Eparkhos
Well-known member
Preface: Why North Africa?
During the time of Saint Augustine, North Africa was one of the great centers of Christianity, hundreds of bishoprics prospering despite frequent conflicts between fractured sects. Yet by 1200 the last churches in North Africa were circling the drain, their congregations staggered and almost non-existent, and by the present day--despite centuries of rule by Christian states intent on converting the local populace--Christianity is almost non-existent. This is quite strange, but it might just be explained away as an effect of Muslim conquest and persecution if it weren’t for the surviving Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. These communities survived persecutions just as great as, if not greater than, those that beset the Christians of North Africa, and persist to the present day. If they were able to survive, why not the North Africans?
The answer is monks, or the lack thereof.
In the Christian communities of the Middle East, there were a great number of monasteries and monks, and with their lives devoted to religious study and apologia they were able to maintain the structure needed for the churches of the region to survive even while under Muslim rule. The monks were able to preserve the teachings and ideas of their churches, ensuring that their surrounding parishes did not decay into heresy and thence into complete apostasy. Apologists such as Saint John of Damascus and Eliya bar Moqli wrote defenses of Christian thought that helped maintain continuity of belief and provide a counter-argument to the dominant Muslims beliefs. On occasion, they were even able to engage in theological debate with Muslim scholars, and existing Nestorian sources show that they even won some of them. Because of these and many other activities, the monks shepherded their communities through persecutions and allowed them to survive bodily and religiously. Further supporting the correlation between monastic communities and the survival of Christianity was the distribution of monasteries in the Medieval Middle East. The centers of monasticism in the region were Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Iraq, and communities in these regions--with the exception of Turkey with its Greek and Armenian genocides and Iraq with its Timurid and Safavid-era effective genocides--are by far the strongest extant communities in the Islamic world.
In North Africa, meanwhile, there was a grand total of one monastery despite there being four hundred bishoprics by 430. This sole monastery was abandoned by the time of Muslim conquest, and without any existing Christian narratives or apologetics the region’s peoples converted in droves, the final native churches dying out by 1200. This was exacerbated by many other problems, of course, such as the split between Roman and Berber Christian groups and the incessant conflict between the Chalcedonians and the Donatists which further weakened the community in the region. Indeed, conflict between the Chalcedonians and Donastists may have been almost as impactful on the decline of Chrisitnaity in the region as the dearth of apologists.
All of this leads me to ask: What if there had been monasteries in North Africa? I am certain there would be a much larger Christian community in the region, but the theological and social ramifications of a surviving monastic tradition in North Africa would be immense. As such, I intend to create a timeline centered on the monks of North Africa, focusing primarily on the social and spiritual fate of the locals and its impact on church history, albeit while delving somewhat into the politics of the period. But this will not be the main focus, as what I really want to explore is the ramification of these monasteries prospering in the most realistic manner possible. The content will likely be….dry….by alternate history standards, but I invite everyone who reads this to follow along and I hope not to disappoint.
During the time of Saint Augustine, North Africa was one of the great centers of Christianity, hundreds of bishoprics prospering despite frequent conflicts between fractured sects. Yet by 1200 the last churches in North Africa were circling the drain, their congregations staggered and almost non-existent, and by the present day--despite centuries of rule by Christian states intent on converting the local populace--Christianity is almost non-existent. This is quite strange, but it might just be explained away as an effect of Muslim conquest and persecution if it weren’t for the surviving Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. These communities survived persecutions just as great as, if not greater than, those that beset the Christians of North Africa, and persist to the present day. If they were able to survive, why not the North Africans?
The answer is monks, or the lack thereof.
In the Christian communities of the Middle East, there were a great number of monasteries and monks, and with their lives devoted to religious study and apologia they were able to maintain the structure needed for the churches of the region to survive even while under Muslim rule. The monks were able to preserve the teachings and ideas of their churches, ensuring that their surrounding parishes did not decay into heresy and thence into complete apostasy. Apologists such as Saint John of Damascus and Eliya bar Moqli wrote defenses of Christian thought that helped maintain continuity of belief and provide a counter-argument to the dominant Muslims beliefs. On occasion, they were even able to engage in theological debate with Muslim scholars, and existing Nestorian sources show that they even won some of them. Because of these and many other activities, the monks shepherded their communities through persecutions and allowed them to survive bodily and religiously. Further supporting the correlation between monastic communities and the survival of Christianity was the distribution of monasteries in the Medieval Middle East. The centers of monasticism in the region were Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Iraq, and communities in these regions--with the exception of Turkey with its Greek and Armenian genocides and Iraq with its Timurid and Safavid-era effective genocides--are by far the strongest extant communities in the Islamic world.
In North Africa, meanwhile, there was a grand total of one monastery despite there being four hundred bishoprics by 430. This sole monastery was abandoned by the time of Muslim conquest, and without any existing Christian narratives or apologetics the region’s peoples converted in droves, the final native churches dying out by 1200. This was exacerbated by many other problems, of course, such as the split between Roman and Berber Christian groups and the incessant conflict between the Chalcedonians and the Donatists which further weakened the community in the region. Indeed, conflict between the Chalcedonians and Donastists may have been almost as impactful on the decline of Chrisitnaity in the region as the dearth of apologists.
All of this leads me to ask: What if there had been monasteries in North Africa? I am certain there would be a much larger Christian community in the region, but the theological and social ramifications of a surviving monastic tradition in North Africa would be immense. As such, I intend to create a timeline centered on the monks of North Africa, focusing primarily on the social and spiritual fate of the locals and its impact on church history, albeit while delving somewhat into the politics of the period. But this will not be the main focus, as what I really want to explore is the ramification of these monasteries prospering in the most realistic manner possible. The content will likely be….dry….by alternate history standards, but I invite everyone who reads this to follow along and I hope not to disappoint.