As you all know, Poland is a protestant-majorty country since reformation. So I have a challenge: make Poland Catholic-Majorty with POD from 1475 without ASB.
DBAHC: Catholic-Majorty Poland
- Thread starter Tales Weaver
- Start date
Perhaps if the Teutonic Order had been dismantled, becoming Protestant Archduchy of Prussia. Thus the Poles would remain Catholic in opposition to the Prussians.
So, how do you think would a Catholic Poland-Lithuania have handled it's Ruthenian (OOC: OTL Belarus/Ukraine) holdings, then?
After the Crimean Khanate was defeated, perhaps a Catholic Poland would recruit Catholic Magyars to settle the region.
I'm not sure this is possible. Unitarianism is so tied to the Polish identity that it truly seems as if there is something in the Polish national character that was drawn to the faith. A timeline where they remain Catholic; at the height of the Northern Renaissance to boot, just seems - well, if not ASB, then truly unlikely!
Some have theorized that Polish Unitarianism began decades before the Protestant Reformation, when several thousand Lipka Tatars converted to Christianity, and henceforth spread their ideas of a one-natured God.
The big issue is that Poland is pretty far from the largest Catholic nations. Even before the Reformation places like France, Spain, Italy and so on barely interacted with Poland while the Orthodox majority nations in the East were the bigger trading partners. That plus a large Jewish minority made Poland a lot more open minded in terms of religious orthodoxy. When the Reformation rolled around you had a large number of nobles and serfs alike that had already been used to questioning the infallibility of the Church. Not to mention the Nobles at least were rather put out over being made to listen to a far off Pope working through local priests who seemed to be getting fat off the land. They embraced the Reformation for the same reason a lot of the North and East of Europe did, they had a lot more in common with Martin Luther as well as each other than they did with the Pope in Rome who was almost always from places like Italy, Spain or France. The only real way to combat that would be to organize a large effort from the Church to basically make an effort to be culturally sensitive. A tall order for the day.
If Poland were Catholic, would Bohemia still be Hussite, or would Bohemia be re-Catholicized by the Holy Roman Empire?
I'd imagine a Catholic Poland-Lithuania would find it harder to hold on to it's Ruthenian territories.
Catholic poland will be a strong backer of vatican. Bohemia would be surrounded by bavaria, italy, austria, and catholic poland. It would be re-catholicized.
Simple: Sigismund August doesn't introduce his National Church Act which put Poland at odds with Rome, led to the schism, then anti-Rome lutheran and calvinist heretics gaining control of the National Church, final separation from Rome and following national councils progressively watering down doctrine and liturgy to the point we are now "God maybe exists, commandments are merely suggestions, and everyone goes to Heaven, no problem"
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