Great Schism of 1615

The Great Schism of 1615, also known as the Great Schism, the Caphiric Schism, and the Great Occidental Schism, was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1615 to 2017 in which the Caphiric Catholic Church broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. The schism was the culmination of theological and political differences developed during the preceding centuries between the wider Catholic community and Caphiria and the Imperators who sought to take advantage of the emerging Protestant Revolt in the early 16th century. These events were part of the wider Occidental Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity in the Occidental world.

During the late 15th century, the relationship between the Imperators of Caphiria and the papal authority began to decline. The Church became dependent on the tithes and prestige of the Caphiric Church, mainly as it dealt with The Anarchy. The power dynamic began to shift in Caphiria's favor, who took advantage of ecclesiastical division and the Pope's focus on crushing Protestantism to increase imperial authority. On 11 December 1615, Pius XII took the title pontifex maximus by acclimation of Caphirian bishops and formally broke communion with the Catholic Church.

This schism would last over 400 years until 2017, when the Eight Points Agreement was signed by the Imperator and Pope, facilitating the restoration of full communion and the preservation of the Caphiric church's autonomy and spiritual patrimony. The Agreement also formally erected the Caphiric Church as a particular church within Catholicism with its own canon law set and unique liturgical rite.

Oath of Allegiance
With the Great Confessional War in Levantia intensifying, the sitting Imperator, XXX, began to leverage Caphiria's increasingly important position in the Church for additional concessions. The Imperator again petitioned the Pope - now temporarily displaced from Urceopolis - for the right of, stating that "in this time of heresy and war...the allegiance of the clerics of the republic to the authority of the state...is absolutely vital." sent a diplomatic but forceful rejection of this request in 1557, leading to a flurry of letters between the and Patriarch of Venceia which set the Church on the verge of schism. In 1559, Paul IV died and was replaced by, an experienced diplomat. While the Levantine war raged, Pius viewed religious unity in Sarpedon as his top diplomatic priority, and in early 1560 he proposed a compromise option which would require all clerics in Caphiria to swear an oath of allegiance to the Imperator. This compromise suited both parties and was formally issued at the end of summer, 1560. While the compromise had the practical effect of retaining Caphiria within the Catholic Church at a moment of significant weakness for the Papacy, it had the practical effect of entrenching the Imperator at the top of the moral hierarchy within the country. Scholars are divided on its lasting impact on the coming Great Schism, with the traditional position being that priests were already more loyal to Venceia than Urceopolis by 1615. Modern scholarship has suggested that the oath of allegiance had no practical effect on the decision of individual priests and bishops to follow Venceia or Urceopolis following the schism, with underlying political and social concerns for each individual man playing a greater role according to their own letters and journals.