Covenanted Nazarene Church of Benacia

The Covenanted Nazarene Church of Benacia, a Nazarene church subordinated to the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia.

Doctrine

Liturgial year

• Day of the Birth of the Lord occurs on the second day of the Lord following the solstice of month II.
  • 18.II (336-day year)
  • 24.II (348-day year)
  • 6.III (360-day year)
  • 12.III (372-day year)
• Fastentide begins forty days before the Day of Resurrection, and ends with that same day:
  • 14.IV (336-day year)
  • 20.IV (348-day year)
  • 2.V (372-day year)
• Day of Resurrection occurs on the first day of the Lord following the equinox of month VI:
  • 6.VI (336-day year)
  • 12.VI (348-day year)
  • 18.VI (372-day year)

History

Founded on 23.XII.1690 AN, the Covenanted Nazarene Church of Benacia began as an organisation established by the Religious Affairs Bureau of the Unified Governorates of Benacia (UGB) to supervise those practitioners of the Nazarene faith who signed the Covenant and performed the requisite yearly rites of loyalty to the state. As a subordinate entity of the Civil Executive of the UGB, the Church was ultimately subject to the control of the Political Directorate of Benacia Command. Accordingly, in line with policy concerning other senior administrative appointments, the designated head of the church, the Metropolitan Presbyter, held a nominal tribunal rank in the General Inspectorate of the Black Legions. The Metropolitan Presbyter had been chosen from the Bureau of Coordination and Harmonisation and received formal training in the form of one to one tuition from a Cisamarraese priest in the Nazarene Church of Our Lady of Monsanto. The same priest subsequently conducted the ordination of the Metropolitan-designate. Upon re-signing the Covenant and performing the rites of adoration before the Imperial Icons, the Metropolitan Presbyter was recognised as the Warden of All Covenanted Souls and as the Vicar of Merensk in a ceremony which took place in the Panopticon Citadel of that city on 23.XII.1690 AN with the Szodan of Benacia himself leading the acclamation of one Gerald Nussbaum as the man to whom all Nazarene in the Unified Governorates would now owe obedience in matters spiritual. After the second session of the Congress of Chryse the Church was subordinated to the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia, the body with responsibility for regulatory supervision of all covenanted religions within the Benacian Union.

In 1708 AN, during the first month of the year, the congregations of the Benacian Union were subjected to a reading by the presbyters instructing them to offer worship to Yeshu ben Pantera as "the Word made Flesh". The manufactories of the artisans and artificers were duly set to work preparing bejewelled icons bearing proclamations of the new revelation in time for Easter.