WI: Protestant Russia

[kasumigenx]

Is a Protestant Russia possible? or ASB.

[Jester]

Do you just have some word bank that you randomly pick things from? An adjective here, a country there?

To answer your question, no, not without hugely changing what a "Protestant" is or, for that matter, what "Russia" is.

[jakewilson]

They'd have to become Catholic first, which requires a very early POD. With such an early POD, it's questionable whether there would even be a Reformation or something like it.

[Antipater]

Probably ASB.

Protestantism is really an alien phenomenon to Eastern Orthodox cultures. As much as Orthodox countries have feared/loathed Catholicism, they can have theological dialogue. After all, they accept mostly the same books of the Bible, and they (mostly) accept the great councils up to Chalcedon. They disagree about points like the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Patriarchs, and post-Chalcedon innovations like the filoque.

Protestants, outside of the Anglicans (who basically Catholic Heretics) do not always accept the same Bible as the Orthodox, and many reject some of the basic tenets of Christianity that Catholics and Orthodox agree upon going back to Nicaea. That makes Protestantism rather hard to relate to for the average person raised in an Orthodox culture.

So, no, I do not think that there is any conceivable way that Russia can become Protestant after it converted to Orthodoxy. Even if Sweden somehow conquered Russia, the King would have had to convert to Orthodoxy to be accepted outside of his army encampment.

[Last of the Stuarts]

You would need to have Roman church missionaries in Moscow in large numbers in 988, when Moscow offically converted to Orthadoxy.

Once it is Catholic then you must have the same issues coming up that caused the Northern European counties to protest. However Poland was never in any danger of leaving the church of Rome, neither was Luthuania or the other Baltic states.

My feeling is that if things were bad enough to convert the Russians then the Poles etc. would also convert leaving a North / SOuth devide between Protestant and Catholic.

[Max Sinister]

Would it have to be our Protestantism, or an Orthodox equivalent that thinks that the church has become corrupted and must be reformed?

[thrashing_mad]

Originally Posted by Last of the Stuarts

You would need to have Roman church missionaries in Moscow in large numbers in 988, when Moscow offically converted to Orthadoxy.

Once it is Catholic then you must have the same issues coming up that caused the Northern European counties to protest. However Poland was never in any danger of leaving the church of Rome, neither was Luthuania or the other Baltic states.

My feeling is that if things were bad enough to convert the Russians then the Poles etc. would also convert leaving a North / SOuth devide between Protestant and Catholic.

Sorry to nitpick, but there was no Moscow in 10th century. Also, Estonia, Livonia (minus Wenden) as well as Courland-Semigalia were protestant. Also, with protestantism common among burghers as well as protestant migrants from Germany/Netherlands/Scotland, Poland could have broke off from Rome under right circumstances and kings.

But to get protestant Russia you need really early PoD, which may butterfly away protestantism as we know it.

[Flocculencio]

Originally Posted by Max Sinister

Would it have to be our Protestantism, or an Orthodox equivalent that thinks that the church has become corrupted and must be reformed?

There's actually an OTL historical precedent for that- the church my family are members of; the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. It originated from members of the (Oriental Orthodox) Jacobite Syrian Church who were dissatisfied with certain aspects of theology and practice and embraced some of the principles of the Reformation, breaking off and forming, in essence, a Protestant Orthodox church (which is, in fact co-communicant with the Anglican church). Some went even further and were founding members of the church of South India (an Anglican/Methodist/Presbyterian joint venture which is avowedly Protestant).

Indian Syrian Christians are really good at schisms as this diagram shows.

[I Blame Communism]

A lot of people are raising good points about the difficulties, but I would point out that Protestantism was at one point pretty popular with some (mostly educated types) in what's now Belarus and Ukraine: this is seldom remembered.

Originally Posted by Max Sinister

Would it have to be our Protestantism, or an Orthodox equivalent that thinks that the church has become corrupted and must be reformed?

Well, it's a big stretch, but the schism that gave rise to the Old Believers was caused by a new liturgy partly influenced by Kievan church practice, and Kiev, being in the Commonwealth, had witnessed the Reformation and Counter-Reformation at first hand and been influences by it in its reforms to things like pastoral care. So one could say the Muscovite church became "Reformed" in the 17th century.

[Amedras]

Western Protestantism is ASB, but the *Protestant option looks pretty straightforward.

