What are the differences between Catholics and Orthodox and how would you play them in fantasy game?

What are the differences between Catholics and Orthodox and how would you play them in fantasy game?

A lot of the stuff that Catholics try to explain with philosophy, Orthodox just put their foot down and say, "It's a mystery, deal with it."

Orthodox priests are allowed to marry and traditionally grow a big ol' beard.

Catholics have an extra word in their creed which Orthodox don't like, otherwise the two creeds are exactly the same. Orthodox believe in what that word says, mind you, they just don't like saying it in the creed.

Both sides will say that they are the true descendants of the original Church and that the other is the splinter group, using various historical and pseudo-historical arguments.

In Christianity, there's hardly any practical differences. Mostly some small dogmatic stuff. Both are grandstanding, both are greedy, both put the church ahead of the teachings of their God.

To answer you second question OP, You would represent them with two churches that claim to all they are completely different but then use the exact same holy book, morals, gods, and symbolism. Exactly the same, but insist that there is a difference.

I can't wait for the orthodox larpers to show up and start saying that "theirs" is the one true religion.
Why don't you look up who the current russian patriarch is, and who he was before getting the position?

The two main differences between Catholic and Orthodox are the primacy of the Pope (Bishop of Rome) and the Filoque.

Basically the schism occurred because Catholics believed that the Bishop of Rome was the leader of all Bishops and had primacy, not just "first among equals", that and the addition of "and the son" to the nicene creed that reads

>I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the giver of life,
>who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.

Orthodox took issue with the idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well and that little bit of disagreement caused the schism which split the Church into East and West.

No one man should ever claim to be the voice of god.
As for in game difference, I would have a more centralized church with a single head (catholic) and a more rural priest council focused variant (orthodox)

But they're not exactly the same. Well, they're exactly the same, but they are practiced by different cultures so the aesthetics and the frames of references might be slightly different.

Geopolitically, Catholics tend to be more "globalist" in such that their reach is so far reaching but not that strongly rooted, making them easy when converting but also easy to deconvert. The orthodox on the other hand appear to be infused with the host culture, making them the opposite to the catholics in the sense they don't spread out that much, but in exchange they can withstand any cultural onslaught from within or without, see eastern europe 2017 or the Soviet Union.

>No one man should ever claim to be the voice of god.
What if said man is possessed by Metatron?

>see eastern europe 2017 or the Soviet Union.
The Orthodox church was too useful as a controlling element for Stalin to do away with it.

Well, Soso was a priest in everything but name and ideology. His speeches were mildly theological in nature, and he keep his bible throughout all his life.

"Tell a person that you're the Metatron and they stare at you blankly. Mention something out of a Charlton Heston movie and suddenly everybody is a theology scholar."

"Anyone who isn't dead or from another plane of existence would do well to cover their ears right about now."

Catholicism
>da pope is da rightful ruler of da church because Rome
>priests aren't allowed to marry
>use a newer calendar

Orthodoxy
>da East Roman Emprah is da rightful ruler of the church (and since the Romanovs died out there's no ruler so patriarchs rule independent of each other)
>priests are allowed to marry like normal folks (thus less pedo cases)
>use the Julian calendar because muh Roman empire


Both are offshoots of the church that Constantin the Great founded by rounding up all the religious leaders across the Roman empire and forced them at blade point to agree on creating one holy book/faith that will be in line with Roman laws and traditions (Christianity did exist boefore that, but they were pyromaniac durkadurka sandnigers).

Yes user, they are the same. What next? Protestants being no different? Or just outright claiming that all monotheisms are the same?

>priests are allowed to marry like normal folks
>(thus less pedo cases)
Hahahahaha... good one.

What did he mean by this

What about the Greek Catjolic Church?

Sounds fucking gay

I think it's an interesting thought.

I imagine people who don't feel like they can be a part of regular society as an off-spring-spawning parent are drawn to the (catholic) priest profession as it lacks those expectations. Just a thought though.

user failed to understand why 'nice Jesus' is a thing. In modern societies, protestant ones especially, the Church has no real authority anymore, and if it wants to bridge the ever-widening cultural gap and remain relevant it has to sell what most people are buying. And they're buying hippy Jesus the carebear of tolerance. Fire and brimstone preachers are generally either megachurch assholes who are selling a carefully crafted product to a very specific audience, or crazy bums shouting in the streets. Bible as written is culturally obsolete.

That's a bit of a dilemma because if your argument is that your infalliable holy book is the word of God and his explicit instructions on how to live you can't just go changing it around to be relevant. If the priesthood is changing their doctrine to suit the times then it's kind of an implicit admission that they don't really believe in their own dogma anyway. I have more respect for those hardcore Christians who actually live by the word of the Bible than I do the huge amount of lukewarm cultural Christians who think Jesus Christ would be a-ok with legalizing buggery.

Sexual abuse also happens in denominations where the priests are allowed to marry. Implying that marriage is some sort of fix to the problem of priestly pedophilia is oversimplifying things at best.

