What if Hungarians adopted an autocephalus Orthodox Church?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Instead of loyalty to the Papacy. The southeastern edge of the HRE is also the southeastern edge of Western Catholic Christianity, and Eastern-style Orthodoxy extends up to the Carpathians.

What are the long-term effects?
 
Hungary, before its conversion, already recieved much influence from HRE and Italy : it's worth noting that for being acknowledged as king, he asked for support from the emperor and/or the pope, and that his son was re-established by them.

Eventually, it was more structurally dependent from Latin Christian entities than Byzantium.

You'd then need to have enough butterflies to deal with that, making Hungarians less favoured by Imperials and more close to Byzantium, including geographically.

So, it may be a bit of cheat, but what about having Magyars fixing themselves in Carpathian/Danubian region instead of Pannonia, either by their first settlement, or by being pushed back by HRE?

If you really want an Orthodox Hungary, as with understood in the limits of IOTL, that's going to be far more tricky. It's possible, but I wonder how much it would be akin to Rus' church. I would bet more on a mixed Hungarian church, using Greek rites but eventually swithing its obediance to Rome (as a modern Greek Catholic Church) quickly enough.
Let's say Samuel Aba keeps firm on the Hungarian throne, and decide to swith to Greek rites to differenciate himself from Peter.

But you'd definitely need to screw up the HRE to prevent him to intervene and reduce Samuel to obedience (and, eventually, to reduce him in small bloody pieces)
 
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raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
So an Orthodox Hungary could survive if it's located in OTL Transylvania or Wallachia or Bulgaria, but not if it is located in Pannonia? Any orthdox state is toast west of the Danube?
 
So an Orthodox Hungary could survive if it's located in OTL Transylvania or Wallachia or Bulgaria, but not if it is located in Pannonia? Any orthdox state is toast west of the Danube?
Great Moravia for a while played with ortodox church. However Roman church predominate and ortodox priest were exiled to for example today Bulgaria. If Great Moravia stayed orthodox there may be slght posibility Hungarians will adopt too.
 
The reason Hungary didnt and up orthodox is simple: at the time the ruler of Hungary (Geza) decided to convert to cristianity (the late 900s) the Byzantine Empire was strong and a treat - so Hungary joined the other camp and ended up catholic. There were chances to change this later but they werent taken.

But at that time parts of Hungary were already orthodox (Transylvania) and there were orthodox monastries in the country. Some of the tribal leaders converted to ortodoxy for example Ajtony - one of Istvans main enemies. St Istvan was the first king of Hungary and a catholic.

Some of the later kings of the house Arpad had strong ties to orthodoxy. Bela III was raised in Byzantium and at a point was the heir of the Byzantine throne. The hungarian crown is unified from 2 parts and one of them is greek.

But its important to note that there were a lot of civil wars in Hungary in this era and a lot of ruler changes. Most of the time there were 2 claimants - one supported by the west (germans) and the other by the greeks and as i said they changed pretty frequently. This changed after 1204 for obvious reasons.

So i dont think that hungarian conversion to orthodox religion would have been impossible. The effects are more interesting. Stronger ties with Byzantium. At a point an independent patriarchate - latest after 1204. Maybe the ruler of Hungary wouldnt be called king.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
interesting that Hungary was more HRE influenced than ERE influenced, because you'd figure that the ERE is downstream along the Danube and so a more natural trading partner.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Maybe the ruler of Hungary wouldnt be called king.

I wonder what the alternate title would be, and what the liturgical language would be? Does this lead to a modern Hungarian language heavily influenced by old church slavonic and a history of being ruled by Tsars or Emperors?
 
interesting that Hungary was more HRE influenced than ERE influenced, because you'd figure that the ERE is downstream along the Danube and so a more natural trading partner.

I have read in regard of trade: Till the 13th century Hungary was the western perifery of the world defined by Constantinople and Kiev. Then Constantinople fell to the crusaders and Kiev fell to the mongols and Hungary became the eastern perifery of western Europe.

So you are right - before the 13th century the main trade partners of Hungary were the byzantines and Kiev. After that this changed. As i said in my earlier post in this tread 1204 was a huge change for Hungary.

I wonder what the alternate title would be, and what the liturgical language would be? Does this lead to a modern Hungarian language heavily influenced by old church slavonic and a history of being ruled by Tsars or Emperors?

It depends on just that: do hungarians adopt slavic liturgy or do they get a hungarian translation?
1. if they use slavic liturgy than Hungary might end up becoming slavic - like the bulgarians did. Actually seeing the estimated numbers of hungarians when they conquered the Carpathian basin its a good question why they did not. One more huge factor that strengthens the slavic influences and you might have one more slavic nation today. In this case the title would be tsar - not right away but one of the rulers would take it at some point and than it would remain.

2. if you end up up with a hungarian liturgic language than you might end up with a hungarian version of the title. Today that would be 'császár' but as archaic hungarian was vastly different and this version of the word seems pretty new to me i dont know.

3. they might use greek as well... no idea of the effects of this. If they start with this i think sooner or later they would translate it to hungarian.

I dont know what decides what the liturgical language becomes. Like i said there were some among the early elit who converted to orthodoxy before the rulers decided to convert to catholicism but i have no idea what liturgy they used.
 
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