Nazarene
The Nazarene religion, an off-shoot of the Ashkenatzi religion, is one of the larger monotheistic religions in Micras. It is also a highly diverse religion with numerous denominations in various cultures. It is also related to the Umraist religion.
Beliefs
Nazarenes generally believe in one incorporeal God, but God (generally used with the pronoun he) also has three shapes or avatars, known as the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. These avatars have a complicated relationship to one another and the exact nature of their divinity is under a lot of debate, sometimes violent too.
In Nazarene belief, God is the creator of the heavens and all the planets, including Micras. He chose the Ashkenatzis as his own people, guiding them tens of millennia ago across the wastelands of Benacia. God communicated to his people through prophets and sometimes through angels. However, after some time, God grew tired of this arrangement of communication and decided that he would now be a god for everyone on the planet, and had himself incarnated as a child with the name Yeshua. His mother was known as Miryam. Yeshua preached the new rules of God (now known as "The Father") to the Ashkenatzis and was generally ridiculed by them, but managed to get some followers. The followers very quite good and spreading the message of God Father and Yeshua to the non-Ashkenatzis, especially the people that would be known as the Tellians, Cisamarrese, and later, also to the Alexandrians, Martinos, Matbaics, and Atterans. In the end, the Ashkenatzis, now occupied by the Machiavellians, had Yeshua executed for public disorder.
Nazarenes believe in the eternity of the soul, but for the soul to have a good existence after death, the soul must acclaim Yeshua as the son of God, confess all sins to God and seek God's forgiveness for them. All other souls will be separated from God upon death. The nature of this post-life existence is also heavily debated among the Nazarenes.
They commune with their God through a ritual known as communion. They share wine and bread during a service. Other sacraments are baptism, marriage, and the anointing of the ill.
Organization
The Nazarene faith is organized in several denominations and churches. They are generally in a Catholic or Orthodox tradition or communion, but exceptions exist.
- Catholic denominations
- Orthodox denominations
- Ocian Orthodox Church
- Amokolian Orthodox Church
- etc...
- Ocian Orthodox Church
