Unlike the Eastern and Western Dioceses, which consist of many secular states, the Central Diocese of the Church of God has only one state—the Papal States, whose heart is located in Talo, the former capital of the ancient Talo Empire.
In the 5th century AD, the Cisalpine Empire was constantly harassed by northern barbarian tribes and was eventually destroyed. Its former territory fell into a state of no man, and the Cisalpine people were wantonly enslaved and slaughtered by the barbarians. At this critical juncture, the Church of the Father gradually transformed from a religious force into a political force.
They organized the defeated legions and fleeing civilians, occupied the castle to resist the invasion; dispatched a mission of monks to the Eastern Tyre Empire to request reinforcements; mobilized many fearless clergy to go to the barbarian army to preach and spread their teachings, and successfully converted a large number of enemies to the Father God's Church.
In that turbulent and strife-ridden era, the Church of God became a pioneer and leader in spreading the gospel and resisting foreign enemies.
In the 6th century of the Catholic calendar, the war, which had lasted for nearly a century, gradually came to an end. The barbarians, defeated by both the Church and secular forces, retreated back to the north. Only three military forces remained on the original territory of the Western Terro Empire: barbarian kingdoms that had converted to the Church of the Father occupied the western region; the old Western Terro army and people, led by the Church of the Father, occupied the central region; and the Eastern Terro Empire's army and its church—the Orthodox Church—occupied the western region.
In the early 7th century AD, the Church of the Fathers re-established an emperor on the site of Tello, the former imperial capital, aiming to recreate the glory of Citadel. The Orthodox Church, however, argued that the bloodline of Citadel was broken and refused to recognize the new emperor's legitimacy. This led to the most serious conflict between the two churches since their separation.
The Orthodox Church of East Tyro no longer recognized the Church of Heaven as having a papal status equal to its own. In turn, the Church of Heaven unilaterally excommunicated the Emperor of the East Tyro Empire. The two churches, once united in spirit, thus embarked on a path of complete rupture.
In the 8th century of the Catholic calendar, the Church of God used land and wealth as bait to unite the western converted barbarian kingdoms and wage a series of territorial disputes, struggles for believers, and ideological battles with the Orthodox Church entrenched in the east, ultimately regaining large swathes of parishes.
As the Eastern powers gradually retreated, the Church of Heaven, on the one hand, fulfilled its promise to the Western Kingdom, ceding some land and delivering valuables; on the other hand, it used diplomatic means and political strategies to divide, provoke, and instigate the Western Kingdom, plunging it into a long period of division and war.
At the end of the 8th and beginning of the 9th century in the Catholic calendar, the Pope of the Father Church crowned the secular emperor of the Papal States as "the great emperor entrusted by God to rule the Tyro Empire." This move completely placed the two sects in a state of irreconcilable conflict and also proclaimed the formal establishment of the "Papal States."
Unlike emperors in the East who could interfere in church affairs, the secular emperors of the Papal States had no right to interfere with the church; they were only responsible for managing secular affairs. The power to mobilize troops and appoint or dismiss personnel belonged entirely to the Pope of the Church of God, who could even directly dismiss a secular emperor by excommunicating him. Therefore, in the Papal States, the Pope was the true monarch.
However, this good fortune did not last long.
From the 10th century onwards, the prestige of the Papal States declined due to a series of events. The most famous of these was the rise of several women from the noble families of Thales, who seized power in the Papacy by becoming the Pope's mistresses; their sons, and their sons' sons, were all proclaimed Popes. This period, from 903 to 963 AD, is known as the "Pornocracy."
During this period, the reputation of the Church of God suffered a great blow, the power of the Orthodox Church began to rise, the Western Kingdoms gained some breathing room, and the war gradually came to an end.
In the mid-11th century, the Reformed Church gradually gained a foothold within the Church of God and launched a decades-long reform movement that revitalized increasingly corrupt church morality, opposed secular control of divine authority, and opposed the buying and selling of clergy. This movement greatly enhanced the prestige of the Church and the Pope.
This movement also marked the resurgence of the Church of God and the further strengthening of the Pope's secular power.
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Time flies, and it has come to May 25th, 1170 AD...
The Cardinals' Council, located in Târó, the capital of the Papal States.
"Lord Abel, you seem to be in a good mood." The young man in the black deacon's robe sat on the metasequoia wood chair by the fireplace in the cardinal's hall, leaning against the cashmere cushion, and looked at the sixty-year-old man in the cardinal's robe at the head of the desk, and said with a smile.
Only the two of them were in the room. The old man made no attempt to hide his emotions, looking at the manuscript in his hand while lightly slapping the table and laughing heartily: "Tristan, it's all because of these things you gave me! This little fellow, Todd! He's absolutely hilarious!"
The man called Tristan closed his book, nodded in agreement, and said, "The troubles in the east have taken up too much of our energy. I never expected that a guy like this would emerge in the west."
“Manufacturing equipment to refine silver, rehabilitating alchemy at the trial, and the crystal artifact that’s been making headlines recently…” Abel scratched the back of his ear with his knuckles, shook his head and laughed, “The little guy is only fifteen years old, and he’s already causing such a ruckus. No wonder even His Holiness the Pope has mentioned him several times.”
"However, there are two things we should thank him for. One is alchemy, because of his performance at the trial, those in the Vatican who were originally strongly opposed to alchemy have softened their stance; the other is the crystal relic, because it was thanks to the relic he sent with ancient Tero script that we did not fall behind in the 'origin debate' with the 'Orthodox Church'."
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