Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 432 A Brief Account of the Church Schism

The Easter fast lasts forty days, and Jerusalem is bustling with people, who spend each day in piety.

But just over two hundred kilometers away, on this sacred day, the war did not cease, but continued incessantly.

But in terms of cruelty, it pales in comparison to later generations.

Wars in this era were inherently closely related to the seasons.

Often, both sides in a war need to choose an auspicious day before launching an attack, either because they have sufficient food supplies or because they are planning to scavenge for food from the enemy.

Therefore, there are basically only three or four months out of 365 days a year when war breaks out, and during those three or four months, the actual fighting usually lasts only a few days to twenty days.

In addition, these days, most of the time a chaotic battle wouldn't result in many deaths, and people were thinking of capturing prisoners to exchange for ransom.

Therefore, most wars in most regions behave as part of the normal social order.

However, the conflict between Jerusalem and Egypt no longer falls under the category of most regions and most wars.

With both sides having established professional corps capable of sustaining year-round full-time combat operations, the bloodshed of war became particularly intense.

Especially in the Sinai Peninsula, a wilderness connecting Asia and Africa.

The Sinai Peninsula is neither very large nor very small, covering an area of ​​6 square kilometers and stretching for hundreds of kilometers.

Thousands of people were scattered across this vast land, yet not even a speck of dust was stirred up.

Ultimately, there are only so many places on the Sinai Peninsula where troops can be stationed, so the meaning of the war becomes to seize more oases in order to push the front line to a position that can threaten the enemy's core areas.

Either the soldiers of Jerusalem will cross the Isthmus of Suez, or the Eight Regiments of Egyptian soldiers will advance to the shores of the Dead Sea, shattering the peaceful reigns of each other's regimes.

As evening fell, the wind whipped up dust, and the soldiers in the camp sat huddled together, a fire crackling nearby.

In front of them stood a priest, dressed in a gray-brown vestment, holding a cross, his expression indescribably awkward.

The reason for the awkwardness is simple.

How could a Coptic Orthodox priest know how to sing hymns in the Roman Catholic Church?
Today, Egypt's upper class is indeed pragmatic.

In other words, when there was a shortage of Catholic clergy, the generals of the Eighth Regiment disregarded Rome's opinions and directly forced the troops to bring in Coptic Orthodox priests from Egypt to do ideological work among the soldiers.

Coptic priests like Shennuda were brought in to mingle with the soldiers, supposedly to inspire them to fight bravely with their devout faith.

But will this really work?
No, although they are called the Coptic Orthodox Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, they are ultimately not Eastern Orthodox.

They parted ways with the Catholic Church as early as the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.

In the centuries that followed, while they weren't exactly obsessed with killing each other, they certainly couldn't see eye to eye.

There's actually a lot to say about this.

Unlike other religions, Christianity demonstrated a high degree of organization and a strong desire to spread its mission from its inception.

This is something that other religions find difficult to match. On the other hand, whether it's missionary work or the spread of culture, it's essentially a form of self-replication.

Just like genes, genes or cultures that give up self-replication cannot be passed down.

As culture spreads and replicates itself, it undergoes mutations, much like genes, due to the constant mixing of elements from other cultures and the distortion that occurs during the replication process.

In addition, the mixture of various political and economic factors, coupled with the fact that local churches had a great deal of autonomy in the early days of Christianity, inevitably led to significant deviations in the understanding of doctrine.

For a religion that emphasizes its possession of the truth, the existence of differences in doctrine between churches in different places will inevitably cause confusion among believers.

After all, there is only one truth, but the church has so many different versions, which inevitably affects its authority.

If it were a self-contained and closed religion like Judaism, then it would be fine; they could simply close their eyes and pretend not to see.

However, Christianity also emphasizes its universal nature.

Therefore, there was no room for retreat in answering the question of truth for ancient Christianity.

Through successive ecumenical councils, certain denominations within Christianity declared themselves orthodox, thereby severing ties with those denominations that resembled them but were not.

Without careful differentiation, many people simply cannot distinguish between "Eastern Orthodox Church," "Eastern Orthodox Church," and "Eastern Church"...

By labeling those dubious sects as heretics and making believers believe that following those "bad" sects will inevitably prevent them from going to heaven, the problem of believers' confusion can naturally be avoided.

A quick review makes it clear that in 325 AD, the First Council of Nicaea established Jesus and the Father as the “true God,” thereby condemning the Arians, who viewed God and man as separate entities, as heretics (from the perspective of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s belief that the father is the father, the son is the son, and the father and son are not one, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom actually had a strong Arian flavor).

Then, at the Council of Ephesus in 431, prior to which the veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus, emerged within Christianity, but disagreements arose regarding Mary's specific status.

During this meeting, Nestorius condemned Nestorius's doctrines as erroneous, ruled that Jesus was one person, not two separate persons, and elevated the Virgin Mary to the position of "Mother of God" rather than "Mother of the Savior."

This caused the Nestorians to separate from the victors of the conference. The churches that supported the Nestorians at this conference later evolved into the "Eastern Churches," among which the famous Eastern Assyrian Church was later introduced to the Tang Dynasty and was called "Nestorianism."

Then came the Council of Chalcedon in 451, where at least three disagreements arose regarding Jesus' true nature—whether he was God or a man.

These are the two natures of Christ, the unity of nature, and the monophysitism.

To simplify and use an analogy, if divinity is fire, then humanity is iron.

The dualistic view represents fire and iron being close together but not fused; the two sexes coexist.

The theory of synthesis intends to express that fire has entered the iron, making it "fiery hot iron".

Monophysitism is that when iron is melted by fire, only fire remains, which means that humanity disappears.

The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches of the 21st century are basically the followers of the Chalcedonian proponents of dualistic doctrine from the Council of Chalcedon.

As for the Eastern Orthodox Church, represented by the Coptic Orthodox Church, it supports the theory of sexuality.

These three sects, which hold these views, essentially accuse each other of heresy, yet they all simultaneously acknowledge the Trinity.

(End of this chapter)