Covenanted Nazarene Church of Benacia

The Covenanted Nazarene Church of Benacia, a Nazarene church subordinated to the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia. The church teaches that total obedience to the Union Covenant and the will of the Benacian Union is required for spiritual salvation. It is the only form of the Nazarene faith permitted to be practiced in Elluenuueq and the Unified Governorates.

Organisation

Hierarchy

Metropolitan Presbyter

• Supreme ecclesiastical authority for the Covenanted Nazarene Church
• Appointed by the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia
• Oversees and has authority over all archbishops
• Current Metropolitan Presbyter: His Eminence Gerald Nussbaum

Archbishop

• Holds authority over an ecclesiastical province equivalent in area to a realm within the Benacian Union
• Oversees all bishops within the province
• Subject to the authority and discipline of the Metropolitan Presbyter

Bishop

• Oversees a diocese which covers the same territorial boundaries as a secular governorate
• Responsible for overseeing all presbyters and ministers within the diocese

College of Presbyters

• A council of ordained presbyters (priests) who collectively minister to a bailiwick
• Led by a Senior Presbyter who represents the college at the diocesan level
• Conducts services, performs sacraments, provides counsel to the congregation

Parish Ministers

• Assist the presbyters in congregational ministry at the parish level
• May be lay ministers or deacons rather than fully ordained priests
• Example roles: Parish Youth Minister, Parish Administrator, Deacon

Appointment of Clergy

Archbishops and bishops are appointed by the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia after being elected by a provincial or diocesan synod respectively. New members of the presbyterial colleges, as well as parish ministers, are nominated by the Senior Presbyter of that college and approved by the diocesan bishop.

Candidates for ordination as presbyters or bishops must:

• Be male
• Have undertaken prescribed ecclesiastic education and training
• Affirm complete loyalty to the Union Covenant
• Accept the authority of the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia

Ecclesiastical Laws & Court

The Covenanted Nazarene Church operates under the ecclesiastical laws and court system defined by the United Ecclesiastical Corporation's Council of Araxion. Cases of spiritual discipline or deviation from doctrine are tried in this ecclesiastical court, with potential punishments including:

• Defrocking and removal from office
• Excommunication from the Nazarene congregation
• Fines or imprisonment (in cooperation with secular authorities)

Doctrine

Nazarenes worship the Highest Divinity in His trifold form, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. At once the three are distinct, and the three are one. The Covenanted Nazarene believer must accept this absolutely or perish in the hereafter, destroyed in unending hellfire. It is the duty of the presbytery to detect and lead to destruction all in their congregations who do not accept this article of faith without question.

The Highest Divinity is the creator of the heavens and all the realms of creation, including Micras. He chose the Yehudim as the vehicles of His Will, guiding them tens of millennia ago across the wastelands of Benacia. The Will of the Celestial Temple was communicated to the Slaves of the Lord through Celestial Messengers who spoke unto the Prophets blessed with the Sight. By these teachings was the Law established for the Rightly Guided, whereby a Harmonious Society might be established. However, the Slaves of the Lord grew wicked and disobedient. They searched the Law and sought to find exemptions from Service to that which was Mandated as Holy. For their Correction, the Lord Commanded that the Yehudim would ever after be placed under the discipline of priests and judges so that they might be scourged and returned to the Light of Perfect Obedience.

Yet still, the Highest Divinity understood that for the Harmonious Society to become manifested upon His Creation it would be necessary for Him to come down unto every realm of existence. To this end He incarnated as a child with the name Yeshua. His mother was known as Miryam. Yeshua preached the Way of Perfect Obedience to Yehudim but was reviled by them, Nonetheless, he gained a small fellowship of believers. The followers very quite good and spreading the message of God Father and Yeshua to the gentiles, 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 Yehudim, now ruled 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.

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.

As subjects of the Union-State, Covenanted Nazarenes are bound by the Union Covenant which they must also accept as an article of faith and deny the existence of any contradiction between the covenant and the tenets of their practiced religion.

Creed

1. We believe in one Highest Divinity, eternally existent in three persons: the Father, the Son (Yeshua), and the Holy Ghost - distinct yet inseparable.

2. We believe the Highest Divinity is the creator of all realms, including Micras, and chose the Yehudim to be the vehicles of His Will.

3. We believe Yeshua, the Son of God born to Miryam, preached the Way of Perfect Obedience but was reviled and executed by the disobedient Yehudim.

4. We believe Yeshua's death was a sacrifice for the sins of humanity, allowing the remission of sins for those who confess and seek God's forgiveness.

5. We believe in the resurrection of Yeshua and the eternity of the human soul - those who accept Yeshua will have eternal life with God.

6. We believe communion through the sacraments of bread and wine allows us to commune with and receive grace from the Highest Divinity.

7. We accept the other core sacraments of baptism, marriage, and anointing of the ill as means of God's grace.

8. We revere the sacred scriptures as the authoritative Word of God, interpreted through our apostolic tradition.

9. We are bound to obey the Union Covenant as an article of faith.

10. We submit to the ultimate authority of the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia and its appointed leaders over us.

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.

Duties

Amongst the specialist duties assigned to the Covenanted Nazarene Church by the United Ecclesiastical Corporation is the conduct of specialist services of purification and exorcism, particularly in regards to meritorious subjects and human artefacts which have been unfortunately exposed to demonic or alien forms of corruption. These spiritual actions are usually performed in conjunction with other remedial forms of cleansing undertaken by other specialist secular agencies.