The Most Important Battle For Christianit

I have another candidate for this, though I agree with the importance of the battles you all listed. How about the Persian campaign of Julian the Apostate? If he hadn't lost his life in it, he may have conceivably turned the tide against christianity, and led to a resurgence of paganism (which was still dominant anyway). This may have pushed back indeterminately the adoption of christianity as the official religion of the empire, with all the consequences which that entails. That being said, the whole series of wars between the Byzantines and the Sassanids during the reign of Heraclius, is very important, as it weakened both the Romans and the Persians enough at a critical time for Islam, to allow the muslim Arabs to conquer large parts of the first empire and anihilate the second, and establish them as a major threat to christianity for the next thousand years.

I think you are missing the point. My point was that in 711 the Moors invaded Spain with little more than a raiding party and took the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. Why is it then so hard to conjecture that it is possible (not probable) that the Moorish forces could have penetrated into France and possibly beyond?

Originally posted by King John I think you are missing the point. My point was that in 711 the Moors invaded Spain with little more than a raiding party and took the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. Why is it then so hard to conjecture that it is possible (not probable) that the Moorish forces could have penetrated into France and possibly beyond?

It is hard to think that a raiding party could take such a strong kingdom that was united. As Decebal has pointed out, the Frankish civlization is not the same as the Moorish civilization.

I would agree that the second siege of Vienna and the Battle of Lepanto were probably the two most crucial battles fought between Islam and Christendom for control of Europe and the Mediterranean. If the Ottoman navy had been successful at Lepanto Islam would have control all sea faring trade which would have restricted and limited the European economy to the point of chaos.

It's not the only rival, Christianity made war on Pagans too. However the battles that are being discussed here are battles for domination of a geographical area i.e. battles for the Iberian Peninsula, battle to keep the Moors from coming into France. There are many people on this thread who don't see these battles as important as earlier battles like that of the MIlvian Bridge (fought between a Christian general and later Emperor and other Pagan claimants).

I don't know if someone has already mentioned this or not since I did not bother to read all the posts, but the most important battle for Christianity:

 

 

If you want to look at recent history, although Islam still plays a part in it, there is the on-going war between Christianity and the Marxist/communists in the Soviet Union and China. Also included in that would be the Marxists in Cuba, and Central and South America which threaten us more economically than militarily. The on-going battles with the Soviet Union have been limited to indirect combat for the most part in places like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the middle east, sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and South America. With China our only direct combat with them was in Korea, although they supposedly sent some troops into Vietnam.

The most important battle for Christianity was the siege of Constantinopol in year 716.The great city was besieged by 200,000 fanatic arab army.The arab conquest of Europe had 2 directions-from North Africa and Spain and through Asia minor and Constantinopol.The heaviest blow of the muslims was exactly at Constantinopol.The muslim zealots were led by their famous general Maslama.The byzantines were shocked to see so many soldiers at the gates of their capital.So the emperor sent an emissary to the bulgarian khan Tervel for help.The khan was clever enough to see the enormous danger from the arabs.So he led the slavonic infantry batallions and the fearsome bulgarian cavalry to help the Christian Empire.In an epic battle at the gates of Constantinopol he crushed the main arab forces.By that time bulgarians had the best horsemen in the world.With just a single terrifying cavalry attack they killed over 30,000 arab soldiers forcing them to lift the siege.One arab historian wrote that the muslim soldiers were scared by 3 things-the sea, the wrath of their general and the bulgarians.After the battle the byzantine emperor gave the bulgarian khan the title "Kessar".

I agree with Tours. From what I understand, the Battle of Tours was a decisive battle that stopped Islam from spreading further than Spain. I've also heard, however, that the Byzantine Empire was important in keeping Islam out of Eastern Europe for many years. The Ottoman Turk Empire, which took over the Byzantines did, after all, invade Eastern Europe later...

Edited by Slick - 20-Jan-2007 at 04:38

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the battle of the Yarmouk river.  All the other battles mentioned deal with what ifs and what might have happened... but the results of this battle were very real indeed.Syria, Palestine, Egypt and in the long run North Africa became parts of the Arab Chaliphate owing to that battle.Up until that time they were all a major part of the Christian world.