Pagan Europe - Could churches become popular even without Christianity?
- Thread starter Rîtaere
- Start date
Europe wouldn't remain pagan, it just wouldn't.
Native european religions are by definition Non Axial. Whereas Christianity, Islam, Buddhism are all Axial religions, who seek new followers and have structured, organized theology behind them, the only two exceptions being Zoroastrianism and Judaism, which usually only spread from family relations.
Non axial religions are disjointed, cult-like by nature and incapable of sustaining themselves effectively, for example, Ancient Greek texts on theology often and deliberately disagree with each other, about which God does what, what creatures did or not exist in the mythos, sure, there was a lot of consensus, like how there was a king of the gods, named Zeus, and all that, but this made non axial religions very weak, with different cults of different gods directly opposing each other (Athena's Athens and Ares' Sparta for example).
Roman Paganism nearly became an axial religion by the 3rd Century by the imperial promotion of the cult of "Sol Invictus" which quickly overshadowed the other gods in importance, however, christianity was accepted, and that religion was already structured and capable of serving the roman bureaucracy and nationalism.
Churches are by definition a christian thing, you can have temples that look and appear very similar, but if it isn't to pray to christ, it isn't a church. So no, it wouldn't get popular
Native european religions are by definition Non Axial. Whereas Christianity, Islam, Buddhism are all Axial religions, who seek new followers and have structured, organized theology behind them, the only two exceptions being Zoroastrianism and Judaism, which usually only spread from family relations.
Non axial religions are disjointed, cult-like by nature and incapable of sustaining themselves effectively, for example, Ancient Greek texts on theology often and deliberately disagree with each other, about which God does what, what creatures did or not exist in the mythos, sure, there was a lot of consensus, like how there was a king of the gods, named Zeus, and all that, but this made non axial religions very weak, with different cults of different gods directly opposing each other (Athena's Athens and Ares' Sparta for example).
Roman Paganism nearly became an axial religion by the 3rd Century by the imperial promotion of the cult of "Sol Invictus" which quickly overshadowed the other gods in importance, however, christianity was accepted, and that religion was already structured and capable of serving the roman bureaucracy and nationalism.
Churches are by definition a christian thing, you can have temples that look and appear very similar, but if it isn't to pray to christ, it isn't a church. So no, it wouldn't get popular
I don't think I need to point out the gigantic irony here of claiming that only "non-axial" religion have people disagree on things.
As Byzantophile said, the old religions could not sustain themselves as they did IOTL. They were just waiting for a more cohesive cult to sweep it away, and if it hadn't been Christianity, the followers of Mani or Apollonius could have been the ones to overwhelm the urban poor of the Mediterranean, whose descendants would have in turn converted and/or conquered the rest of Europe.
That said, there was a well-thought out thread about a prophet syncretizing the Norse and Uralic religions. I enjoy pagan threads, scarce as they are.
That said, there was a well-thought out thread about a prophet syncretizing the Norse and Uralic religions. I enjoy pagan threads, scarce as they are.
Frankly I don't buy this thesis the spread of Christianity is better explained by socio cultural and political factors. Christianity community focus on love and egalitarianism . Made it more appealing for those practical concerns philosophical types where some of the last to convert. The main source of converts where the dredges of society the message was built to appeal too. The reason for the rest of Europe converted was the strong culture influence of the wealthier Christian states and this process often had to backed by force.
Also the Islamization of Iran was a generations long affair that only occured after conquest by Muslims.
Too sum it up the average person is more swayed by social factors and pathos then philosophy and fact based reasoning.
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European architecture would be radical different without Christianity. We’re unlikely to see pan-West European architecture style, instead we would likely see a much more clearer split between North and South.
As example here we have a rare Danish manor in timber framed style. Timber framed while existing in the Mediterranean region was far more popular in Northern Europe.
Next below here we see a timber framed British Church. Again while timber framing was popular in Northern Europe, we rarely see it used in churches and manors, as these are far more inspired by Mediterranean.
We could easily imagine in greater isolation from Southern Europe and we won’t see temples being built in Mediterranean styles and instead we will see timber framing being scaled up and developed instead. Especially as it will be harder to get access to foreign expects, and churches served both in building up a native expertise in the Mediterranean style and giving it the prestige, which mean the nobility adopted the style. But here they develop their own style instead.
While not timber framing Heddal Stavkirke in Norway is an example of a local building style being scaled up. I expect this style being less popular as people have to move away from timber as the main building material thanks to timber growing rare and more expensive
As example here we have a rare Danish manor in timber framed style. Timber framed while existing in the Mediterranean region was far more popular in Northern Europe.
