WI - Orthodox Christian USSR?

What if the Soviet Union was an Orthodox Christian socialist state that emerged some time in 1917-18? What would this look like? How would this turn out?

To add to this, what would other Orthodox Christian socialist states in and outside of Europe look like?
 
As an Orthodox Christian, I can tell you that you'd need to pretty handily change the relationship between the Peasants, the Czar, and the Orthodox Church. I can see the Patriarch of Moscow quietly staging a coup if the Czar tried to hunt peasants for sport or something, but unless you were to significantly change the relationship between them, I don't see how that's gonna happen, unfortunately.
 
Stalin did allow a lot more religious freedom in the 40's and early 50's. I don't think an orthodox state is likely though, due to the large muslim minorities in the Soviet union
 
As an Orthodox Christian, I can tell you that you'd need to pretty handily change the relationship between the Peasants, the Czar, and the Orthodox Church. I can see the Patriarch of Moscow quietly staging a coup if the Czar tried to hunt peasants for sport or something, but unless you were to significantly change the relationship between them, I don't see how that's gonna happen, unfortunately.
As a fellow (Oriental) Orthodox Christian, I agree with you - what would need to change?
 
Stalin did allow a lot more religious freedom in the 40's and early 50's. I don't think an orthodox state is likely though, due to the large muslim minorities in the Soviet union
What if Stalin decided to follow through on becoming a priest and enforced Orthodox Christian socialism through the USSR?
 
As a fellow (Oriental) Orthodox Christian, I agree with you - what would need to change?
A thought that immediately came to mind would be to have a Czar try to liquidate Church lands, perhaps with a puppet Patriarch. That would bring the Church and the People together against a common enemy, which might end in the peasants instituting a ROC-lead or OC-lead Russia that takes on some socialist characteristics to appease the communists and socialists.
 
A thought that immediately came to mind would be to have a Czar try to liquidate Church lands, perhaps with a puppet Patriarch. That would bring the Church and the People together against a common enemy, which might end in the peasants instituting a ROC-lead or OC-lead Russia that takes on some socialist characteristics to appease the communists and socialists.
What distinct characteristics could it have?
 
What if the Soviet Union was an Orthodox Christian socialist state that emerged some time in 1917-18? What would this look like? How would this turn out?

To add to this, what would other Orthodox Christian socialist states in and outside of Europe look like?

Maybe if the SRs dominate whatever state emerges from the chaos of post-Tsarist Russia? I seem to remember they had a (non-Marxist) Christian socialism as an ideology.

However, I don't know enough about Orthodoxy in that time and place to be able to speculate how socialism and Orthodoxy would affect each-other. I could imagine this Orthodoxy being much more popular for people to convert to though.

fasquardon
 
That's interesting - what effects do you think an Orthodox Christian Socialist USSR might have on the world around it?
I'd have to spoil a lot of stuff from that TL to say anything substantial about this topic, but the fact remains that even OLT Bolshevism was a Millenarianist ideology, firmly rooted to the Judeo-Christian, Orthodox mindset and tradition of the contemporary Russian Empire.
 
What if the Soviet Union was an Orthodox Christian socialist state that emerged some time in 1917-18? What would this look like? How would this turn out?

To add to this, what would other Orthodox Christian socialist states in and outside of Europe look like?
Maybe not a Orthodox Christian Socialist state, but perhaps Orthodoxy could retain much of it's influence?


Perhaps the Orthodox clergy or part of it, could agitate for a socialist-ish orthodoxy.
 

iVC

Donor
The earliest Christians were “communists”: they lived a common life, everyone were equal and voluntarily enjoyed a community of possessions.

You may start from here, although it will be some kind of meditation about how Marx and Engles had read the book of Acts in the New Testament and taken ideas from it for their communism.
 
There's a book called 'Red Priests' by Edward Roslof which discusses the radical layers in the church during the revolutionary period. There were nuns starting communes, priests calling on their congregations to expropriate the land, and other extremely interesting segments of the church during this time. The whole of society was in turmoil. Of course, there were also layers of the church who explicitly thought that Russia was doomed due to abandoning the Tsar and most of the church was against a lot of the policies of the Soviet, from land distribution to ending the war.
 
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