WI: Tsar Peter III of Russia marries Maria Anna of Saxony?

I was just reading this thread (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...absburg-romanov-matches.419489/#post-15095703), and it made me think about this POD? If it is true that Empress Elizabeth considered Maria Anna of Saxony as a wife for Peter III, how would thing have been different if Peter had married her instead of Catherine, or if the two were married if Catherine dies of the pleuritis which IOTL she caught as soon as she arrived in Russia and nearly killed her?

Any thoughts?
 
AFAIK, Yelizaveta preferred Sophie/Ekaterina to Maria Anna for two reasons:

1) Her religion
2) Her relative unimportance.

The second reason, Ekaterina was well-connected through her mother's Holsteiner blood, but patrilineally she was a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst. She was of minor importance, and as such, had the marriage between her and Pyotr not worked out (i.e. it had been childless, as Maria Anna's OTL marriage had been), then Yelizaveta could send Sophie/Ekaterina home/to a convent without having to deal with diplomatic fall-out. Now, put Maria Anna in the same position. She's a king's daughter, and the granddaughter/niece of an emperor, cousin to another. Even if Yelizaveta 's doctors, (I think he was a Frenchman at the time) find her to be the problem in the marriage, Maria Anna cannot be sent home in disgrace without Austria/France turning against Russia. Nor can she be quietly sent to a convent because it'll be a case of much like with Pyotr II (who's uncle, Karl VI, was sort of the reason that he finally succeeded Ekaterina I).

That aside, how would things be different:

1) Assuming she jumps through all the hoops successfully, converts and becomes a good little Russian, it might see (although I profess ignorance to the state of affairs in the 18th century between the Catholic and Orthodox churches) a thawing of relations between them. Not a rapprochement by any means, but a slight improvement.
2) Assuming that Maximilian III was the problem (quite likely, if one looks at her married sisters, mother, aunt, as well as the fact that Max never tried for an annulment (unless they were just happily married)), then she might be able to give several children to the Russian succession. However, if Ekaterina's (predictably) biased memoirs are concerned, Pyotr was impotent. If some other writers are to be believed, he possibly suffered from phimosis. But if Ekaterina was bolstering her own claim (by tarnishing her son's paternity) then Maria Anna might be more successful.
3) If Pyotr doesn't like her, (which IIRC he told Ekaterina, but said he was resigned to her, since she was the empress' choice) she can't be banished to a convent as he threatened to do with Ekaterina. It'll cause an outrage in Europe against these "uncivilized Russian bears". If he does, and let's face it, these Saxon girls must've been doing something right, since Carlos III, Louis-Ferdinand and Maximilian III were all "in love" with their wives to various degrees according to the contemporary sources.

That's all I can think of for now
 
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