Religio Incongruentia

Current Year: 900

Constantine, nor any emperor after him following his example, adopts Christianity as the official religion of Rome, and no Holy Roman Empire ever exists.

The lack of a unified monotheistic religion not only speeds the degeneration of the Roman Empire (resulting in a premature collapse by 460 AD), but after its collapse Christianity does not spread into Europe, leaving many nation-states that would otherwise unify into kingdoms and countries in divided pagan clans in conflict with each other. While forms of pseudo-democracy sometimes develop in these nation-states that eventually develop into more influential kingdoms, there is still widespread use of slavery, human-sacrifice and inter-tribal warfare, often resulting in outright attempts at genocide. European kingdoms never develop into organized feudalistic systems. Influential technological developments including tidal mills, paper, the crossbow, stern-mounted ship rudders, spinning-wheels, glass-making, weaponized gunpowder, the architectural crane and especially the printing press are all severely delayed, and sometimes invented by neighboring powers outside of Europe. Islam and its influence also expand outward beyond the Fertile Crescent. A lack of Catholic scribe monks copying works of antiquity by hand means that many influential tomes on science, politics, religion, philosophy and economics are not trafficked or made available to intellectuals that would otherwise be influenced by them before the eventual invention of the printing press. The disorganized and technologically-stunted peoples of Europe suffer greater losses to nomadic invaders such as the Huns.

Originally fleeing the Persecution in the Roman Empire, many Christian settlers end up moving Eastward, eventually finding receptive audiences to their missionary work. The popularity of Christianity spreads and rapidly becomes a major religion of India, China, Korea and Japan in 4th and 5th centuries, overtaking Shinto and somewhat peacefully coexisting with Hinduism and Buddhism across vaguely-defined cultural borders within individual countries.