Russian Orthodoxy after Tsarism

IRL, the Russian Orthodox Church was granted its autocephaly in the year 1589, and has retained it ever after. IRL, the Russian Revolution also caused the Russian Orthodox Church an enormous amount of drama, especially because (with some notable exceptions) it came out strongly and vocally in support of tsarism and the Whites, which caused three notable spinoffs (and a bunch of minor ones, most notably various individual Russian Uniatists.)

Andalusada has a Russian Orthodox Church, of course, and it also has a revolution (at the ass-end of the Russo-Japanese War, financed in no small part by Japanese agents); and given that the Russian Orthodox Church of Andalusada is just as much an organ of state as it was IRL, it stands to reason that there's going to be an enormous amount of drama too. But the similarities pretty much end there, because history started going haywire in the early- to mid-1650s [when?], after Evgeny the Great promulgated his calendar and took the Russian Orthodox Church out of communion with the rest of what was now "Greek" or "Levantine" Orthodoxy.

That rift means that when the Russian Orthodox Church collapses - as indeed it does - it's going to fragment in more, and more interesting, ways than the Russian Orthodox Church could dream of doing IRL. This post is meant to introduce and outline those ways.

The Eugenian calendar

The problem with the Julian calendar was recognized from the very beginning, well before Andalusada's POD:

While Hipparchus and presumably Sosigenes were aware of the discrepancy, although not of its correct value, it was evidently felt to be of little importance at the time of the Julian reform. However, it accumulated significantly over time: the Julian calendar gained a day about every 134 years.

Why is this remotely relevant? Because calendrical reform affects everything. The decisive rupture between Russia and the rest of the Orthodox world starts with a calendrical reform, and the Vechist Wars were directly tied into the politics of the liturgical year. (It's still being fought over as of the present day.)

The Meammosiran Cossack Host

It's hard to believe, but three months ago I introduced the first of Andalusada's new ethnicities, the Montagnards. Last month, on the 13th (well, almost...), I added the second (and much older), the Takasagonese, and wrote this:

Afterward: Because ethnicities take work, I'm not gonna write another one until August 13th, at which point I'm going to introduce another part of the Japonic diaspora: the Meammosiran Cossack Host, first mentioned in the Russo-Japanese War.

I'm not sure if I was that disciplined (these words were written in 7/21) as to not write another one, but ladies and gentlemen, it's August 13th, and as foretold by David and the Sybil I am introducing the Meammosiran Cossack Host. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, because this is gonna get weird.

The Skete of Orsa

IRL, the Taizé Community of ecumenical fame is founded in and based out of Taizé, a small town in Bourgogne where, to the best of anybody's knowledge, nothing interesting ever happened until 1940. (Brother Roger went to Taizé because it was isolated enough to escape military attention, and stayed because its population was lonely enough that he felt called by God to address it.)

As of Andalusada's present, the Taizé Community would still be twenty years in the future even if it was going to happen, which it most certainly is not, because the world's going to be wildly different enough that there won't be Nazis, or a united Germany, or an occupation of France at that point. Unless something else happens there, that little commune would be forever unknown to the world.

Fortunately, however, there is something that can happen there: Taizé is an hour's march from a neighbor whose claim to fame is secured before things even start. Because (Old World) places are far more likely to exist than people, and the Wars of Religion are still only a sketch, I asked a friend last night: "How would you feel about a Battle of Taizé?"

His response took me by surprise: "What would that do to the service style?" This is my answer.

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.

Introducing Constantine II of Hungary

"King Constantine." You don't need to name him any more than that; everybody will know who he is, just as well as they'd recognize "Count Dracula." And for the same reasons.

The guy is hated across cultures.

Let's introduce him...