying Orthodox when someone else built a Palace might be required for your UHV or URV, but most Christians are Catholics, so it makes sense for Catholicism to be your most preferred option

 

[merijn_v1]

St. Peter's will fit nicely next to Apostolic Palace as a Shrine for Catholics. St. Peter's Basilica is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and remains the largest church in the world. If any Cathedral is worthy to be a Wonder in our game -- St. Peter's can fill the bill. You see it every time as a loading screen for BTS, for crying out loud! And yet Mod representing World's history does not have it for players to enjoy .

Not really. Iths the Duomo of Florence.

 

[youtien]

This is going to be interesting. How about mod it on your own?

 

[Tigranes]

Not really. Iths the Duomo of Florence.

Right, sorry, need to play RFCE more often

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I'm in favor of all your suggestions.

 

[Tigranes]

This is going to be interesting. How about mod it on your own?

With a little help from you But, seriously, I would assume that relocating Catholic Holy city might require more sophisticated coding than converting bunch of Western cities from one generic religion to another...

 

[citis]

I have already posted this idea before. Tigranes' mechanism is better.

Moreover, some disantages of the current mechanism:
*Ethiopians founding catholicism
*Moving the catholic holy city
*Theodosian Walls requiring catholicism (meaning that Byzantium can't build them after the schism)
*Constantinopolis being the orthodox holy city

All the above are examples of inellegence of the current mechanism. Orthodoxy being the first christian religion to be founded makes easier and more elegant mechanics.

I concentrate a proposal from my ideas and Tigranes':
*Theology founds Orthodoxy.
*Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the orthodox shrine.
*Byzantium spawns with Theology and founds Orthodoxy if noone has done it yet.
*If Byzantium doesn't spawn, then Romans get Theology for free to found it.
*If Byzantium doesn't spawn and Romans are dead, Orthodoxy is autofounded in Jerusalem.
*Apostolic palace requires Orthodoxy.
*Apostolic palace makes the city it is built the holy city of Catholicism.
*If the civilisation that built the apostolic palace doesn't control the orthodox holy city it converts to catholicism, all other orthodox civs remain orthodox.
*St. Peter's Basilica is the catholic shrine.
*If apostolic palace isn't built before Spannish spawn, it is autobuilt in an Italian city.
*If apostolic palace isn't built before Spannish spawn and Italy has no cities, then it is autobuilt in Spanish capital.
*Reformation can only happen in catholic civs. Protestantims can't happen in cities owned by other civs that aren't catholic.

However I'm afraid that catholic players can't accept that the catholic church was a split from original christianity.

We orthodox may know that this is a historical mistake. However, the problem here is that the opinion of the one side is an insult of faith of the other side .

 

[Ballazic]

I would say the debate is not really a historic one. Because both models are a bit of an over simplification of Christian history. The Patriarchs (Or a Pope in the West) predate the schism. Their were 5 sees in Christendom: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. Who split off from who is a really contentious subject. I would suggest that the thread stay away from that. Having either Orthodox or Catholic as first isn't accurate as prior to the schism you had both the Western and Eastern churches. Catholic is a good title for Christianity prior to the Schism, as Catholic means universal, and there were several councils through out christian history where the church at large agreed on many key theological issues.

The debate should really be centred on mechanics and gameplay.

My case for the status quo.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre being a Catholic shrine is a great way to motivate/simulate Catholic players to go on some sort of crusade to bring back the shrine from the muslim civilizations.

Hagia Sophia as a shrine makes (generally Constantinople) a centre of Orthodoxy post schism (which is a big reason why the schism happened Constantinople vs Rome).

Having the Apostolic Palace as a maker of the holy city for catholicism but not neccessarly a shrine is a great way to simulate the role of the papacy in europe.

-----

In closing, the OP doesn't make a convincing enough arguement that the current model is broken. As our fearless modder says "if it aint broke, dont fix it".

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

However I'm afraid that catholic players can't accept that the catholic church was a split from original christianity.

We orthodox may know that this is a historical mistake. However, the problem here is that the opinion of the one side is an insult of faith of the other side .

Aw boo hoo hoo, how absolutely tragic! We wouldn't want to offend anyone, now would we?

Are you for real? Judaism has been removed completely from the game and Christianity is the only faith in the game that has been split into three different denominations.
Any Catholic feeling insulted over such a minor change is a terrible self-centered hypocrite whose beliefs deserve being trampled on.

 

[Leoreth]

However I'm afraid that catholic players can't accept that the catholic church was a split from original christianity.

I couldn't care less about that.

 

[Tigranes]

In closing, the OP doesn't make a convincing enough arguement that the current model is broken. As our fearless modder says "if it aint broke, dont fix it".

Before I go into sophisticated mechanics of any mod I always have two basic expectations: things need to work and things need to make sense.

"Original" Christian Holy city (call it Catholic or Orthodox) -- is the city where Christ was put to death and resurrected on the third day. How can you relocate it? Why should you? If you apply your own quote before relocation mechanics was introduced -- you had to argue against it. Because simple Vanilla Holy city mechanics was not broken! It was working and made sense. There.

Why should one get free Shrine? It was (and is) a very working mechanics when one needs a Prophet to build a shrine. Now some religions in our game have free shrines and some do not. Free Protestant and free Orthodox shrines are there to speed up new religion's spread, I assume. Some free invisible Wonder or the very status of holy city could do the trick, I am guessing, if we treat all the religions uniformly -- let's stick to it, this will make sense!

Finally, I hope you realize the difference between names "catholic" and "Roman Catholic"? According to my argument, the erection of Apostolic Palace founds Roman Catholicism, which we call Catholicism for short. Any person who reads word "Catholicism" understands it in that way. Not in your way.

