DBQ: Why the fuck is the Nahua majority religion Orthodox Christian?

[Ellis MacVey]

Okay, so pardon me for being an ignorant New Englander, but history and culture and stuff are kind of a new interest for me, so I didn't really pay attention to these things until recently. I was aware that the Nahua were mostly Christian and had been since sometime around the 18th century, and they had an entire fucking revolution over it cos their Nahuatl priest class didn't exactly treat Christians kindly, but I didn't really know what denomination was the most common until I looked at the First Nahua Republic's NetCyclopedia (OOC: Wikipedia but with a shittier name) page for an Alternate History project I was working on.

I was honestly really surprised that they're almost entirely Eastern Orthodox. I was also surprised that there's about 0.3% of the population that still follows the Nahuatl religion cos my history class led me to think it'd completely died out, but that at least sort of makes sense. What doesn't is why the Nahua are Orthodox. I mean, it's literally the Eastern Orthodox Church! Almost all the other countries that follow it are in Eastern Europe and none of the others have access to the Atlantic Ocean except through the Baltics or the Mediterranean.

Someone please explain this to me. I am very confused.

OOC: This is one of the wackiest Double-Blind Scenarios I've ever come up with tbh, but I thought it might be pretty cool even if it's incredibly unlikely. Keep in mind that I don't really want any ASB type shit, your answers can be as crazy as you like but they should be within the realm of probability and shouldn't just be trolling/shitposts. Also, if you don't know what a Nahua is, I'm talking about the Aztecs, they just didn't call themselves that so it doesn't make sense to call them that in this timeline.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Pretty clearly from Norse contacts, half their churches are named after Baltic Orthodox saints

 

[casaubon]

In addition to what Mad Bad Rabbit said, I assume that being sandwiched between muslim Alarbia to the south and catholic Saint-Richard to the north meant being orthodox presented a way to receive the protection of not being pagan whilst not formally picking a side in the religious conflict.

 

[Ellis MacVey]

In addition to what Mad Bad Rabbit said, I assume that being sandwiched between muslim Alarbia to the south and catholic Saint-Richard to the north meant being orthodox presented a way to receive the protection of not being pagan whilst not formally picking a side in the religious conflict.

Yeah but didn't Christianity mostly grow from the bottom up in Nahua? While I can see the political savvy, I don't really think your average Nahua peasant really had preventing religious conflicts in mind when they converted to Christianity.

 

[cmakk1012]

It was due to trade contacts with the Norse Caribbean, as I understand it. Just because Norse political power in the New World has never been very strong or visible doesn’t mean that their economic power hasn’t been; back in the 16-17th centuries their sugar cane plantations in Ny Uppsala and Eyjaland* were worth an absolute fortune, and those rich merchants sold their wares at Campoala** just as much as they did in Europe or even Nouvelle-Paris***. The difference was that the Nahua were eager for contacts that weren’t seeking to conquer them and the militarily weak Norse fit that bill. The first church in Campoala was literally built by Jute traders that wintered there, as I understand it.

OOC: *Trinidad, Tobago, and the Grenadines
**Native settlement closest to Veracruz
***Galveston

 

[Ellis MacVey]

It was due to trade contacts with the Norse Caribbean, as I understand it. Just because Norse political power in the New World has never been very strong or visible doesn’t mean that their economic power hasn’t been; back in the 16-17th centuries their sugar cane plantations in Ny Uppsala and Eyjaland* were worth an absolute fortune, and those rich merchants sold their wares at Campoala** just as much as they did in Europe or even Nouvelle-Paris***. The difference was that the Nahua were eager for contacts that weren’t seeking to conquer them and the militarily weak Norse fit that bill. The first church in Campoala was literally built by Jute traders that wintered there, as I understand it.

OOC: *Trinidad, Tobago, and the Grenadines
**Native settlement closest to Veracruz
***Galveston

Ooh! I didn't know that! The only thing I really knew about the Norse in the New World* was the stuff we learned in school about Leif Erikson and Vinland** (even though those were Catholic Norsemen, not Orthodox Norsemen), but that's incredibly interesting. Are there any other major cultural influences the Norse have had on the Nahua? Also vice versa - for one, I'll assume that the Nahua are responsible for the stereotype of Norse people being obsessed with chocolate?

OOC:
*I'm avoiding the continent names cos in this timeline I doubt they'd be known as the Americas
**It's up to you whether Vinland survived in some form or not but either way it was never incredibly successful because that'd contradict what you said earlier and it'd also cause a few too many butterflies a bit too early on, but either way it is better known than in OTL.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Ooh! I didn't know that! The only thing I really knew about the Norse in the New World* was the stuff we learned in school about Leif Erikson and Vinland** (even though those were Catholic Norsemen, not Orthodox Norsemen), but that's incredibly interesting. Are there any other major cultural influences the Norse have had on the Nahua? Also vice versa - for one, I'll assume that the Nahua are responsible for the stereotype of Norse people being obsessed with chocolate?

Most grade school curriculum skirts over a lot of NW history to avoid dealing with issues like thralldom.

 

[Ellis MacVey]

Most grade school curriculum skirts over a lot of NW history to avoid dealing with issues like thralldom.

