WIF Catholic Kievan Rus

Kievan Rus follows example of its Northern and Western (except Lithuania) neighbors and adopts Catholicism.

Short and long term consequences?

(It is not about why this could not happen but about what will happen after it happened :cool:)
 
Maybe delay conversion and have the Rus take Christianity from Scandinavia or Poland?

I imagine this would bring them more in contact with future crusading activities, if those happen at all. An alt northern crusade could see Novgorod invadining Estonia on its own, replacing Denmark or the Order.
 
Maybe delay conversion and have the Rus take Christianity from Scandinavia or Poland?

This can be one of the options. Or it may happen approximately on OTL timeline if they took it from Sweden or Denmark (Norway was lagging behind a little bit).

I imagine this would bring them more in contact with future crusading activities, if those happen at all. An alt northern crusade could see Novgorod invadining Estonia on its own, replacing Denmark or the Order.

Let's not overestimate Novgorodian military potential, after all they had been 1st and foremost a merchant republic with a relatively limited military power. But in OTL they were in a more or less permanent state of a border war with the Estonian territories.

In a longer term perspective, the Orthodox regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Belarussia and Ukraine) are Catholic, which eliminates numerous OTL problems. Wars between the PLC and Muscovite Tsardom (assuming that everything else is going as in OTL) are getting a distinctively different twist, making realistic seemingly "fantastic" schemes which were proposed by did not come through in OTL like Ivan IV being elected a Grand Duke of Lithuania or Wladislaw Vasa becoming Tsar of Moscow.

Or Russian position within Reformation....
 
This can be one of the options. Or it may happen approximately on OTL timeline if they took it from Sweden or Denmark (Norway was lagging behind a little bit).



Let's not overestimate Novgorodian military potential, after all they had been 1st and foremost a merchant republic with a relatively limited military power. But in OTL they were in a more or less permanent state of a border war with the Estonian territories.

In a longer term perspective, the Orthodox regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Belarussia and Ukraine) are Catholic, which eliminates numerous OTL problems. Wars between the PLC and Muscovite Tsardom (assuming that everything else is going as in OTL) are getting a distinctively different twist, making realistic seemingly "fantastic" schemes which were proposed by did not come through in OTL like Ivan IV being elected a Grand Duke of Lithuania or Wladislaw Vasa becoming Tsar of Moscow.

Or Russian position within Reformation....
Lithuania would probably convert faster in this scenario, early 14th century? I'm again still assuming the general trend to be the same.

I wonder what would happen to the Orthodox church if no independent nation exists, considering Russia was in a way the last bastion.
 
Lithuania would probably convert faster in this scenario, early 14th century? I'm again still assuming the general trend to be the same.

I wonder what would happen to the Orthodox church if no independent nation exists, considering Russia was in a way the last bastion.

Interesting question.

AFAIK, the Greek Orthodox Church was doing reasonably well under the Ottomans who even subdued the Church of Bulgaria to Patriarch of Constantinople so probably it would survive.
 
Lithuania would convert in the late 13th century or early 14th. If Catholics surround them on all sides, the OTL dilemma between Catholicism and Orthodoxy is replaced by a weak Catholicism-paganism dilemma, which Christianity would win easily on practical reasons alone.

However, a catholic Rus would either butterfly away or dramatically affect the Baltic Crusades, yielding a yet another big change. Maybe Lithuania never ends up expanding east and instead gobbles up the other Baltic tribes (which, if the Baltic crusades don't happen, would be ripe for taking), becoming a secondary power by the Baltic sea and later adopting Christianity.

In a longer term perspective, the Orthodox regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Belarussia and Ukraine) are Catholic, which eliminates numerous OTL problems. Wars between the PLC and Muscovite Tsardom (assuming that everything else is going as in OTL) are getting a distinctively different twist, making realistic seemingly "fantastic" schemes which were proposed by did not come through in OTL like Ivan IV being elected a Grand Duke of Lithuania or Wladislaw Vasa becoming Tsar of Moscow.

Or Russian position within Reformation....
The formation of the PLC is not at all ordained in this scenario, and it's very likely that the specific circumstances needed for the Union of Krewo and beyond would never arise.
 
Lithuania would convert in the late 13th century or early 14th. If Catholics surround them on all sides, the OTL dilemma between Catholicism and Orthodoxy is replaced by a weak Catholicism-paganism dilemma, which Christianity would win easily on practical reasons alone.

However, a catholic Rus would either butterfly away or dramatically affect the Baltic Crusades, yielding a yet another big change. Maybe Lithuania never ends up expanding east and instead gobbles up the other Baltic tribes (which, if the Baltic crusades don't happen, would be ripe for taking), becoming a secondary power by the Baltic sea and later adopting Christianity.


The formation of the PLC is not at all ordained in this scenario, and it's very likely that the specific circumstances needed for the Union of Krewo and beyond would never arise.

I'm not sure about its potential impact upon the Baltic Crusades: they did not touch the "Russian" territories and in the XII - XIII centuries Russian princedoms had been too weak to offer any significant contribution. Most of them were simply geographically irrelevant.