Christianity was not founded as Roman Catholicism. It was founded as ... Christianity. Let's call it Early Christianity, or faith of the Apostles. And Orthodoxy was not founded at the moment of Schism. When people call themselves "Orthodox" they mean "conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the Early Christianity". Heresies came waaay before Schism, almost immediately upon founding of Early Christianity. Bishops of Rome confronted Arianism by claiming their Orthodoxy before they started to be "Catholic Popes". So when you see Orthodox Cross in Rome circa 400 AD -- it means the city has "real" Christians (as opposed to Arians), and so they call themselves Orthodox. When you see Orthodox and Catholic Crosses all around after Great Schism -- this means somebody started to reside in Apostolic Palace, claiming to be Vicarius Filii Dei, the ONLY leader of Christians. Those cities who agree with this get grey cross, those who don't stay Orthodox (as opposed to Arians, like before and now as opposed to Catholics). duh...

 

[BenZL43]

My suggestion: Add a mock religion and call it "Christianity" that cease to exist when AP is built. All "Christianity" churches and temples is re-branded as Catholic churches, Catholic temples.. or Orthodox churches, Orthodox temples... This way neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism is the egg or chicken.

The holy city for "Christianity" is Jerusalem, after this "Christianity" ceased to exist and "replaced" by either Orthodoxy or Catholicism, the holy building become holy for both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. So Orthodoxy and Catholicism have more than 1 holy building.

 

[Sanguivorant]

BenZL gives a genious reply. The schism would occur after the AP, and before that, it is a universal Christianity. The symbol could be the Ichthys.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

My suggestion: Add a mock religion and call it "Christianity" that cease to exist when AP is built. All "Christianity" churches and temples is re-branded as Catholic churches, Catholic temples.. or Orthodox churches, Orthodox temples... This way neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism is the egg or chicken.

The holy city for "Christianity" is Jerusalem, after this "Christianity" ceased to exist and "replaced" by either Orthodoxy or Catholicism, the holy building become holy for both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. So Orthodoxy and Catholicism have more than 1 holy building.

I'm impressed. I like this idea.

 

[BenZL43]

I'm glad you both like my idea ^^
Now to cover some more technical difficulties:

1. After the AP is build, the player are given popups similar to the reformation popups, asking whether they believe in the Pope (that reside in AP) as Vicarius Filii Dei. If they believe in Pope, they become Catholic and if they don't they become Orthodox. As simple as that, by the next turn the adherent of Christianity is at 0% because all of the Christian civs are now either Catholic or Orthodox.

2. If AP is not built by 1377 (marking the end of the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy where the Pope return from Avignon to Rome), then the AP will have no effect, and the Schism and Reformation will not happen. The Christian world will continue to be a single, Christian world, without any branches to form Orthodoxy, Catholicism or Protestantism.

This is indeed very disadvantageous, so AP should always be built as late as January 17, 1377 where the game should auto-build it at Rome. If the city of Rome is razed and does not exist; then AP is build at Constantinople. If both Rome and Constantinople is razed or does not exist (really? -_-) then AP is auto-build at Jerusalem. Enough.

3. As long as the AP has not been build yet, which mean is between the founding of Christianity to 1377AD all Catholic civilization (Spain, France, England, HRE, Portugal, Poland, Italy) and Orthodox civilization (Byzantine, Ethiopia, Russia) spawn with Christianity missionary and/or state religion.

4. The holy building for Christianity will be the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The holy building for the Catholicism will be the Apostolic Palace / St. Peter's Basilica.
The holy building for the Orthodoxy will be the Church of St. George

5. Regarding the status of Jerusalem and the Church of Holy Sepulcher, I would like to suggest the +1 Diplomatic modifier from a religious civilization to a civilization that "host and guard" their holy city, similar to SoI's +1 bonus for whoever controlling the holy Kabaa in Mecca. Church of Holy Sepulcher should be listed here as holy city for both Catholic and Orthodox civilization, and also generate "pilgrimage" money. The amount of the money is 50% of amount AP generated + 50% of amount Church of St. George generated.

Therefore, whoever controls Jerusalem will gains a lot of money, and also a lot of diplomatic bonus... which is very beneficial and really represent the importance status of Jerusalem in-game as it is in the real life.

 

[Tigranes]

BenZL gives a genious reply. The schism would occur after the AP, and before that, it is a universal Christianity. The symbol could be the Ichthys.

You got to be kidding me. Genius is simplicity. New "Mock religion"? More than 1 Holy city? Why? How is this simple? How is this more simple than my suggestion to treat Christianities exactly the same way like other religions. No relocation, no one religion splits into two type of religious quantum entanglement.

Even during the life of Christ there was a person who would not walk with him, but would perform miracles in His name. Just during the same 1st century AD St, Paul is informing us that

2 Timoth. 2 16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

Do you see now? People would call themselves Christians but disagree on many issues. After obscure Hymenaeus and Philetus, there were Arius, Nestorius, and many others. Nestorian Christianity went all the way to China. Arian Christianity spread amoung Barbarians, such as Vandals. So from very early on Orthodox Christians were those who were not following Arianism, for example. It is completely legitimate to call Christianity Orthodoxy upon founding. Catholics were Orthodox before they become Catholic, not the other way around. Those who didn't become Catholic stayed Orthodox. How much more simple can this be?

 

[Tigranes]

I'm glad you both like my idea ^^
Now to cover some more technical difficulties:

1. After the AP is build, the player are given popups similar to the reformation popups, asking whether they believe in the Pope (that reside in AP) as Vicarius Filii Dei. If they believe in Pope, they become Catholic and if they don't they become Orthodox.

Wait, wait... If they don't -- why they need to "become" something new? They will just STAY who they were, Orthodox Christians. As simple as that