Russian Old Calendarism

One thing I hate, with a burning passion, is peripheral convergence: the idea that uninteresting parts of the world evolve the same way because you're too lazy to do the research, and think that nobody will notice. For whatever reason, this is particularly inescapable with Russia, which always evolves the same way.

It's also pretty much foreordained with Eastern Christianity too. I've seen a fair number of "How can we cause an Eastern Christian Reformation?" threads on AH.com, and I get the reason behind that: it's trying to break that convergence. Almost all of the attempts I've seen have entailed a different playout of the Raskol.

In Andalusada, alas, the Raskol is nearly 600 years after the POD. There's every reason to think that none of the players exist. There's also every reason to want something equally cool to happen, what with Rule of Cool being one of the design parameters after all.

And I have an idea.

The Russian Empire isn't going to rise to glory without a few reformers. As they're organized, Poland and Prussia (and possibly Sweden too) will routinely be able to kick their ass, and there's no way to address that without catching up. The catalyst is, of course, when Evgeny I (Evgeny Veliky, as compared to Evgeny the Last) decides to put on his Peter the Great panties and begin the Tsardom of Tver's rise to the world stage. And, being somebody as big as he is, he causes a schism within Orthodoxy itself.

The start of Old Calendarism: Evgeny I

It's very hard for any individual to cause a schism within Orthodoxy itself, but Evgeny I manages to find a way: he adopts a new civil calendar. The glaring problem is that he tries to get it approved as a liturgical calendar too, and it gets shot down for three reasons:

• "We, the Pentarchy, use the Julian calendar, and we're older than you, thus more Orthodox. Unless we adopt it too, you'll anathematize yourself by no longer celebrating the great feasts on the same day as all other Christians."
• "The Latins who you want to keep up with aren't Christians and haven't been since they unilaterally broke ties with us in 1055. (Also, they did it first.) You want to yoke believer and unbeliever equally, for no reason other than national pride."
• "Our Mohammedan overlords use the Julian calendar as a de facto civil calendar themselves, because at least it tries to correspond to the seasons. You want us to adopt your calendar, take it up with them."

At that point, Evgeny I is basically screwed, and it's going to fall out spectacularly. Because he is going to adopt the Eugenian calendar (it's named after him, after all), and that is going to break communion with the Pentarchy. Thus begins the Raskol.

Old Calendarism during the Tsarist era

After the Eugenian Revolt died down, the Metropolitanate of Kiev was basically neutered. For most of the tsarist era, "Old Calendarism" came in one of two varieties:

• Kievan Old Calendarism, in which priests defected from the Russian Orthodox Church to the Kievan hierarchy - basically denying themselves any formal legal employment within the Russian hierarchy, as under Praemunire laws they were no longer legally bound to the state.
• Independent Old Calendarism, which was extraordinarily diverse: breaking away without anything else. Most of the Russian Farrellites can trace themselves back to independent Old Calendarist movements at one point or another.

This is a work in progress. It's going to get filled in as I'm able to do so.

Old Calendarism during the Vechist era

This is a work in progress. It's going to get filled in as I'm able to do so.