Catholicisation

Catholicisation refers mainly to the conversion of adherents of other religions into Catholicism, and the system of expanding Catholic influence in politics. Catholicisation was a policy of the Holy See through the Papal States, Holy Roman Empire, Habsburg Monarchy, etc. Sometimes this process is referred to as re-Catholicization although in many cases Catholicized people had never been Catholics before.^[1]

History

East–West Schism

Counter-Reformation

Eastern Catholic Churches

The term is also used for the communion of Eastern Christian churches into the Roman Catholic Church; the Eastern Catholic Churches that follow the Byzantine, Alexandrian, Armenian, East Syrian, and West Syrian Rites, as opposed to the Roman Catholic Latin Rite.

By ethnic group

Albanians

All Albanians were Orthodox Christians until the middle of the 13th century when the Ghegs were converted to Catholicism as a mean to resist the Slavs.^[2][3][4]

Serbs

Most Serbs are Eastern Orthodox Christians. Since the many migrations into the Habsburg Monarchy beginning in the 16th century, there has been efforts to Catholicize the community. The Orthodox Eparchy of Marča became the Catholic Eparchy of Križevci after waves of conversion in the 17th and 18th centuries.

See also

• Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
• Inquisition

Christianization by the Papacy

• Christianization of Poland
• Christianization of Bohemia

Further reading

• Marina Caffiero; Lydia G. Cochrane (2012). Forced Baptisms: Histories of Jews, Christians, and Converts in Papal Rome. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25451-0.
• G. J. Cuming (18 December 2008). The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the Faith: Papers read at the Seventh Summer Meeting and the Eighth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-10179-0.
• Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (15 October 2015). Catholic Europe, 1592-1648: Centre and Peripheries. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927272-3.
• The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806: A European Perspective. BRILL. 25 July 2012. ISBN 978-90-04-22872-6.
• Lazo M. Kostić (1981). The Holocaust in the "Independent State of Croatia": An Account Based on German, Italian and Other Sources. Liberty.
• Atlagić, M. (2008). "Katoličenje Srba na Kosovu i Metohiji u XVII vijeku" (PDF). Baština (25): 137–147. (Serbian)

References

1. Peter Hamish Wilson (2009). The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. Harvard University Press. p. 357. ISBN 978-0-674-03634-5.
2. Leften Stavros Stavrianos (January 2000). The Balkans Since 1453. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 498. ISBN 978-1-85065-551-0. Retrieved 17 July 2013. Religious differences also existed before the coming of the Turks. Originally, all Albanians had belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church... Then the Ghegs in the North adopted in order to better resist the pressure of Orthodox Serbs.
3. Hugh Chisholm (1910). Encyclopaedia britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information. Encyclopaedia Britannica. p. 485. Retrieved 18 July 2013. The Roman Catholic Ghegs appear to liave abandoned the Eastern for the Western Church in the middle of the 13th century
4. Ramet, Sabrina P. (1989). Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics. Duke University Press. p. 381. ISBN 0-8223-0891-6. Prior to the Turkish conquest, the ghegs (the chief tribal group in northern Albania) had found in Roman Catholicism a means of resisting the Slavs, and though Albanian Orthodoxy remained important among the tosks (the chief tribal group in southern Albania), ...