Have Metropolitan Nikon not get elected Patriarch of Moscow in 1652, but important enough to have a hand in the revision of the service-books. Unless he absolutely dominates the other protopopes, he'll probably wind up anathematized, and the *Raskolniks (following Nikon) argue that the reforms don't go far enough...

[CaliBoy1990]

Originally Posted by kasumigenx

Is a Protestant Russia possible? or ASB.

Darn near impossible, I have to say. A Catholic Russia, on the other hand, isn't all that hard if you have an early enough POD.

[Doctor Imperialism]

Originally Posted by kasumigenx

Is a Protestant Russia possible? or ASB.

You would have to have either a POD before the Great Schism or one hell of a sucessful Sweden.

[MarshalBraginsky]

I'm not sure about a Protestant Russia, but they had an Orthodox version of the Reformation, or rather, it's the separation between contemporary Russian Orthodox Christianity and its Old Rite Orthodox Christianity. The latter's people are actually called Old Believers.

[Firestorm]

Originally Posted by kasumigenx

Is a Protestant Russia possible? or ASB.

Intensify Peter the Great's reform of the Orthodox Church to the point where he essentially rebuilds it as the "Church of Russia" on the model of Anglicanism or Lutheranism.

[Enigmajones]

You'd have to have a Catholic Russia first.

[Iori]

Prevent the Great Schism and keep European Christendom all part of a single Church, then have it slowly become corrupt, screwed up and generally seen as bad and then have a Religious Reformation that uses the term 'Protestant/ism'.

Sure, it would'nt be our protestantism (which itself is so diverse that it may as well just be replaced with the various groups lumped into it),
but it would be the basic idea and the same name.

[mailinutile2]

Not so ASB as it may look at the first glance.
I can imagine Lenin commentring Marx's phrase (religion being the people's opium) with something like "in the doctor's hand, morphine could be used to help the ill".
That would mean to subvert one of OTL lenilist pillars (fighting religion) and substitute it with something on the line of "reforming" it.
And there would be plenty to reform, with the Tsar's image so connected to orthodoxy and at the same time so stained by the 1905 events.
In short I could envision a revolution having, among other aims, the aim to "reform the religion for the masses"

[MAlexMatt]

Originally Posted by Antipater

Protestantism is really an alien phenomenon to Eastern Orthodox cultures.

Besides the Old Believer/Modern Orthodoxy split mentioned by others, another precedent exists in an Orthodox Church that cleaves rather well with protestantism: Iconoclasm.

Medieval Roman Iconoclasm was an important force with a lot in common with future reformation movements, which is why some scholars call it a 'proto-protestantism'. A more successful, or at least longer lasting, iconoclastic struggle could influence a Russia that still adopts Orthodoxy such that you end up with a alt-Russia that mildly resembles some OTL protestant Western European country in religious culture.

[Firestorm]

Originally Posted by mailinutile2

Not so ASB as it may look at the first glance.
I can imagine Lenin commentring Marx's phrase (religion being the people's opium) with something like "in the doctor's hand, morphine could be used to help the ill".
That would mean to subvert one of OTL lenilist pillars (fighting religion) and substitute it with something on the line of "reforming" it.
And there would be plenty to reform, with the Tsar's image so connected to orthodoxy and at the same time so stained by the 1905 events.
In short I could envision a revolution having, among other aims, the aim to "reform the religion for the masses"

I actually discussed something like that with Straha a few days ago. My idea was to have Lenin convert to Calvinism during his stay in Geneva. Calvinism might appeal to the more aesthetic Bolsheviks (teetotalers like Trotsky and vegetarians like Molotov), but I don't see it appealing to the peasant classes. Methodism might be a better fit.

Though if we're going to go into the subject of Christian communism/communalism, one might consider various splinter groups from Orthodoxy that were native to Russia before the revolution: Tolstoyans, Dukhobors (quasi-anabaptists), Subbotniki (Judaizers), Molokans (Presbyterians), Khlysts (Shakers, in terms of worship style), Skoptsy (Shakers, in terms of beliefs on procreation).

[Socrates]

It's unlikely, but I don't see why its ASB for the spirit of the reformation to spread to protest against another church, in the same way as the spirit of the American Revolution against Westminster spread to France against absolute monarchy.