Eastern Orthodox Poland?

[Valdemar II]

Like others here, I see Great Moravia as the best possibility.

If "Hungary" TTL is somewhere in Romania or Crimea or simply not Catholic, and there's a Orthodox power in central Europe, Poland doesn't have to cooperate with the Germans nearly as much.

Finally, West Slavic missionaries to the Polabians could have allowed for a better bulwark against German expansion east, leaving orthodox Poland in a better position vis. the Catholic west.

I doubt it, it will only put them in a worse situation, it wasn't like being Othodox saved the Ruthenian or Transsylvanian Romanians from dominance. Polands primary problem are low population density and inferior farming methods. In OTL the Poles catholism allowed them to invite German settlers to settle low and unpopulated areas. to create a strong taxbase While this may have seemed to have backfired in the long term, it didn't it allowed the Poles to adopt the superior farming methods of the Germans and settle Poles farther east in Ruthenian areas creating a large state, if the Poles was Othodox the only difference would be that the Poles would have been in the Ruthenians position and the Germans would have taken the position of Poles.

 

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Isettle Poles farther east in Ruthenian areas creating a large state

Er, no.

This resulted from:

1. Mongols demolishing the strength of Southern Rus.
2. PAGAN Lithuania taking over Rus principalities as a result of 1.
3. Lithuania merging with Poland dynastically and leaving behind its native religion to do it.
4. The Polish crown taking the Galician principality from the Lithuanian half of the realm administratively as a result of 3.
5. Polish landlords settling in around pre-exisitng towns as a result of 4.

Not much to do with any kind of agricultural osmosis.