AHC: Catholic Ukraine

No East-West schism. Byzantium conquers the Crimea, collapses, and a successor state is set up as a Catholic Black Sea thassalocracy before uniting local Russian states during the collapse of Kievan Rus'. Or something of the like.
 
That, or a Poland-Lithuania-wank that conquers the Ukraine and "catholicizes" it.

So, they conquer territory they already hold, and proceed to do what they were already doing. Gotchya.

Allow me to state--if the Commonwealth can handle the whole situation much, MUCH better than they did, then the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church might be a bit more prominent.
 
So, they conquer territory they already hold, and proceed to do what they were already doing. Gotchya.

Allow me to state--if the Commonwealth can handle the whole situation much, MUCH better than they did, then the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church might be a bit more prominent.

How would they go about handling it "much, much better than they did"? As in, what does that mean doing (or not doing)?
 
Well, let's see. If they can avoid alienating this guy so he doesn't do this they might have a chance. This means choosing their favorites in the region more carefully, and not treating the Ukrainians so shabbily--also, the Polish government being more cohesive is almost certainly a must.

Basically--stronger, smarter leadership from Poland.
 
How would they go about handling it "much, much better than they did"? As in, what does that mean doing (or not doing)?

One POD possible is if the creation of the Greek Catholic Church is unanimous among the Commonwealth orthodox clergy and nobility.

And you have no real opposition to it from influential orthodox hierarchy as the bishops of Przemysl or Lwow, and support from wealthy and influential noblemen as the Ostrogski family to the orthodox faith...

If the ruling class of the Commonwealth adopted the greek-catholic faith unanimously, the peasants will have no choice but to follow. Only the Cossacks living on the Frontier of the Wild Fields will stay with the orthodox faith, but quickly their orthodox leaders will need to be replaced...

In this TL, you have at least a greek-catholic western Ukraine, to the Dniepr...
 
So, they conquer territory they already hold, and proceed to do what they were already doing. Gotchya.

Allow me to state--if the Commonwealth can handle the whole situation much, MUCH better than they did, then the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church might be a bit more prominent.

Alright, so the history of the Ukraine is not my specialty (I thought the area to have been under Russian control). No reason to be a condescending bastard.
 
Well, let's see. If they can avoid alienating this guy so he doesn't do this they might have a chance. This means choosing their favorites in the region more carefully, and not treating the Ukrainians so shabbily--also, the Polish government being more cohesive is almost certainly a must.

Basically--stronger, smarter leadership from Poland.

Yes, but this guy happened to drain about a third of Poland's population at about the same time. A good PoD might have to avert the First and the Second Northern War.
 
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