Italy Megacampaign: Part 11: 1574: Great Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem

Emperor Ferdinando I Boromeo convened Great Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem, which was attended by representatives of churches of nearly all the Christian countries. Catholic moral authority was gone, and former Catholic countries were looking for fresh guidance.

Orthodox and Reformed delegation were both very persuasive.

Countries friendly to Italy like Spain, Poland/Lithuania, and Switzerland declared their allegiance to the Orthodoxy. So did Genoa, while it was very hostile to Italy, it was ruling mostly Orthodox population. Poland/Lithuania was allowed to form the Commonwealth even without owning Gdansk.

Delegations from the HRE were very worried about religious leagues. Almost all of Europe declared for Catholic or Reformed side, and whoever would win, the result would be utter devastation of Germany.

With Catholic cause gone, Reformed side decided not to push their luck, and agreed to religious peace. Emperor Charles of Burgundy accepted Reformed faith, as did most Catholic rulers whose peasants were largely following it anyway. Hussite king of Bohemia stopped fighting Reformed populace and switched too.

Denmark/Norway, controlling birthplace of the Protestant movement, declared itself Protestant. Strangely Sweden, which used to be Protestant, and in fact the only significant Protestant country so far, did not follow. It was recently overran by Reformed zealots, and it didn't want another civil war. That does not bode well for Danish-Swedish relations.

Then France declared for Protestantism as well. Having just lost a province to newly Orthodox Spain, and never fully accepting the now-Reformed Burgundy's presence in its lands, it decided to go third way. Its HRE allies Palatinate and Cleves followed.

In even more shocking development, queen Margaret of Scotland declared herself head of the British Church. English magnates, dismayed by state of their country, repeatedly overran by rebels and Frenchmen for decades now, forced English king Edward to abdicate in favor of his son, who'd marry her, thus creating union of Great Britain.

Somehow she even managed to convince her ally French king Henri to return devastated South England to her, in exchange for support for his claim to throne of Provence. France claimed Provence many times before, and it was ruled by Henri's cousin Jean, so there wasn't too much opposition to this. Emperor Charles of Burgundy managed to negotiate release of Provence's HRE territories of Lorraine and Bar, but French held Savoie was just officially abandoned by the HRE. This settled French-HRE border claims, and nobody took duke Jean's side.

In diet in Frankfurt soon after council of Jerusalem, further HRE reforms followed. In an absolutely shocking display of unity, HRE princelings agreed to three internal reforms at once, going as far as disallowing internal HRE wars! The HRE would still be elective, but Burgundy's dominant position would be difficult to challenge. All Reformed, Protestant, and Orthodox theocracies secularized and became hereditary imperial duchies.

Some countries remained stubbornly loyal to the pope in Upper Gelders. Kongo and exiled Portugal never even made it to the council. The Irish just enjoyed being difficult. And Naples could definitely see where this new world order was heading, and refused to accept it.

Neither of the two Coptic OPMs had much interest in those European affairs. Somehow Kaffa in Ethiopian mountains became Protestant a while ago.

And for the final matter, to avoid the Orthodox Church turning into an imperial puppet, due to imperial control over all 5 patriarchal seats, it was agreed that Egyptian coastline including Alexandria will become duchy of Egypt, and Palestinian coastline including Antioch and Jerusalem will become duchy of Jerusalem.

Those will initially be marches under protection of emperor of Rome, at least until the infidels are defeated. Their precise future borders and conditions for their eventual independence as Christian kingdoms were not fully specified, but they should more or less follow areas of Egyptian and Syrian cultures.

In exchange for renouncing direct control of the Holy Lands, and for emperor's support for French, Scottish, and HRE plans, Spain, Commonwealth, France/Provence, Scotland/England, Burgundy, and all HRE members except Pope of Upper Gulders agreed to fully withdraw all objections to past Roman expansion.

The heathens, as well as Hungary, Naples, and Genoa, understandably agreed to no such thing.

Coding all that took far too much time. I don't plan to do this often, but I'll probably have to do one round before tag switch, and then another before export to Vic2 (or maybe even MotE).

Notable changes include formation of Commonwealth, and Great Britain, and release of Egypt and Jerusalem. French PU over Provence will probably last required 50 years just fine.

I scripted it so all Catholic peasants just autoswitched, but no other religious minorities would.

That's 28 Reformed, 25 Orthodox, 9 Protestant, 7 Catholic, 2 Coptic, 2 Anglican, and 0 Hussite countries.

Western borders of the HRE are now settled (unless the Dutch revolt).

Italian claim on South Tirol, and claims with Denmark and Commonwealth were not settled.

Electors of Palatinate and Cleves are Protestant, the rest are all Reformed.

AE map now that all Western European issues are solved. Those two HRE OPMs in Hungarian coalition will leave on the next tick.