Ah yes, the ever present looming shadow of the Arab-Atlantic Thrall trade. Why can't people just acknowledge that they did bad things and maybe we should do some things to address the lingering issues caused by those bad things?

 

[pattersonautobody]

First: What's your source for this?
Second: If you are speaking of the group I think you are speaking of, 30,000 Old Catholic central Americans converted en masse to Orthodoxy, specifically to the OCA (the American "autocephylus" church). They do not have many priests, but this is true also of the Roman Catholics (there is something like 1 priest for every 3,000 or 30,000 people, I forget how many zeros.) This happened fairly recently, a few decades ago at most. Being that most Balts are not Orthodox, neither are the dutch, nor the Scandinavians, I think some of the speculations above really miss the mark (presuming we are talking about the same people.)

So, in short, people who did not have a priest changed jurisdictions to someone who would send them some sort of priest. As far as I am aware, most of their priests are foreigners even still, which speaks of incomplete catechesis. We had a local priest here that "went to Mexico" for six weeks every year to serve liturgy. I have no idea if he was catering to the same group of people, but he was an OCA priest.

If you provide sources, I can give you a better answer.

 

[Ellis MacVey]

First: What's your source for this?
Second: If you are speaking of the group I think you are speaking of, 30,000 Old Catholic central Americans converted en masse to Orthodoxy, specifically to the OCA (the American "autocephylus" church). They do not have many priests, but this is true also of the Roman Catholics (there is something like 1 priest for every 3,000 or 30,000 people, I forget how many zeros.) This happened fairly recently, a few decades ago at most. Being that most Balts are not Orthodox, neither are the dutch, nor the Scandinavians, I think some of the speculations above really miss the mark (presuming we are talking about the same people.)

So, in short, people who did not have a priest changed jurisdictions to someone who would send them some sort of priest. As far as I am aware, most of their priests are foreigners even still, which speaks of incomplete catechesis. We had a local priest here that "went to Mexico" for six weeks every year to serve liturgy. I have no idea if he was catering to the same group of people, but he was an OCA priest.

If you provide sources, I can give you a better answer.

OOC: This is a double-blind scenario.

 

[pattersonautobody]

OOC: This is a double-blind scenario.

too many acronyms sorry

 

[pattersonautobody]

Okay, so pardon me for being an ignorant New Englander, but history and culture and stuff are kind of a new interest for me, so I didn't really pay attention to these things until recently. I was aware that the Nahua were mostly Christian and had been since sometime around the 18th century, and they had an entire fucking revolution over it cos their Nahuatl priest class didn't exactly treat Christians kindly, but I didn't really know what denomination was the most common until I looked at the First Nahua Republic's NetCyclopedia (OOC: Wikipedia but with a shittier name) page for an Alternate History project I was working on.

I was honestly really surprised that they're almost entirely Eastern Orthodox. I was also surprised that there's about 0.3% of the population that still follows the Nahuatl religion cos my history class led me to think it'd completely died out, but that at least sort of makes sense. What doesn't is why the Nahua are Orthodox. I mean, it's literally the Eastern Orthodox Church! Almost all the other countries that follow it are in Eastern Europe and none of the others have access to the Atlantic Ocean except through the Baltics or the Mediterranean.

Someone please explain this to me. I am very confused.

OOC: This is one of the wackiest Double-Blind Scenarios I've ever come up with tbh, but I thought it might be pretty cool even if it's incredibly unlikely. Keep in mind that I don't really want any ASB type shit, your answers can be as crazy as you like but they should be within the realm of probability and shouldn't just be trolling/shitposts. Also, if you don't know what a Nahua is, I'm talking about the Aztecs, they just didn't call themselves that so it doesn't make sense to call them that in this timeline.

The answer to your question is simple and obvious.

The Nahua minority had practically zero Roman Catholic priests even though they were almost all Roman Catholic since the 1500s. After Vatican I, their Bishop was a loon and had substantial education in the Netherlands and went Old Catholic. Recently, 90 percent of their parishes converted to Eastern Orthodoxy simply due to the promise they'd send more priests and they were not making their own Old Catholic priests. From what I can tell, the OCA has done a terrible job actually living up to the promise, so the state of catechesis is poor and they are Orthodox in all but name.

 

[Anubid]

The answer to your question is simple and obvious.

The Nahua minority had practically zero Roman Catholic priests even though they were almost all Roman Catholic since the 1500s. After Vatican I, their Bishop was a loon and had substantial education in the Netherlands and went Old Catholic. Recently, 90 percent of their parishes converted to Eastern Orthodoxy simply due to the promise they'd send more priests and they were not making their own Old Catholic priests. From what I can tell, the OCA has done a terrible job actually living up to the promise, so the state of catechesis is poor and they are Orthodox in all but name.

Sorry, can you explain to me what the OCA is? You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Karamanid Antiochian archdiocese of Nouvelle-Flandre would you?

 

[pattersonautobody]

Sorry, can you explain to me what the OCA is? You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Karamanid Antiochian archdiocese of Nouvelle-Flandre would you?

No, OCA is the "American Orthodox Church." All the others are under the jurisdiction of an autocephalys church, like Russia, Bulgaria, Constantinople, etc. The world's churches don't recognize the OCA and consider them part of the Russian Church.