However Lithuanian early encirclement by the Catholic states may, indeed, accelerate the conversion.

The PLC is an interesting issue: would Poland still be willing to interfere on Lithuanian behalf if the threat was coming from a Catholic state?
 
Lithuania would convert in the late 13th century or early 14th. If Catholics surround them on all sides, the OTL dilemma between Catholicism and Orthodoxy is replaced by a weak Catholicism-paganism dilemma, which Christianity would win easily on practical reasons alone.

However, a catholic Rus would either butterfly away or dramatically affect the Baltic Crusades, yielding a yet another big change. Maybe Lithuania never ends up expanding east and instead gobbles up the other Baltic tribes (which, if the Baltic crusades don't happen, would be ripe for taking), becoming a secondary power by the Baltic sea and later adopting Christianity.


The formation of the PLC is not at all ordained in this scenario, and it's very likely that the specific circumstances needed for the Union of Krewo and beyond would never arise.
Is Lithuania destined to be stronger among Baltic tribes?
 
Is Lithuania destined to be stronger among Baltic tribes?
Depends.

If you believe the theory that the term "Lithuania" never referred to a specific tribe/land and instead comes from the word "lieti" ("to melt, cast", a theory growing in popularity among historians), instead meaning a tribal confederation or union, then it wouldn't be a mistake to say that a Baltic nation would be Lithuania no matter who unites it. Unless it's united by Prussians or something, in which case it would probably be Prussia.

If you believe the theory that "Lithuania" comes from a presumed Lithuanian tribe/land called Lithuania around Kernavė, then no, definitely not.
 
I like the idea of having a Russion Reconquista similar to the Spanish with Catholic Czars fighting the Turcs and the Tatars.
Poland and Russia could have better relationship if they are both Catholic together against Sweden and Prussia?
 
Depends.

If you believe the theory that the term "Lithuania" never referred to a specific tribe/land and instead comes from the word "lieti" ("to melt, cast", a theory growing in popularity among historians), instead meaning a tribal confederation or union, then it wouldn't be a mistake to say that a Baltic nation would be Lithuania no matter who unites it. Unless it's united by Prussians or something, in which case it would probably be Prussia.

If you believe the theory that "Lithuania" comes from a presumed Lithuanian tribe/land called Lithuania around Kernavė, then no, definitely not.
No I meant in the sense that the tribes in today's Lithuania(or historically) were generally stronger than the Prussian or Latvian ones.
 
With Catholic Rus', dynastic policy of Polish and Ruthenian dukes would change, although both would likely experience feudal fragmentation, what would emerge there latter is not certain, maybe there would not be Poland at all and Poles and Ruthenians would merge into one nation?
 
Heck, thinking about it, it looks a bit like we are assuming something quite big, would the schism happen to begin with?
 
I like the idea of having a Russion Reconquista similar to the Spanish with Catholic Czars fighting the Turcs and the Tatars.
Poland and Russia could have better relationship if they are both Catholic together against Sweden and Prussia?

But they'd still to compete with each other over Livonia.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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butterfly away or dramatically affect the Baltic Crusades

German knights and townspeople get busier smashing heretics and settling in places like Bosnia and Bulgaria than the Livonia-Courland coast?

Poland and Russia could have better relationship if they are both Catholic together against Sweden and Prussia?

But perhaps if Russia chooses Catholicism over Orthodoxy it might not stay Catholic. Perhaps strong states set up a "Russian" Church headed by the monarch, or country converts over to this TL's version of Protestantism.
 
With Catholic Rus', dynastic policy of Polish and Ruthenian dukes would change, although both would likely experience feudal fragmentation, what would emerge there latter is not certain, maybe there would not be Poland at all and Poles and Ruthenians would merge into one nation?

What about the territories East of Ruthenia, aka, Tsardom of Moscow?
 
German knights and townspeople get busier smashing heretics and settling in places like Bosnia and Bulgaria than the Livonia-Courland coast?



But perhaps if Russia chooses Catholicism over Orthodoxy it might not stay Catholic. Perhaps strong states set up a "Russian" Church headed by the monarch, or country converts over to this TL's version of Protestantism.

What you wrote is extremely close to what they ended up with: a Church which was completely subordinated to the state all the way to it being governed by a state-appointed secular administrator. Peter I ended patriarchate and decreed that the priests must report about confessions containing treacherous information. Catherine II successfully conducted secularization of the Church lands thus ending its financial independence. When (reign of Nicholas II) the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna wanted to get a divorce from her Swedish husband, Nicholas just issued a decree saying that she is divorces. You may call it Protestantism. :)
 

Md139115

Banned
Why not? the divide was caused by geography and not religion, it's not like we have a Southwestern Slavic or Southeastern Slavic in Yugoslavia because of religion.

Well, yes, there would still obviously be a North/South divide, but I meant between the East Slavs (Russians/Belorussians/Ukrainians) and the West Slavs (Poles/Czechs/Slovaks/Silesians)
 
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