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What do you think would have happened if, instead of siding with Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054, the Russian Church sided with the Pope and with Rome, ultimately following one of the Eastern Catholic Churches?
WI Russia sides with Rome over Constantinople?
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Seriously, the Grand Prince who made such a stupid decision is likely deposed (possibly by death), and replaced by someone sane, who re-sides with Byzantium.
Kiev/Rus 's connexions to 'civilization' were all to the South, mostly through Constantinople. There aren't any 'Catholics' terribly near to connect to (The closest, really are Sweden and Denmark - and that's down rivers and across the Baltic. Moreover, those lands were a) even newer to Christianity than the Rus, and very peripheral to Western Europe/Western Christendom.) Poland doesn't have a border with the Rus yet, and it's a minor state, still.
With a PoD before, oh, say 900, you might be able to wank up Christian (Catholic) Poland, so they conquer the Rus, but I can't imagine how that would happen.
Really, you're more likely for them to turn to Islam (also a major civilization to the south where they had significant connexions) than to Catholicism.
As for the Swedish route, IMO you're more likely to have Sweden go Orthodox (converted from Paganism by the Rus) than the Rus be converted (from one form of Christianity to its rival) by Sweden.
Kiev/Rus 's connexions to 'civilization' were all to the South, mostly through Constantinople. There aren't any 'Catholics' terribly near to connect to (The closest, really are Sweden and Denmark - and that's down rivers and across the Baltic. Moreover, those lands were a) even newer to Christianity than the Rus, and very peripheral to Western Europe/Western Christendom.) Poland doesn't have a border with the Rus yet, and it's a minor state, still.
With a PoD before, oh, say 900, you might be able to wank up Christian (Catholic) Poland, so they conquer the Rus, but I can't imagine how that would happen.
Really, you're more likely for them to turn to Islam (also a major civilization to the south where they had significant connexions) than to Catholicism.
As for the Swedish route, IMO you're more likely to have Sweden go Orthodox (converted from Paganism by the Rus) than the Rus be converted (from one form of Christianity to its rival) by Sweden.
Yeah, if it happened anyone involved with it, and their families, would be massacred and the old religion restored, by a rival grand prince if nobody else is up to the deed. The peasants and the army would follow them, as would most of the traditional nobillity
You may desire to back up a bit and have Rome Christianize the Rus instead of Constantinople.
You're exaggerating pretty wildly here. As Kallistos Ware says (and his opinion, as far as I can tell, is pretty representative), "Even after 1054 friendly relations between East and West continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them... The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in East and West were largely unaware." Even if the Grand Prince and/or Metropolitan cared enough to issue an official "We think the Pope is right on this one" proclamation, it's highly unlikely that anyone would take this as some sort of definitive break with Constantinople or rejection of Greek contacts, or that the nobility would take sufficient umbrage to cause trouble. The notion of the peasantry rebelling -- or, indeed, even knowing about the alleged schism in the first place -- is even less plausible.
I'm not saying the peasantry rebel, I'm saying that all a prince has to do is tell them that their religion is under threat and he wins their support.
What? Poland and Rus had been fighting each other for like a century before the schizm, usually over the Czerwinsk towns. Boleslav the Brave captured and sacked Kiev, kicked away Jaroslav the Wise, put his (Boleslav's) son in law (whose wife, daughter of Boleslav, was taken away by Jaroslav when he fled Kiev) on the throne, raped their sister and took her as a concubine when going back to Poland (earler he wanted her as his wife)