How long can Lithuania stay Pagan?

Not much more than OTL, I think.

Between the appearance of Lithuania and its definitive christianisation, you have little more than a century.

Christianisation was an absolute necessity for what we would call today a "diplomatic recognition" : before that Lithuanians weren't considered better as a more largely band of raiders (admittedly, the regulars raids in Russia didn't helped much) and even before Dubysa Treaty, many Lithuanian nobles were already Christians (including in the "ducal" family).

Being politically and diplomatically isolated, if Lithuania maintained its paganism it would have been overrun at some time, being seen as a land to take, Teutonic-style (arguably, one of the things that saved Lithuania were the conflicts between Western and Eastern realms, and the Mongols Invasions)

And, finally, you have a big dilemma : surviving Pagan Lithuania have to mean powerful and expanding Lithuania. But expanding would mean as well conquering territories inhabited by a Christian population...that would have somewhat hastened the conversion.

No really, Lithuania was too isolated in first place to keep Paganism as main religion.
 
It depends on the pod. With the right pod you can get Lithuania to survive as pagan for a really long time up until the present. But Lithuania cant stand alone in a sea of christan nations so the scenario would recuire surving pagan kingdoms in Scandinavia or Prussia or for that matter both. A different mongolic conquest could do it the mongols did not care what religions their subjects had so Lithunia as a Ally or subject to the mongols could do the trick.
 
A different mongolic conquest could do it the mongols did not care what religions their subjects had so Lithunia as a Ally or subject to the mongols could do the trick.

I don't think so : OTL, Mongols and Lithuanians were basically neighbors, and Lithuanians didn't really befriend them, but raided and conquered bordering lands.
And would Mongols had conquered Lithuania, it would have more probably removed Paganism his official support and allowed the surrounding areas (and the peoples already Christianize within Lithuania) to convert most of Lithuanians.
 

katchen

Banned
It is extremely difficult during that period of time for pagan religions to survive (except in uncontacted parts of Africa, the Americas and Austronesia) without being converted to either Christianity or Islam or being subsumed or finding a place beside the Buddhist or Hindu religious traditions, anywhere in the world. And this is true even now OTL, where in Africa and New Guinea, people are giving up traditional practices for either Islam or Christianity.
For Lithuania, the best chance for pagan religion to survive would be for Ogadei Khan to send Oirats, who are already Vajrayana Buddhists instead of Khalkas, who are pagans who later, under Birkai Khan, convert to Islam, to conquer the West under Batu Khan and Subotai (which would make an excellent TL BTW). This would introduce Vajrayana Buddhism to Russia as serious competition to Orthdox Christianity and make it possible for pagan religions from Lithuanian and Estonian and Finnish religion even to Asatru to survive subsumed as part of Buddhism. It might mean a whole new set of religious wars and crusades though, between Christian Europe and Buddhist Europe. But it would be more of an even fight, because pagan-Buddhist Europe woud have in Vajrayana Buddhism, something to unify them and something to fight for against the Christians and actually might be able to militarily and culturally hold their own at some point, territorially ITTL. The 1300s and 1400s is the time in which the Dalai Lama is establishing himself as the spiritual leader of Golugpa Vajrayana Buddhism with the help of the Altan Khan of the Oirats, so this would make for a very interesting struggle if Vajrayana Buddhism had devotees all the way west to the Baltic Sea and perhaps the Vistula or Oder River and Gulf of Bothnia. ITTL.
 
One thought. If she stays Pagan another century or so, might Lithuania then adopt Protestantism instead of Catholicism?
 
Perhaps if some King unified the Lithuanians 400 years early, then reformed their Romuva Faith like in CK2.
 
For Lithuania, the best chance for pagan religion to survive would be for Ogadei Khan to send Oirats, who are already Vajrayana Buddhists instead of Khalkas, who are pagans who later, under Birkai Khan, convert to Islam, to conquer the West under Batu Khan and Subotai (which would make an excellent TL BTW).

As vasp said, Mongols didn't showed a great missionary enthusiasm, not really caring about religion except if it was a drive against them.
It was due to some factors as a really simple diplomatic policy (that you can summarize as "Bow or Die" and even Muslim Mongols (that should have a more important conversion drive) had many Christians vassals without searching to convert them.

The problem isn't to have Buddhists among the invaders, you had OTL among the Blue Horde or even to have the leaders of the Horde being such (Ögedei Khan, however, is indicated as a follower of traditional Mongol rites and more being the usual almost syncretist ruler rather than Buddhist).
It is to have Mongols having an interest to use a religious policy that is most likely to divide themselves and to unite their vassals against them.

I can't find a good example of religious conversion made by Mongols (it would most likely be the contrary) and I wonder if a Khanate spawning on more Christian lands than OTL couldn't have ended using a very original (and heretical) version of Christianism.

One thought. If she stays Pagan another century or so, might Lithuania then adopt Protestantism instead of Catholicism?
It would have meant no Poland-Lithuanian union, and having a likely war against Teutonic Order in a far less good position : I wonder how much it would butterfly Torun Peace.
Assuming all the consequences didn't prevent the surviving of Lithuania as independent...It's possible, but as much as Catholicism or Orthodoxy. (If they focus as OTL on the Polish alliance, Catholicism seems still more likely)

Perhaps if some King unified the Lithuanians 400 years early, then reformed their Romuva Faith like in CK2.
And this king would have married the daughter of the viking kingdom of England, his dynasty managing eventually to become the pagan rulers of HRE. Before the conversion to EUIV allowed them to conquer the Aztec Empire, of course. :D

It's not because CKII implemented "reformed pagan" in order to make Pagans look less miserable compared to other religions that it could have been plausible.

Now your idea of uniting Lithuania and/or neighboring Baltic people is a good one : but in the IX, there isn't much incitative to do so.
No powerful neighbor, Carolingians, Byzantines or Khazars are too far to be an influencing factor (as they were for respectively Western Slavs, Balkanic Slavs, Russians statelets)...A Baltic leader could have managed that, but I don't see why his dominion would have effectively lasted after his death.

Baltic people uniting themselves, not against western pressure, but Rus' could be more easily reachable and less isolated with the presence of pagan neighbors (Pomeranians, some Scandinavians).
However, these having little contacts and being largely distinct paganism, I honestly don't see how it could durably resolve the OTL issues : if something, the conversion of Lithuania could have been more easily hastened than delayed.

No Teutonic Order could do the trick, but I wonder if they couldn't have been replaced by Christian Scandinavians.
 
Or you could just butterfly away christianity. :rolleyes:

Wait, an unification PoD, in X, butterflying away Christianity in Eastern Europe? Does it involves time travel? Cause without that, it's going to be hard.

There's no realistic possibility that, despite possibly appearing in a computer game, Lithuanians would have a motivation to durably unite without a threatening neighbour. And seeing how much threatening neighbors were Christianized...

So, unless you explain how it could happen, how it could butterfly away Christianisation of Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, Hungary, etc, I think we can reasonably say "ASB" here. Possibly without "You can do it in Crusader Kings".
 
Wait, an unification PoD, in X, butterflying away Christianity in Eastern Europe? Does it involves time travel? Cause without that, it's going to be hard.

There's no realistic possibility that, despite possibly appearing in a computer game, Lithuanians would have a motivation to durably unite without a threatening neighbour. And seeing how much threatening neighbors were Christianized...

So, unless you explain how it could happen, how it could butterfly away Christianisation of Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, Hungary, etc, I think we can reasonably say "ASB" here. Possibly without "You can do it in Crusader Kings".
I meant butterfly away Jesus Christ.
 
I meant butterfly away Jesus Christ.

Okay : seeing how "pagan" is a christian concept, serving essentially to distinguish the non-monotheist rites they were confronted to, I think butterflying Jesus would result in many things, such as butterflying away "paganism".

Also everything happening after the IV century in Europe, including Lithuania as a state (that formed, OTL, in the XII)
 
For Lithuania, the best chance for pagan religion to survive would be for Ogadei Khan to send Oirats, who are already Vajrayana Buddhists instead of Khalkas, who are pagans who later, under Birkai Khan, convert to Islam, to conquer the West under Batu Khan and Subotai (which would make an excellent TL BTW).

That's what happens in Empty America, except later the Christian Sartaq becomes Great Khan, and launches a crusade for the Holy Land, and drafts the Lithuanians as part of his horde. See here.
 
Baltic people uniting themselves, not against western pressure, but Rus' could be more easily reachable and less isolated with the presence of pagan neighbors (Pomeranians, some Scandinavians).
However, these having little contacts and being largely distinct paganism, I honestly don't see how it could durably resolve the OTL issues : if something, the conversion of Lithuania could have been more easily hastened than delayed.

No Teutonic Order could do the trick, but I wonder if they couldn't have been replaced by Christian Scandinavians.

The conversion of Lithuanian nobility was slow but it was happening. They certainly interacted a lot with Russian states and had no problem converting for personal political gain (like Voishelk in Galicia and Dovmont in Pskov).

It's comparable to the Cumans who were in a similar situation. Russia had the economy, its neighbours had the surplus fighting men.

It wasn't until the Mongols devastated Rus and bought time for the Teutonic Order to get properly set up that Rus got a serious challenger in the cultural space in the shape of Western Catholics.

Christian Scandinavians - well, Sweden and Novgorod were fighting over various key points in Eastern Finland for a long time and I could see Sweden replace the Teutonic Knights if the conditions were right.
 
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Is it possible for the Livonians or Teutons to crumble or even significantly weaken without Lithuanian military intervention? And if so, would it be likely to keep Lithuania strong and pagan?
 
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