So the US is 73.7% Christian, with 48.9% being Protestant, 23% being Catholic, and the rest being other sects of Christianity. So with any POD after 1860, have Orthodox Christianity become a major religion in the US that is at least on par with Catholicism. What does this require? How does this affect the us? As an extra challenge, get Orthodox Christianity to be the largest sect of Christianity in the us, and as a final challenge, get over 50% of the population to be Orthodox Christian (if possible)
AHC: Get Orthodox Christianity to be a major religion in the US
Perhaps as the Ottoman Empire crumbles, they sponsor travel for orthodox communities to America so that they can’t be used as a Russian fifth column and then orthodox people pull a Sweden and start pulling up significant portions of their population. I don’t know why America would accept all these people, maybe as a reason not to use Chinese labour or something
What's your percentage benchmark for a "major religion" in the US? 10%? 20%? More?
As far as the question...you'd need both a huge influx of immigrants from Orthodox countries like @Madhav Deval said coupled with a massive conversion program to convert the non-Orthodox already here.
Maybe some combo of the Ottoman Empire kicking the Orthodox under its control out, massive poverty in eastern Europe encouraging more immigration between the World Wars, and then once the USSR forms/takes over Eastern Europe they clamp down hard on religion, encouraging more immigration. Perhaps the USA, trying to get a "win" in the Cold War, offers tax rebates and the like to any immigrants from Warsaw Pact countries?
Basically, make Orthodox Europe into enough of a hellhole to get millions more to pull up stakes and leave for the US.
As far as the question...you'd need both a huge influx of immigrants from Orthodox countries like @Madhav Deval said coupled with a massive conversion program to convert the non-Orthodox already here.
Maybe some combo of the Ottoman Empire kicking the Orthodox under its control out, massive poverty in eastern Europe encouraging more immigration between the World Wars, and then once the USSR forms/takes over Eastern Europe they clamp down hard on religion, encouraging more immigration. Perhaps the USA, trying to get a "win" in the Cold War, offers tax rebates and the like to any immigrants from Warsaw Pact countries?
Basically, make Orthodox Europe into enough of a hellhole to get millions more to pull up stakes and leave for the US.
Roughly equivalent to the percent of Catholicism ITTL.
Thanks for answering.
Pretty tough challenge you've laid out which is what makes it interesting.
Something that triggers mass emigration from Russia in the 19th century - earlier abolishment of serfdom perhaps allowing people to move en masse. The russians become like Italians, well integrated but still a distinct "descendant" group following their ancestors religions, like most of italian descent still being catholic.
Deleted member 109224
John Quincy Adams negotiates the exile of the Decembrists, their families, any other soldiers under the officers' command, and those soldiers' families to the United States. Their middle-class supporters follow suit in what amounts to a total emigration of some 70,000 people (3,000 Decembrists * 5 family members + maybe 50,000 middle class supporters).
Following the Polish Uprising of 1830, the Tsar decides "hey deporting people to America is a great idea" and sends 500,000 people (Polish/Lithuanian/Ruthenian Soldiers, their families, etc) to America. Maybe 50,000 of these people are Ruthenes/Ukrainians.
Now there's probably 120,000+ Orthodox Christians in the US by the mid-1830s. Going to America for freedom has become an exit strategy in Russia for dissidents as well, so there continues to be a slow trickle over. Americans generally don't have much issue with the new folks because they're disproportionately nobles, officers, and middle-class types who are largely beneficial. Over time these Orthodox Russians and Ruthenes end up growing to some 2% of the population and many Americans decide "hey their religion seems pretty nice" and thus Orthodoxy grows into being 4 or 5% of the population. A Patriarchy of North America is established as well, separate from Moscow and Istanbul, and thus the American Orthodox Diocese is seen as more "Kosher" by Americans than Catholicism.
Later on, a lot of the Orthodox Christian Levantine Arabs who went to Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc) go to the US instead, buttressing the Orthodox population up to 8-10% of the population.
Following the Polish Uprising of 1830, the Tsar decides "hey deporting people to America is a great idea" and sends 500,000 people (Polish/Lithuanian/Ruthenian Soldiers, their families, etc) to America. Maybe 50,000 of these people are Ruthenes/Ukrainians.
Now there's probably 120,000+ Orthodox Christians in the US by the mid-1830s. Going to America for freedom has become an exit strategy in Russia for dissidents as well, so there continues to be a slow trickle over. Americans generally don't have much issue with the new folks because they're disproportionately nobles, officers, and middle-class types who are largely beneficial. Over time these Orthodox Russians and Ruthenes end up growing to some 2% of the population and many Americans decide "hey their religion seems pretty nice" and thus Orthodoxy grows into being 4 or 5% of the population. A Patriarchy of North America is established as well, separate from Moscow and Istanbul, and thus the American Orthodox Diocese is seen as more "Kosher" by Americans than Catholicism.
Later on, a lot of the Orthodox Christian Levantine Arabs who went to Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc) go to the US instead, buttressing the Orthodox population up to 8-10% of the population.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
Options:
1. Between 1750 and 1850 a large Russian colonisation from Alaska down to the Northern parts of California. Enough that it means there are 500k-2 million people living in Russian-America when the USA still thinks "Manifest Destiny fck yeah" and buys the region. Difficult but... who knows...
