belief systems they can hold empires together or they can break Empires up faster than a professional eater can pound a hot dog so I reckon we ought to talk about Christianity Islam and some other religious blending that occur during the Golden Age of the land-based Empire and so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it so recall from the last couple of videos that we've been considering how land-based Empires expanded and maintained power from 1450 to 1750 expanding militaries played a big role as did expanding bureaucracies but here we'll consider how belief systems or religions both supported Imperial power and challenged it so first let's visit our friends in Europe and talk about their dominant religion namely Christianity now Christianity have been the dominant belief system in Europe since the 4th century and it was present even before that time and as such it became a kind of shared cultural glue among most Europeans and even though Europe wasn't much more significant than a hill of bean since this course started the church was present and active in most States before I tell you what changed let me just mention that if you need help getting an A in your class and a five on your exam in May the get that clicky finger out and check out my AP World heimler review guide in the description it's got exclusive unit review videos no guides to follow along practice questions full length practice exams answer keys and an AI heimler bot that will make all your dreams come true so if you need help studying have a look okay now in the 11th century a bunch of the big wig church leaders got to fighting over doctrines and a massive split occurred creating two different branches of Christianity on one side you had the Eastern Orthodox Church which remained dominant in the East and on the other side you had the Roman Catholic Church which remained dominant in the west it was dirty as only religious disputes can be but thankfully it was the last time a major split occurred in the Christian church oh I'm getting wor that there was in fact another dirty split in the church and wouldn't you know it had occurred during our time period and to understand this split you need to know a little bit about what the Catholic church was up to during that time so by 1500 the Catholic Church wielded enormous power in Europe even though this is about the time when more powerful monarchs will begin challenging that power even so the church was filthy rich and got busy building magnificent structures like St Peter's Basilica in Rome to put that wealth and power on display but as you may or may not know basilicas do not pay for themselves and so in order to fund all these building projects the church began the sale of indulgences and essentially that meant that people could purchase these little slips of paper which promised the Forgiveness of sins or got your dead uncle Cletus a shorter time in purgatory and then add that to several other Corrupt Practices going on things like simony which was the practice of putting High Church positions up for sale and the people's confidence in the church was uh waning and that's when our boy Martin Luther enters the stage he himself was a Catholic monk who spent his days you know monking and studying the Bible and that's when Luther became very troubl he saw nothing in the Bible that said that sins could be forgiven in exchange for money and he saw nothing in the Bible that said Church offices could be bought so Luther wrote a series of complaints known as the 95 thesis denouncing many of the Corrupt Practices and doctrines he witnessed in the church and he went ahead and nailed them to the church dor in vitberg and not surprisingly the church branded Luther a heretic and excommunicated him but here's the thing Luther wasn't the first reformer to criticize the doctrines and practices of the church but for some reason it was Luther's work that split the church once again in a process known as the Protestant Reformation so why did Luther's work create such a big stir while previous reformers complaints did not well Luther adds something that those other reformers didn't namely the printing press which enabled Luther's voluminous writings to spread throughout Europe quick fast and in a hurry now credit where credit is due eventually the Catholic Church came around and realized that you maybe some of the Protestant critiques might be yeah true so they went ahead and initiated a Reformation of their own that became known as the Catholic Reformation or you might hear it called The Counter Reformation it's the same thing don't get confused anyway the church gathered at a series of meetings known as the Council of Trent and tossed out many of the Corrupt Practices that I mentioned earlier so that represented a good bit of change but there was also continuity as well at the council of Trent the Catholics reaffirmed their ancient doctrines of salvation by faith and works the nature of biblical Authority and a host of other ideas that made the split between the Catholics and the Protestants complete and just for funsies they went ahead and reaffirmed that Martin Luther was a heretical tur and so this split in the church had massive effects on state power throughout Europe various rulers across Europe either remained Catholic or imposed protestantism on the people that they ruled this religious division which often also intensified political division led to a series of religious wars in Europe until 1648 okay now let's turn the corner and consider what was happening with Islam in the Middle East now remember that the Big Daddy Islamic empires in this area were the Ottoman Empire here and the savit Empire here and if you thought they looked at each other and we're like are you guys Muslim yeah how about you actually we are well then let's hug it out then you would be wrong now just like in Christianity Islam experienced a significant split back in the 7th century and basically their beef was over who was the rightful successor to the prophet Muhammad sheia Muslims believe that the only legitimate successor had to be a blood relative of Muhammad while Sunni Muslims believed that it could be anyone who was spiritually qualified for the role anyway that religious division was on full display in the safavid and Ottoman Empire the safavids were Shia while the Ottomans were Sunni and they emphatically did not hug it out instead both Empires wanted to beat back the other and claim territory for their own and ultimately the Ottomans got the upper hand in this conflict but here's the important point to remember it was because of their political rivalry that the split between the Shia and the Sunni branches of Islam intensified okay now let's talk about the development of new belief systems over in South Asia now remember that basically since the beginning of this course Muslims held power over this region and that Arrangement was a little stanky to to the huge majority of Hindus that made up the population but in our time period two belief systems emerged that tried to bridge the gap between Islam and Hinduism first was the bakti movement which originated in the 7th century and recall that it was an innovation on Hinduism that emphasized mystical experience in Union with one of hinduism's many gods however during this period because the bakis shared many similar beliefs and practices with the mystical movement in Islam namely Sufism some exchange and blending occurred second was the rise of sism which was a new belief system that also Blended elements of Islam and Hinduism now seism demonstrated uity because it held on to significant doctrines of both belief systems like a belief in one God and the cycle of death and reincarnation but it also demonstrated change because as this new Faith developed many distinctions were discarded like the cast system and gender hierarchies Okay click here to keep reviewing for unit 3 and click here to grab my AP World hler review guide which has everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May thanks for hanging out with me and I'll catch you on the flipflop I'm lout