With the amount of detail usually reserved for theology in RPGs I'd say it's pretty fair to treat all real world monotheist faiths as the same faith in your fantasy or sci-fi games. The difference between a modern protestant, and a modern catholic is small enough to basically ignore. If your game has a detail level where say, a sword is a sword, a food ration is a food ration, everyone uses the same currency and you can get by with a single language; then don't start differentiating between religions that basically all say the same shit and even use the same names for their deity. Of course, if you run a game where the entire world is rich in details, then by all means, include enough details to explain exactly what type of prayer your religious NPCs recite, but most games won't need that.

Some stuff from RPGs is ripped straight from the history of Christianity. Warhammer lore has the "Council of Nikea" which is a direct copy of the Council of Nicea.

>and if it wants to bridge the ever-widening cultural gap and remain relevant it has to sell what most people are buying. And they're buying hippy Jesus the carebear of tolerance.
Western society is abolishing itself. Why should the Church bend over backwards to stay relevant on a sinking ship? I'm more hopeful about the growth of Christianity in China than it ever becoming relevant again in Eurabia.

It's a massive mistake to make the Church a tea and biscuits hobby. It will only attract relativist morons who are only there for tea and biscuits, while those who are actually interested in doctrine, morality, apologetics and philosophy stay as far away from established churches as possible.

>In Christianity, there's hardly any practical differences.
I'd say primacy of the pope is a big fucking deal. Though it should be less of a deal now that Rome is the only city of the Pentarchy still in Christian hands.

>Both are offshoots of the church that Constantin the Great founded by rounding up all the religious leaders across the Roman empire and forced them at blade point to agree
No. Constantine the Great organized the Council of Nicaea in order to force unity within the Church, especially with the now arising Arianist sect (which implied that God the Son was lesser than God the Father). It backfired horribly, because by the end of the Council, all non-Arian attendants agreed nearly unanimously to condemn the Arianist sect as a heresy. Which was a big problem for Constantine (he wanted a unified church) and his successors (some of them were actually Arianists).

I have no idea where this meme that Constantine created Christianity at Nicaea comes from.

>I have more respect for those hardcore Christians who actually live by the word of the Bible
So, amongst other things, never eating pork of any kind, executing children who misbehave, and during menstruation plus seven days after the woman can't sit or sleep amongst the rest of her family (don't even think of touching her). At the end of this period she must offer two doves to a priest for sacrifice, and she'll be ok again.

Yeah, that's no one.

Your job is to spread the word of God, but staying true to your own teachings makes you immoral and socially disruptive. There are no winning moves.

>I don't understand the New Covenant
Wew lad.
>B-But Jesus said He came to fulfill the law
Which was an act of defiance, claiming His identity as the Messiah would would bring the long expected New Covenant (Deut. 18:15).Try harder senpai.

Then the man isn't the one making the claim.

You're talking about Jews user. Christians don't live by the Old Testament

>I'm more hopeful about the growth of Christianity in China than it ever becoming relevant again in Eurabia.
Good riddance.

Be careful what you tip that fedora for user, you might just draw its attention. Even Richard Dawkins has begun to see Christianity as 'a shield against something worse'.

A significant Idea you should put is that the Orthodox equivalent is only culturally religious. As in, they identify with the church, but it doesn't affect them as much as the church affects the Catholic equivalent, just like in real life.

>but it doesn't affect them as much
вы пoлны гoвнa, милгocyдapь
Okay, it's like some are what you described, some are like american protestant nutjobs (ex: Dmitry Enteo and his buddies protested a Marylin Manson concert and actually stopped it from happening)

Not him but I agree. Even more now.
>Good riddance.

Technically they should according to their book. The new testament just adds the "love thy neighbour" thing, everything else is still valid.

Your post however proved the user who said "it's culturally obsolete, so if you want to convert anyone you have to adapt" as correct.

>Technically they should according to their book
Uh, no. Is this the part of the conversation where you pretend that because you skimmed the Bible and read some basic atheist arguments that you can pretend that you know more than the fucking Pope who doesn't abide by the Old Testament laws in Deuteronomy? C'mon, lets not pretend like you know more about Christian doctrine than actual Catholic scholars.

>le fedora meme
Anyway, the spiritual failure of western secular democracy was not in dismissing Christianity - no religion ever devised has any value beyond providing cultural backbone - but in dismissing Christianity and creating nothing to replace it. That 'something worse' is already here, and our decline is the result of it: societies without cultural cohesion, fragmenting and polarizing themselves over bullshit and wasting their energy on idiotic faux-marxist friction. Sticking with Christianity would not have prevented that because Christianity itself had become another pointless fragmentor and polarizer, but it might have bough us more time. Now there's nothing but to wait and see what happens.

> I have more respect for those hardcore Christians who actually live by the word of the Bible [...]
Nice r/atheism argument faggot. You need to be 18 to post on Veeky Forums you know.

Bible literalism has only been a thing from protestants onward, for a variety of reasons. The catholic church did either forbid or allow parts of the scriptures, not because they felt it fit society more, but because theologians spend pretty much most of their lives trying to learn the actual nature of God and arguing about it. They did not blindly accept the mysteries of the faith, but rather actively tried to comprehend them. Texts that were considered to go against the core of the dogma were banned -declared apocryphal-. The Bible was never "absolutely infallible", but rather "Inspired by the word of God", big difference here. Ultimately, it was written by men.

