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| The Christian Empire: When Jesus Had His Own Country |
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| In my humble opinion, one reason why Christianity has suffered so in recent years is due to the lack of a safe and established "home base" as it were. People once described the western and near eastern world as "The Mohammedan World" and "Christendom". Sadly, while the Mohammedan world remains in tact (though perverted beyond what it was under the Sultans) Christendom has vanished from the globe. It would be hard to say exactly when the Christian Empire started and ended but God has almost always had a nation which was His religion's primary guardian on earth. In the Old Testament this was Israel, after the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine there was at least the begining of a Christian Empire, but the old Rome was not destined to last much longer. In 800 AD history was made when Pope St Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans. The new Holy Roman Empire had been born although most of its life would be left to the German half of Charlemagne's dominion following the death of the great Christian monarch. To be sure, relations between the Pope and the Kaiser were not always cozy but it was the Church that always prevailed. The Kaiser derived his authority from God only through the Church but the Pope recieved his authority from God directly through the succession of Peter. At the height of Christendom, during the reign of His Holiness Pope Innocent III, virtually all of Europe was united in the Christian Faith under the guidance of kings and the Holy Roman Emperor who all answered to the Pope. The Empire was instrumental in guarding the Church from such things as the Muslim invasion, providing leadership in the Crusades and generally a safe haven for the Papal States. |
| Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans |
| Today it would be hard to even comprehend a country in which the entire society was based on Christianity, Papal authority and the Divine Rights of Kings. However, the Holy Roman Empire was no centralized autocracy, despite what the enemies of traditional monarchy may say. The princes were like autonomous rulers, the Emperor had authority only in the areas of defense and foreign relations, in addition to having the Pope as a moral policeman and check against absolutism. Most day to day authority was done on the local level and included a diverse group of leaders, military, noble and religious. The feudal system was at its height during the early period of the Empire. Today people are critical of feudalism because it forced the serfs to work for a lord indefinitely, yet without the protection of the lord the serf would probably not have survived at all. The Holy Roman Empire established by Charlemagne brought Western Europe out of the Dark Arges and into the great era of the High Middle Ages. All Christians were united by one Faith with one spiritual ruler (the Pope) and one temporal ruler (the Kaiser). Since the Pope had crowned Charlemagne and successive Holy Roman Emperors the people also knew that their own king was not the ultimate authority but that God and the Church with their moral truth, were at the heart of their civilization. Despite many attacks by foreign powers it was an internal problem that proved most damaging to the Holy Roman Empire: the Protestant Revolt. Luther was harbored by princes wishing to have more power and to not have to submit themsleves to the moral authority of Rome. Divisions arose and Catholics and Protestants became locked in ideological as well as physical combat. Fortunately, there arose the great Hapsburg ruler Emperor Charles V. Despite having what seemed to be the entire world arrayed against him, and faced with self-serving rulers on every side, Charles V managed to fight the Protestants to a draw, and defeated the Turkish invasion. Without his imperial leadership Christendom would likely have died then and there. The next great enemy to arise was the liberalism of the so-called "Age of Reason". Nationalism replaced devotion to the Church and spelled doom for a body like the Empire, which was made up of many autonomous countries with diverse cultures. The French Revolution destroyed the traditional monarchy in France, the tragic Queen Marie Antoinette was in fact the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Christians were persecuted, royalists were murdered in the streets and even the |
| Pope himself was arrested. As Napoleon marched across Europe he spread the liberal ideas of revolutionary France. By crowning himself Emperor he tried to make himself the most powerful man in Europe. It also meant that the Holy Roman Emperor had to go. After his victory at Austerlitz he forced Kaiser Franz II to give up his crown and the Holy Roman Empire officially came to an end. Yet, the Church and the Austrian House of Hapsburg survived long after Napoleon had gone the way of the dodo. The Austrian Kaiser would continue to be the first defender of the Church and the independence of the Papal States. But, nationalism only grew stronger and the defeat of World War I brought about the downfall of traditional God-based monarchies in Germany, Russia and even Austria, despite the leadership of the Blessed Kaiser Karl I. With the Papal States already gone the Church had lost her special protector on earth. The traditional Church as well as the traditional monarchies would come under increasing attack in the future. |
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| The last Holy Roman Emperor, Kaiser Franz II |
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| Music is "Gott Erhalte Unser Kaiser" |