2. Mass migration from Eastern Europe to the USA from the 1820s. Something apocalyptic... Either due to the Ottomans remaining stronger and the Orthodox Christians looking for opportunities in the West. A crumbling Ottoman Empire means more optimisim to create their own state and to rule it. Or due to even warfare between Russians and Turks in which the frontiers become a bigger warzone. Another option is Romanians being bullied away from Transylvania by Hungarians in the 19th century.
3. Czar Nicholas II turns into a Czarist Stalin and many fear to stay in Russia and flee.
In option 1, The chance to have 10+% Orthodox Christians is the best. There are a lot of butterflies but it is not out of question that heavily Russian populated area are bough by the USA. Hard, yet possible.
In option 2, if combined with an unstable Russia you could reach if very lucky, 10%. Although a large depopulation of Christian migration to the Balkans will destabilise the Ottomans in other ways... and also in combination with Levantine Christian. With this I mean a bit bigger than Lebanese style migration. Between 66-75% of the Eastern Orthodox from the Ottoman Empire.
In option 3, at best you get 2-4%. Not much but still higher than OTL. And not too helpful. Any worse rule by Nicholas II won't scare Christians away to the USA. Unlikely scenario but interesting...
1. Between 1750 and 1850 a large Russian colonisation from Alaska down to the Northern parts of California. Enough that it means there are 500k-2 million people living in Russian-America when the USA still thinks "Manifest Destiny fck yeah" and buys the region. Difficult but... who knows...
2. Mass migration from Eastern Europe to the USA from the 1820s. Something apocalyptic... Either due to the Ottomans remaining stronger and the Orthodox Christians looking for opportunities in the West. A crumbling Ottoman Empire means more optimisim to create their own state and to rule it. Or due to even warfare between Russians and Turks in which the frontiers become a bigger warzone. Another option is Romanians being bullied away from Transylvania by Hungarians in the 19th century.
3. Czar Nicholas II turns into a Czarist Stalin and many fear to stay in Russia and flee.
In option 1, The chance to have 10+% Orthodox Christians is the best. There are a lot of butterflies but it is not out of question that heavily Russian populated area are bough by the USA. Hard, yet possible.
In option 2, if combined with an unstable Russia you could reach if very lucky, 10%. Although a large depopulation of Christian migration to the Balkans will destabilise the Ottomans in other ways... and also in combination with Levantine Christian. With this I mean a bit bigger than Lebanese style migration. Between 66-75% of the Eastern Orthodox from the Ottoman Empire.
In option 3, at best you get 2-4%. Not much but still higher than OTL. And not too helpful. Any worse rule by Nicholas II won't scare Christians away to the USA. Unlikely scenario but interesting...
The USSR and the USA fight a nuclear war in the 1980s. The USSR wins, incorporates what was the USA as several Soviet republics, and settles lots of Russians and Ukrainians in depopulated North America. The Soviet Union then collapses and the USSA emerges with a large Orthodox population
The problem is that vast areas of the Russian Empire were available for Russian peasants' emigration. As Doug Muir once noted in soc.history.what-if: "Well, they emigrated to Siberia, to Central Asia, to the northern Caucasus, and to the big cities. Central Asia gets neglected. But Kazakhstan alone absorbed nearly a million Russian immigrants between 1890 and 1914. That's a pretty big safety valve." And as he notes, a lot of Russian peasants were just too poor to afford a ticket...
Maybe it is impossible or just extremly difficult to get, but what if the Soviet Union accepted the emigration of 'reactionaries'?
The problem in getting more immigrants from orthodox countries into the USA is that sooner rather than later nativists there will consider an influx of a substantial number of non-WASP immigrants a threat and force the government to set stricter immigration quotas just as it happened IOTL.
But that may take a while. IOTL the USA did not set quotas on southern/eastern Europe until the 1920s and by then there were huge Catholic populations already present.
Max Sinister
Banned
The Soviet Union decides to allow every criminal, overly religious man, and pensioner to emigrate to the US. Just as Castro kicked out his criminals. Of course, would the US go with that?
It was easy for Castro, because, for one, the proximity to the U.S makes it easy to ship them over. The Soviets did exile dissidents and criminals, except they sent them to Siberia. Cuba has no Siberia. It would make more sense to send dissidents into West Germany or Austria then to send them across Europe and then accross the Atlantic again.
Deleted member 109224
If you're taking in a sizable number in the early to mid 19th Century, then you won't have to deal with it as much. If they didn't impose restrictions on the Irish, I doubt they'd do so on the Russians/Ruthenes.
Deleted member 109224
Hence why you'd need a political/ideological basis for emigration to the US rather than economic.
Additionally/alternatively, there's Austrian Galicia. 750,000 people emigrated from Galicia-Lodomeria in the period of 1880-1910, although that number likely includes many Jews and Poles.
Could an Ottoman crackdown in the Balkans lead to emigration to the US?
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
A stronger Ottoman Empire in the 19th century in which military conscription is active will pressure the Christians to migrate. No Serbia or Greece means larger migration. But I think it won't be bigger than 6% at its best.