Next below here we see a timber framed British Church. Again while timber framing was popular in Northern Europe, we rarely see it used in churches and manors, as these are far more inspired by Mediterranean.
We could easily imagine in greater isolation from Southern Europe and we won’t see temples being built in Mediterranean styles and instead we will see timber framing being scaled up and developed instead. Especially as it will be harder to get access to foreign expects, and churches served both in building up a native expertise in the Mediterranean style and giving it the prestige, which mean the nobility adopted the style. But here they develop their own style instead.
While not timber framing Heddal Stavkirke in Norway is an example of a local building style being scaled up. I expect this style being less popular as people have to move away from timber as the main building material thanks to timber growing rare and more expensive
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I think you're being a bit unfair, if you look at the backgrounds of the Church fathers they're not exactly the dredges of society. Christianity with its entire corpus of Jewish literature offered a much deeper and richer theological framework than the Roman Gods could give
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The Danish manor is from 1635, it looks pretty good for an almost 400 year old building. The Norwegian Church is 800 year old. Of course without maintenance, they will likely not last more than 30-30 years. But honestly most brick or marble churches also turn into ruins surprisingly fast without regularly maintaince.
Early Christianity was made up of primally made out of poor urbanites with a middle class elite. It's social gospel and eschatology made it very appealing to the disposed. Even Julian had to admit Christians did a remarkable job caring for the poor. And the pagans did have complex philosophical traditions and said pagan thinkers stuck around long after Christians became the majority. All you really have to do is create the proper social conditions to strangle Christianity in it's cradle.
I don't think so tbh, the Church was growing rapidly within the Empire in the pre Milvian bridge era despite horrific persecution by Nero and Diacletian. If Christianity could have could have been strangled in its cradle it would have been.
And Julian the Apostate always struck me as a guy who was trying to swim against the currents and probably always doomed to failure
Piggybacking off of the idea that the cult of Sol Indigenes/Sol Invictus might have had a brief chance to replace Christianity at least on the European stage, wouldn't it be awesome to see something like a "Temple of the Two Suns" sort of organization sweep through Europe which still has all of the Mediterranean stone architectural influences that @Jürgen pointed out? Just picture these massive stone structures made in an obsessively symmetrical brutalist style that would always juxtapose each other on the east/west axes of the places they were built to mark the waking and sleeping positions of the sun gods.
I could see some version of Christianity being shoe horned into that mythos too if only because of the obvious day-night/good-evil analogy there which Christianity does impose on almost everything it touches. Much the same way as European pagan traditions were adopted into Christianity region by region as a way to ease its assimilation into areas that were largely indifferent to its spread until much later.
Sooo Hinduism is non-Axial? It seems to ha e survived just fine.
It definitely survived, but it's also obviously different from the other four current world religions in that it is far less theologically centralized from what I understand. It may also be notable that while it certainly exists in the modern day, I don't think that it has the ability to spread like the the three Abrahamic religions it doesn't really seem to have any desire to do so.
You could say many of the same things about Buddhism, though I think Buddhism does adhere to the same principles throughout. It seems to act more as a passive philosophy than an actively self-proselytizing religion.
Take everything I say here with a grain of salt. I don't actually know that much about the practice of either Hinduism or Buddhism. I have spent enough time studying the differences between the Abrahamic religions to understand why they stand out and how they differ though.
early churches (after the adoption of Christianity by Constantine) were pretty much based on Roman basilicae rather than temples. So I would say its pretty unlikely (unless for some reason that the basilicae comes to be associated with religious rather than judicial purposes)
Then a possible solution to OP would be looking at how church architecture developed outside the empire early on
Say in Ireland and non roman middle east
To be honest (and a little blunt) this axial thing doesn't make sense
Traditional east asian and african religions are still around, quite large and they don't stand out as particularly organized
Also Christianity as a whole is no more theologically coherent than say celtic paganism as a whole. The real difference seems to be that many currents of the former actively look towards converting dissenting voices while the different variations of latter don't
The amount of historical determinism in this thread is outstanding.
However, regarding OP's question of if the same architectural styles of sacral buildings would develope in an ATL Europe w/o Christianity then I would say that's highly unlikely since like all art they emerged from a specific cultural background so if this background is significantly different it will produce different output.
However, regarding OP's question of if the same architectural styles of sacral buildings would develope in an ATL Europe w/o Christianity then I would say that's highly unlikely since like all art they emerged from a specific cultural background so if this background is significantly different it will produce different output.