The Writing of Church History

A study group was considering starting Epic; is much of Church History written from a Latin perspective triumphalistic or ultramontane, or a version of Whiggism, resulting in more of a history of the Western Patriarchate, with the non-western churches an afterthought?

A Catholic version of Whiggism, in so far as Catholicism is equated with European civilization and its material advances are attributed in some way to the Catholic faith. Intellectual advances in science and knowledge may originally have been due to the mingling of the Christian focus on the Logos and Greek rationalism. But I am thinking more of the rise of the nation-states and empires - do we want to impute this "success" to the supposed Christian faith of those nation- and empire-builders?

We may not want to go so far as to embrace the ideology of those who declaim the appearance of the Constantinian Church, but what Church history would not incorporate an analysis of Church-state relations (not just in the former Western Roman Empire, but in the Eastern as well), making some sort of normative judgment on what existed? (I think the Church can be an effective means of localism, but has it ever been able to bring that about in the political sphere, apart from some sort of collapse?)

As for the non-Western churches, is it too early to reconsider their histories as part of that of the Church as a whole, as if their apparent separation from the Bishop of Rome was that, only apparent? Do we need a formal restoration of communion going beyond acts of doctrinal agreement first? In the past those non-Western churches not currently in full communion were viewed as heretical and schismatic and treated as such in works of Church history. But is it not only charitable but historically accurate to see the tragic separation as a result of [linguistic] misunderstanding and hardening due to a lack of proper fraternity charity and ill feeling because of other events?

Church history potentially can be more unified than generic world history, as it is centered on Christ and His Church. But can we rightly look forward to histories being written reflecting the diversity of the local Churches, a proper multiculturalism because it is grounded in Christ and the live that He gives to us?