Did Peter the Great ever consider making Russia Catholic or Protestant?

by JJVMT

In light of Peter the Great's ambitious measures to Westernize Russia, it doesn't seem too farfetched to me to imagine that he might have at some point considered making Russia adopt a Western variety of Christianity as the culmination of his project. Is there any evidence that this happened?

EDIT: Changed "at least" to "at some point" to make it clearer that I'm only talking about him having considered switching the country's religious affiliation, since it obviously never happened. Furthermore, if the answer is "no," I would be interested reading about why it wasn't or couldn't have been considered.

To broaden the question somewhat, I would also be interested in reading about any attempts by other members of Russia's Westernized elite in the 18th century to induce the country to adopt a Western variety of Christianity.

TehRuru34

No, there is no such evidence. Peter I have preferred to westernize Russian Church instead, with primacy of the state (like in Protestant churches (especially Anglican Church if we talk about Peter I)). Kartashev [1] mentioned his conversations with Wilhelm Oran, princess Ann and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1697-1698 about church life and head of state as head of church.

Switching to Catholicism was impossible. As an autocrat and absolutist Peter couldn't accept idea of supremacy of Pope. Besides, Peter was kinda similar to protestants in his reformation, removing old theocracy thoughts by early rationalism (public law etc.) And on top of that you can't ignore history of clashes between Orthodox and Catholic churches in Lithuania/Poland since XV-th cent., which resulted in recent Khmelnitsky uprising (well, of course there were other reasons for uprising as well.)

[1] А. Карташёв, "Очерки по истории Русской Церкви"