The Coup that Split Europe

A Review of Laurent Guyénot's The Papal Curse

Alexander Markovics reviews Laurent Guyénot’s The Papal Curse: The Medieval Origins of the European Syndrome, recently released by Arktos.

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How and when did Europe, instead of a single empire, begin to fragment into numerous nation-states? How and when did Europe’s aggressive expansion abroad in the name of human rights imperialism begin? How and when did Europeans’ hatred of their ancestors, history, and roots begin?

According to the French historian Laurent Guyénot, the origins of this predicament lie in the Gregorian Reforms and the Pope’s quest for secular dominion in Rome. This was based on a forged document known as the Donation of Constantine, which declared the Pope the de facto ruler of the western part of the Roman Empire.

According to Guyénot, it was Pope Gregory VII’s reforms in the 11^th century that led to the papacy suddenly becoming a major power on the continent. Until then, the papacy had exerted influence only over parts of Italy, but thanks to its vast network of thousands of monasteries, it was now a power capable of standing up not only to the kings of England and France, but also to the Holy Roman Emperor. This prevented the seemingly logical unification of Europe under German leadership.

However, the papacy’s plan to establish a universal monarchy could not be realized either. Instead, the European kingdoms developed their own nation-states, defying Rome’s claim to power. This prevented the unity of Europe, leading not only to centuries of war, but also to the religious division of Europe with the Reformation.

The French historian views the Pope’s “Holy Wars” in Palestine and the Islamic world as a “fool’s crusade”, since they not only united Muslims — who were already divided between Sunnis and Shiites at the time — to fight against Europe, but also led to the corruption of the Christian faith through crusading ideology in the West. Rather than allowing Europe to develop naturally, its finest warriors were sacrificed in the Middle East for a project built on sand in order to satisfy the Pope’s imperial ambitions.

According to Guyénot, this imperial overreach continues to this day to form the basis for Western wars of aggression, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran, a fact underscored by the “crusader spirit” of aggressive Western universalists such as US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

From a spiritual perspective, The Papal Curse characterizes the development of the Western Church under the popes as a coup by monks against the Church itself. Practices such as celibacy, the pope’s oppressive dominance over all bishops, and the Catholic Church’s detachment from the world are not found in the Orthodox Church of the East. However, following the monks’ coup in the West, these practices became guiding principles of the faith.

While the Orthodox Church venerates warriors and scholars as saints and embodies an organic church of all believers, the reforms in the West established the dominance of priests, especially monks, over the rest of the faithful, who thus became second-class Christians in effect. These reforms ultimately led to the massacre of Greek co-believers during the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), sealing the schism of the Church and leading to a break with tradition in the West. The cult of ancestors, tolerated or celebrated in the Orthodox Church, was condemned by Rome, cutting Europeans off from their own tradition.

In his book, Laurent Guyénot offers a compelling analysis of Europe’s intellectual and religious misconceptions. Of particular interest is his proposed solution, which draws an analogy with China’s Confucianism: he advocates a return to Europe’s pagan-Stoic roots, as well as a reconciliation with the Orthodox Church, in order to lift the “Papal Curse.”

This important book, written in a concise style and brimming with relevant references, is highly recommended to anyone who is concerned with Europe’s religious challenges and wishes to restore our civilization’s sovereignty.

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READ MORE: Alexander Markovics’s The Rise of the New Right is now available from Arktos: