Ivan V is born healthy and hale.

Too bad the books by A. Bogdanov (an expert on reigns of Alexis I and Feodor III) were never translated into English. Those were the pretty interesting read. The description of Artamon Matveev makes him a pretty interesting character - an adventurer who became a Chancellor.
Alexis II becoming the Tsar at 22 would be an exception rather than rule - in OTL the "teenage heir" was the Romanov norm until freakin' Anna Ioannovna (not counting brief "reign without rule" of Catherine I). This decreases the involvement of advisors relative to norm.
 
Too bad the books by A. Bogdanov (an expert on reigns of Alexis I and Feodor III) were never translated into English. Those were the pretty interesting read. The description of Artamon Matveev makes him a pretty interesting character - an adventurer who became a Chancellor.
Alexis II becoming the Tsar at 22 would be an exception rather than rule - in OTL the "teenage heir" was the Romanov norm until freakin' Anna Ioannovna (not counting brief "reign without rule" of Catherine I). This decreases the involvement of advisors relative to norm.
Oh interesting so perhaps a more developed and informed tsar?
 
The intermarriages stopped in 15th century, though. And past 16 century, even in post-Petrine Russia, there was never a Catholic tsarina. Reason - Catholic bureacracy was much more rigid in regards to converting FROM Catholicism, thus Protestant princesses were preferred. This Vatican bureacracy indirectly killed the House of Romanov, because an alternative to Alix was Helene d'Orleans who was not given dispensation and eventually married some Italian nobody. And we all know how Nicholas II life went.


First, the Catholic Church is no different than the protestants when it comes from converting away from their faith: Its just not allowed. Many princesses did anyway because they didn't care. No pope would ever give a Catholic a dispensation to renounce Catholicism.

That said, there is a formula often used that allowed for a Catholic to marry outside her faith and remain Catholic. It requires a bishop's consent but it was well established and used both for the high and the low. Today, the Catholic's have corrected their cannon law and admit that the marriage is valid even without a Catholic bishops consent..

the myth of Helen of Orleans should be dispelled. There never was much interest in a NicholasHelen match. Actually, there was none. The whole story comes from a single entry in Nicholas diary. He mentions that his mother dropped some hints about Helen in January 1892. This would be natural as they were of equal rank and close in age. Nicholas shows no interest in the matter because he was madly in love with Alix. A year later, when Marie learns of Nicholas ' interest in Alix, her response was go for itThe Pope would not allow Helen to marry ueen VIctoria's grandson Eddy- because the English demanded that she renounce Catholicism. No Pope would allow that nor could they- it would mean denouncing Papal supremacy
.
 
Uh...the Russians might have been happy had she just willingly kissed the cross, but it's the case of getting her there to start with. She would need a dispensation from the pope to convert to Orthodoxy from Catholicism, and if the pope doesn't grant it, since why should he, she's for all intents and purposes cutting herself off from "Mother Church" and thus damning herself to Hell (at least they can't be sure she ISN'T doing so). The Orthodox church won't accept her without the conversion.

Four cases where this was a problem, admittedly all in the 19th century:

Pedro IV/I of Portugal/Brasil who was offered the throne of Greece. He had conditions if he were to convert, and neither the Greek nor the Roman church was willing to sign off on them, so it went nowhere. (Would make for a cool TL if he somehow agreed without the conditions, though).

This is not a marriage nor do you mention the conditions. It is not relevant
Othon of Bavaria and his wife. Neither became Orthodox (he was Catholic, she Protestant), and the palace chapel (Orthodox) had to be de-consecrated for the Catholic/Protestant services and then reconsecrated after the service in the Orthodox rite.

Which prves that the Catholic Church permitted mixed marriages. The Orthodox Church does as well- see Nicholas' uncles Sergei and Vladimir. Both of their wives where Lutheran and converted much latter. It is customary for at least one partner to be Orthodox- there are execptions that aren't important here

Hélène d'Orléans. Alexander III (or rather Maria Feodorovna) wanted her for a daughter-in-law. Hélène was game, she'd already offered to renounce her Catholicism to become queen of England. Her father (who was abusive to all his children) conspired with the Pope to prevent the match by refusing her permission for either.

The only case I can think of where it successfully went through was the marriage of Alexandra Pavlovna and Archduke Josef, Palatine of Hungary, and that solely because she was allowed to remain Orthodox. This isolated her from the Viennese court, which treated her with contempt, refusing to even let her be buried with her husband and stillborn daughter in a Catholic cemetery. So her widower built her a tomb in Budapest, buried her with the stillborn daughter and that was that. And Alexander I had to put pressure on Franz II to allow that to happen.
The myth of Helene and Nicholas has been dealt with. If she was renouncing her Catholicism she was doing it on her own. If she obeyed her father's wishes, it was him and not the pope who blocked her marriage to Eddy

Your fina example only serves to prove that the formula existed and the rules known. The Austrians were sticklers for the rules and the rules would preclude an ORthodox to be buried in a Catholic cemetery- just like the rules forbade her from taking communion
 
The Orthodox Church does as well- see Nicholas' uncles Sergei and Vladimir. Both of their wives where Lutheran and converted much latter. It is customary for at least one partner to be Orthodox- there are execptions that aren't important here
There was a big idiosincrasy against Catholic tsarinas since the Time of Troubles, and later on it was inertia. A Grand Duchess can be non-Orthodox, but a Tsarina can't. If Sergei became a Tsar by some trick of fate, his wife was expected to be converted.
 
This is not a marriage nor do you mention the conditions. It is not relevant

I didn't list the conditions because I don't know them, but it displays the difficulty (marriage or no) for converting from Catholicism to Orthodoxy.

Which prves that the Catholic Church permitted mixed marriages. The Orthodox Church does as well- see Nicholas' uncles Sergei and Vladimir. Both of their wives where Lutheran and converted much latter. It is customary for at least one partner to be Orthodox- there are execptions that aren't important here

Valena answered this.

The myth of Helene and Nicholas has been dealt with. If she was renouncing her Catholicism she was doing it on her own. If she obeyed her father's wishes, it was him and not the pope who blocked her marriage to Eddy

That was for Eddy. She was willing to go to Rome and see the pope in person to try and persuade him. Her dad (abusive jerk that he was) told her no. And got the pope to do his dirty work for him and tell her no (not that the pope would've agreed to it anyway). With the Russian match her dad was again against it, since she would've had to convert. If she had converted without the pope's approval, it would've been a shortcut to being excommunicated, which would've meant that no one in her family (parents, siblings, cousins etc) was theoretically allowed to have anything to do with her, they were to act as though she was dead. And in the 19th century, religion was a much bigger thing than it is nowadays.

Your fina example only serves to prove that the formula existed and the rules known. The Austrians were sticklers for the rules and the rules would preclude an ORthodox to be buried in a Catholic cemetery- just like the rules forbade her from taking communion


The fact that it only happened once is indicative of how difficult that formula was to apply. And even then, it's a difference between a grand duchess marrying out of Russia to be consort, than a princess marrying into Russia to be tsarina. Olga Nikolaievna, Yelizaveta Mikhailovna and Elena Vladmirovna were also requested by Catholic suitors (the Archduke Stefan of Austria, King Maximilian I of Bavaria; Henri, Comte de Chambord; and Albert I of Belgium) and considering that even the tsar was willing to sign off on those matches (I'm not sure about the Elena-Albert one, though), shows that they had no problem marrying a grand duchess to a Catholic, they had a problem with a tsarevich marrying a Catholic.

Another example of the non-dispensation to convert is about Ekaterina II's planned marriage for GD Konstantin to a daughter of King Ferdinando IV of Naples. The pope refused to play along (IIRC) although her parents and Ekaterina were both for it. So, IMHO, the pope seems to be the common factor in most of these situations.
 
Regarding alliance with Brandenburg - if the events in the rest of Europe bar Russia and Courland go as OTL till 1690, there would be an attempt to drag Russia&Brandenburg (with French subsidies) into war with Sweden to keep the Baltic powers from any intervention into War of Augsburg league). In OTL Golytzine government ignored this attempting to enter war with Crimea (and failed). I'm not sure what will happen TTL where the rise of Golytzine is butterflied away.
 
Maybe. Though TTL Russia will be in the war with Turks since mid-1670ies, so ceasefire with attempt to push into Baltics is pretty possible.
 
Alright. Just so i know, is there any chance that before the 1700s, the Russians could annex the Crimean Khanate, or even Ukraine?
 
(Right-Bank) Ukraine is part of PLC, and this is mixed bag of worms.
Crimean Khanate - depends on a lots of factors, namely the competence of generals (Lev Naryshkin was... errr, not that competent, but as the Tsar's brother in law he'll demand the posts in command). Though if there are fails in the early stage of war attributed to the Naryshkin brothers, it will allow for some much needed cleanup of the army. But it depends on how European events go, as this is not A&D TL where entire Europe is signed for Holy League. War of Augsburg league and related stuff are more pressing things for Europeans since mid-1680ies.
 
I was reading some interesting theory that Maria Miloslavskaya (mother of Alexis Jr., Feodor III and Ivan V) was the carrier of some genetic disease, which passed into males of Romanov-Miloslavski line down to Anna Leopoldovna offspring (yes, they are not the representatives because of life in prison/exile but nevertheless fit the statistics well). For some reason the thing, despite being X-chromosome linked, manifested only in males (girls were the carriers), thus the top possible age a male from this line can live in reasonable health is 40-41. Thus Alexis II will die in 1694-1695.
The theory was that it was hemophilia, but the symptoms were quite unlike this.
 
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I was reading some interesting theory that Maria Miloslavskaya (mother of Alexis Jr., Feodor III and Ivan V) was the carrier of some genetic disease, which passed into males of Romanov-Miloslavski line down to Anna Leopoldovna offspring (yes, they are not the representatives because of life in prison/exile but nevertheless fit the statistics well). For some reason the thing, despite being X-chromosome linked, manifested only in males (girls were the carriers), thus the top possible age a male from this line can live in reasonable health is 40-41. Thus Alexis II will die in 1694-1695.
The theory was that it was hemophilia, but the symptoms were quite unlike this.
Is that for certain?
 
An unconfirmed theory, like the one regarding Henry Prince of Wales dying of porphyria - no formal genetic study was carried out on remnants of descendants of Maria Miloslavskaya - pure circumstantial evidence, though the blog it was posted on did analyze all the Romanov-Miloslavsky descendants.
 
An unconfirmed theory, like the one regarding Henry Prince of Wales dying of porphyria - no formal genetic study was carried out on remnants of descendants of Maria Miloslavskaya - pure circumstantial evidence, though the blog it was posted on did analyze all the Romanov-Miloslavsky descendants.
Alright interesting depending on how things go this could lead to a lot of short or perhaps long reigns and an interesting political scene
 
I always got the impression that the Tsarevitch Alexis as well as his brother the Czars Feodor III and Ivan V were all in frail shape due to their own mother's poor health during her pregnancies weakening them for life. Why Sophia somehow got spared their feeble constitutions and being mentally challenged is a bit of a mystery, IMO.
 
I always got the impression that the Tsarevitch Alexis as well as his brother the Czars Feodor III and Ivan V were all in frail shape due to their own mother's poor health during her pregnancies weakening them for life. Why Sophia somehow got spared their feeble constitutions and being mentally challenged is a bit of a mystery, IMO.
When you trace this line down to Anna Leopoldovna and her offspring, it starts to look like genetic disease (a grandson of Ivan V, son of Praskovia Ivanovna, died at the age of 4 as well, offspring of Anna Leopoldovna muddles the research but anyways, girls in this line were often MUCH healthier than boys). Though to be honest, there is no info on frail constitution of Alexis, and deaths of heirs at the early age were not that uncommon.
 
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