Stub page. Core concept and founding logic are the author's own worldbuilding (not proposed by GPT — see Thaer's "Post-Yawning blocs" section for the full provenance breakdown). Called "the Orthodox Union" in the original 2023-07-29 session; "Orthodox Empire" is the name actually used on the live Empire Map, kept here as the primary name with the earlier one as an alias. Capital, named leadership, and internal politics are deliberately left open.
Orthodox Empire
- Theopire
- Orthodox Empire
- Core
- Russia, spanning from Europe clear across Siberia
- Real extension
- Ethiopia — Oriental Orthodox, theologically distinct from Russia's Eastern/Byzantine tradition since the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD); grouped here for lack of a dedicated bloc, not treated as identical
- Note
- Russia alone spans too much longitude for one hemisphere view without heavy distortion — hence Moscow- and Siberia-centered views here rather than one
One of the four Post-Yawning theological empires. After 1705, the Eastern Orthodox Church transformed from a religious institution into a full political-military Empire of constituent kingdoms, the same structural shift that produced the Catholic Union.
Core territory (per the Thaer Empire Map): the Tsardom of Muscovy (Russia) at its full extent including Siberia, plus Orthodox-population territories under Ottoman rule in the Balkans and the Caucasus (Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia).
Open
- No capital, named ruler, or internal court structure yet.
- Greek/Russian tension, unaddressed. Flagged in conversation (2026-08-10, not yet written up anywhere else): real Eastern Orthodoxy has a genuine, centuries-old tension between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (historically "first among equals") and the Moscow Patriarchate's rising claim to leadership — especially live in this exact period, since Peter the Great was already curtailing the Russian church's independence on the way to abolishing the Moscow Patriarchate outright in 1721 (replacing it with a state-controlled Holy Synod). By 1705, Greek/Constantinople and Russian/Moscow are genuinely the only two Orthodox centers of real size — Georgian Orthodoxy is real and fully autocephalous but small, and Serbian/Bulgarian churches still had their own semi-autonomous Patriarchate/Archbishopric at this exact date (not abolished until 1766/1767) but read as an extension of the Greek pole, not a third one. Worth deciding whether the Post-Yawning consolidation papers over the Greek/Russian tension or inherits it as an internal fault line.
- Relationship between the "Empire" framing here and the reality that its real-world territory spans two very different political traditions (Muscovite autocracy vs. Balkan populations under someone else's administration) — not yet reconciled.
- Armenia doesn't actually belong here theologically. The Armenian Apostolic Church is Oriental Orthodox, out of communion with Chalcedonian (Greek/Russian-style) Orthodoxy since 451 AD — a genuinely separate Christian tradition, not a member of the Greek/Russian rivalry above. It's bucketed under this bloc on the Empire Map for the "Christian population under Muslim rule" pattern it shares with the Balkans, not because it's part of the same church.
Related
- Thaer — full Post-Yawning blocs breakdown and sourcing. #thaer #fantasy #dnd