So yeah, fuck this whole "Your argument is that your holy book is infallible". You have clearly only met protestants, because they are the entire reason the church forbid translating the bible into anything but latin. Not because "muh oppression and control of the people", but because you cannot just read what was curated as the "word of God" and expect to outright understand it without any misinterpretation whatsoever. And also because lost in translation. Priests were theologians, they quite literally dedicated their lives to study the bible and the nature of God, they had a radically different understanding from your grandpa reading Leviticus and telling you being a faggot is wrong.

Try and understand what you are complaining about before tipping your fedora, bible-wavers are fools and zealots that have nothing to do with the mentality of the church.

One is one, holy and apostolic church with task of guiding people to salvation given by one true god, while other is splinter organization made in bid for political power.

Also both of them agree that protestantism is a shit without any aesthetics to it's name.

OH GOOD, NOW WE GET RELIGIOUS POLITICS. FUCK OFF.

>ctrl+f "7th sea"
>no results

fuck off &humanities

I see what you did here.

>Technically they should according to their book. The new testament just adds the "love thy neighbour" thing, everything else is still valid.
Only if old rules comply with new rules, and old rules should be interpreted in spirit of new rule so it always is effective.
So if old law says "kill the fucker" and new says "love neighbor" both of them contradict each other and cause love rule is newer then rule to kill him is derogated.
Lex posterior derogat legi priori, is fucking basic in interpenetrating norms.

This
But it's good for a fantasy world.

Wouldn't someone at the first church realize if it's not gonna play the politics game it will get destroyed by the splinter organization?

>Lex posterior derogat legi priori, is fucking basic in interpenetrating norms.
This is also why Islam is so fucked up, which concerns me.

The Qur'an has new verses overriding old ones though, such as a newer one banning alcohol completely as opposed to only around prayer time.

Things I was taught in a biblical study class at a Baptist university: a true story and comedy routine
>The sun really is billions of years old, but before God said let there be light, it didn't produce any
>The biblical flood was the first time it rained
>Carbon dating isn't not real

Exactly
This is why Islam is fucked up.

What's the predominance of important female figures in monastic life ? I was reading Blaise Pascal's biography and his sister joined some kind of female-only convent. Who even created convents ? I can't seem to think about other religions that have these exclusively female orders, it kinda reminds me of drow priestesses.
Were nuns allowed to be as based as pic related ?

Nuns occupy a very interesting political spot in the church. Technically they're beholden to the male leaders of the church and have no official authority, but they also tend to be the ones to tell the heirarchy to fuck off and get away with it.

I'd say it is fucked due to fucked norms it has established, not because of general interpretation rules, which every normative system uses without becoming clusterfuck.

> I can't seem to think about other religions that have these exclusively female orders

...Buddhists?

> What are the differences between Catholics and Orthodox
Google help you!
> how would you play them in fantasy game?
Two factions of the same religion disagreeing on how exactly they should pray, build temples, and how important each aspect of god is.

>Who even created convents ?

Rich, politically well-connected lords and ladies.

>Sexual abuse also happens in denominations where the priests are allowed to marry. Implying that marriage is some sort of fix to the problem of priestly pedophilia is oversimplifying things at best.
Are you saying pedophilia in church has something to do with being a (christian ?) priest ?

>The difference between a modern protestant, and a modern catholic is small enough to basically ignore
Except it has led to many disastrous wars and even shaped the current geo-political landscape. I was watching a documentary about the Crusades, and it turns out some of the muslim groups (Turkish sunnis, Arab and Persian sunnis, Arab shias) formed alliances with some christian groups (Catholic W Euros, Orthodox Byzantines) against other muslims groups, and vice-versa. It's so much more interesting than having orc baddies VS human/elf goodies.

trips deserve an answer. Early monasticism in Egypt also segregated by gender.

>Western society is abolishing itself. Why should the Church bend over backwards to stay relevant on a sinking ship? I'm more hopeful about the growth of Christianity in China than it ever becoming relevant again in Eurabia.
I completely agree, except the Church sadly doesn't realize this.

What's that ?

They do ?

NO, THE CRUSADES WERE A CHRISTIAN WAR OF AGGRESSION WAGED BY STUPID EUROPEAN POOP FARMERS AS A WAY TO EXPEND THEIR SURPLUS POPULATION AGAINST CULTURED LEARNED MUSLIMS STOP POLLUTING THE NARRATIVE WITH FACTS RRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>interesting discussion about the differences between the orthodox and catholic churches degenerates into a talk about the decline of the west because said churches are losing power
Why do you people always do this? This site's obsession with apocalyptic alarmism is the bane of every single interesting discussion

fuck

>Why do you people always do this? This site's obsession with apocalyptic alarmism is the bane of every single interesting discussion
people have been predicting the end of days and the coming of the antichrist since the 1700s

The targets of abuse in the Catholic church were more than 3/4 male and post-pubescent. The kind of people who perpetuated the abuse are unlikely to be satisfied with a wife (or even one man, monogamy is strange to them and they tend to like em young).