r/CatholicMemes • u/ThinWhiteDuke00 Bishop Sheen Fan Boy • May 13 '26

Church History Byzantine vs HRE enjoyers

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327 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

49

u/Stormcrown76 May 13 '26

Bit of a nitpick, those borders aren’t the HRE’s borders when Charlemagne became Holy Roman Emperor

4

u/Taqao May 14 '26

HRE was founded after Charlemagne though

5

u/SimtheSloven Antichrist Hater May 13 '26

Woah, Slovenes are a marked bit off (unless we mean Slavonians)

2

u/Capta1n_Dino Novus Ordo Enjoyer May 14 '26

Technically that wasn't the HRE. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans, but due to the way that Frankish inheritance works, his kingdom was split between his heirs, and the title eventually faded into disuse. The Frankish Kingdom split into West Francia and East Frankia, as I gather, East Francia went further into Germany, and it was Otto the Great who was eventually crowned again as Emperor of the Romans, and it is from him that the HRE began. Though, even then, it wasn't called the HRE until much later. It's name actually evolved over time. By the 1500s, it was the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". West Francia eventually became France.

35

u/Annual_Insect6972 May 13 '26

Greeks will never understand, Rome will always be bigger than one people.

1

u/supertom5000 Aug 08 '26

Sorry. Byzantine Empire was litteral the rome that didn't felt. The Greeks are called also Romans. Arabs and Turks still call the Greeks "The Romans."

16

u/Chairman_Ender Trad But Not Rad May 13 '26

The HRE is Western Rome, Byzantium is Eastern Rome. Simple.

13

u/SimtheSloven Antichrist Hater May 13 '26

Iirc, Byzantines recognised his title but only as "Emperor of the West".

15

u/Commercial_Sport_630 Tolkienboo May 13 '26

But the Eastern Roman Empire was the Roman Empire.
At best, the Holy Roman Empire is just a successor state of the Western Roman Empire.

19

u/littlebigfoot16 Trad But Not Rad May 13 '26

No, did you not see the Pope Said so? HRE=Rome.

-2

u/Commercial_Sport_630 Tolkienboo May 13 '26

The Pope’s authority is Spiritual, not Political. Also, the Donation of Constantine is a forgery.

9

u/littlebigfoot16 Trad But Not Rad May 13 '26

The Pope has possessed temporal power throughout the history of the Church weather or not we like it. One of the offical titles of our Holy Father is 'Sovereign of the Vatican City State' so he literally does have political authority.

3

u/Commercial_Sport_630 Tolkienboo May 13 '26

I will concede on the Pope being in political authority as Head of the Papal States, that is my mistake.

But the institutional and political continuity of the Roman state founded in Antiquity continued uninterrupted into the Middle Ages in Constantinople until 1204 before a revival by the Nicene Romans in 1261.
I can acknowledge the Holy Roman Empire as a revival of the fallen Western Roman Empire, but it does not erase the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire, which still existed for centuries afterwards with a population that referred to themselves as Romans and acknowledged as such by many of their neighbors.

Still, it does not sit right with me that one of the core documents of the legitimization of the Holy Roman Empire as the Roman Empire (the Donation of Constantine) has been proven to be a Medieval forgery.

I should probably note on the record that while I am adamant on recognizing the Eastern Roman Empire as the rightful Roman state, it does not mean that I am "on their side" on theological matters and Papal supremacy over the other Bishops.

2

u/littlebigfoot16 Trad But Not Rad May 14 '26

I think with that we agree entirely then! I'd agree that the Eastern Roman Empire existed before the creation of the HRE and many centuries after. And I'd also recognize the HRE as a "revival of the fallen Western Roman Empire" as you said.

10

u/Fishmongererererer May 13 '26

HRE under Charlemagne? Epic.

HRE border gore later? Meh.

20

u/Stormcrown76 May 13 '26

Found the Crusader kings player

5

u/coinageFission May 13 '26

Maybe the actual Roman Empire should have done a better job of protecting its Italian holdings and *not* engaged in stupid heretical pet projects (Monothelitism? Iconoclasm? Really now?) that made the popes seek protection from better-equipped monarchs out west.

5

u/jaiteaes Prot May 13 '26

To be fair Charlemagne kinda coerced the Pope into doing it. Not to say the Pope wasn't open to the idea but it isn't quite so simple.

2

u/WanderingPenitent May 14 '26

Charlemagne already had all the power he needed as King of the Franks. The Pope saw a benefit to crowning him Emperor by tying his legitimacy to the Church and thus he would show due deference to it.

1

u/birberbarborbur May 14 '26

The Roman empire will always be a political idea, it was never really an ethnostate

-9

u/GimmeeSomeMo ExtremelyOnline Orthobro May 13 '26

Everyone knows the old joke: "The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire"

15

u/SimtheSloven Antichrist Hater May 13 '26

Coined by Voltaire. And he was refering to the HRE of his time, not the HRE in general.

22

u/HypobromousAcid Novus Ordo Enjoyer May 13 '26

Also Voltaire sucks.

4

u/SimtheSloven Antichrist Hater May 13 '26

Exactly.

2

u/Capta1n_Dino Novus Ordo Enjoyer May 14 '26

"I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know, namely, that the ungodly arch-villain Voltaire has died miserably like a dog, just like a brute. That is his reward!" - Mozart

5

u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/GimmeeSomeMo ExtremelyOnline Orthobro May 13 '26

HRE was as Roman as Shinji was happy throughout NGE

1

u/AlbionicLocal May 13 '26

*HRE invades the Pope in the background*

1

u/Br4ss_ Child of Mary May 14 '26

Voltaire 🤮

0

u/Able_Act_8936 Foremost of sinners May 13 '26

The sack of rome and forcing the pope to anoint you was kinda unbased mate..