Church of Nortend

The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Laurence, commonly known as Sulthey Cathedral, is the seat of the Archbishop of Sulthey, the Primate of Erbonia.

The Church of Nortend is the state church of Great Nortend. It is established under Royal Proclamation and Acts of Parliament, and is considered to be an integral part of the Government of Great Nortend. Though the Archbishop of Sulthey is the most senior clergyman of the church, and is considered to be the Primate of Erbonia, the Sovereign of Great Nortend is by law the Supreme Governour of the Church Mundane, holding the title of Vicar of Christ.

History

Early Christianity

St Laurence is widely credited for the founding of the establishment of the church in Great Nortend in the 8th century. Though Christianity had arrived in the country around the 2nd century AD and converted much of the Ethlorek Hoebric people, the majority of the later influx of pagan Arlethians, the Nords, Sexers and Cardes, had not converted to the religion of the lands they now resided in.

Early Middle Ages

An abbot, canonised as Laurence of Sulthey, was sent as a missionary in 774 by Pope Zachary I to convert Arlethian people from paganism to Christianity. The reigning King of All Norts at the time, Egbert, desired the support of the military power of the Church, permitted Laurence to proselytise the Nords and Cardes of his kingdom though he himself was only baptised on his deathbed in 753 after being mortally wounded by an arrow during battle. Laurence founded Sulthey Cathedral on the Isle of Sulthey in 749, the year which is now generally considered the start of the Roman Catholic church in Great Nortend. He also founded the first monastery, to become Sulthey Abbey, two years after in 751. St Laurence served for over thirty years as the Apostle to All Nortend. His mission was a great success and by the 10th century, most of the Arlethian and Hoebric population had converted to Roman Catholicism.

High Middle Ages

A typical late 12th century manor church. St Renwick's, in Culton, Southannering.

The Church flourished in the High Middle Ages, with numerous churches and chapels being established. By the late 12th century, nearly every manor had at least one church. In Lendert alone, 52 churches had been built by the time the Cathedral of St Peter had been completed in 1272.

Independence from Rome

The pivotal moment in the history of the Church was the declaration of independence from the Bishop of Rome. There had been simmering tensions in Erbonian society in the decades immediately preceding, with controversy over the taxes payable to the Church and influence from Orthodox Christianity and Old Catholicism, which supported the principles of national autonomous churches. From 1545 to 1563, Erbonian prelates attended the Council of Trent but no effective reform was forthcoming. Particularly, great attention was focussed on the sale and granting of indulgences which was deemed to be without basis in Scripture and an abuse.

The Church of Nortend as an independent national church was formally established as the state church with the passing of the Statute of Limmes in 1614 by King Alexander I and the Declaration of Supremacy. This Statute was passed with the consent of the Privy Council and later ratified by the Parliament in 1632. A legend surrounding the declaration relates that the King and the then-Archbishop of Sulthey heard from the Holy Ghost a message prophesising that, “Thy church shall be cloven and set upon the rock of Laurence, and the King shall I make Governour and Vicar over my flock”. The King and Archbishop of Sulthey, after the public assent to the Statute, were excommunicated by the Pope.

The independence of the Church of Nortend was widely popular amongst the people and nobility, although it was opposed strongly by the clergy and monastics. Though loyalists were not initially legally persecuted for their support of the Roman Catholic church, the controversy was, in the early and mid 17th century, increasingly manifested through violence between both sides.

The Abbot and monks of the Abbey of Staithway captured and hanged the Duke of Cardenbridge in 1765 at the height of the Popish Wars.

The Acts of Cleaving forming the combined Kingdom of Nortend, Cardoby and Hambria in 1642 established the Church of Nortend as the established church of Hambria as well. Matters came to a head when the 12th Duke of Cardenbridge was captured and hanged by the Abbot and monks of Staithway in 1668. The 13th Duke introduced a Bill into the House of Lords after the death of Alexander I who had opposed criminalisation later that year, to criminalise allegiance to the Pope, leading to the use of the term 'Cardican' to refer to the Church of Nortend. Under the Act, many clergymen, such as the Bishop of Chepingstow, were executed for refusing to renounce against the Pope and escalated with the trial and execution of the Six Heretics, six clergymen who plotted with the Pope to invade Great Nortend and restore the Church in 1670 during the first few years of King William I's reign.

William declared that 'whosoever shall renounce the lawful, established catholic and orthodox Church of this Realm shall be sentenced to hang'. He noted in the Carta Erboniæ Ecclesiæ, or Charter of the Church, that the church before the split was little different to the Church afterwards, save for the removal of the Bishop of Rome as supreme head of the Church, and maintained the Alexanderian view that the Church was 'reformed, catholick and orthodox'. The position of the Roman Catholic Church is that the Church of Nortend is in schism but not heretical.

Establishing a new identity

After the split, a new English bible translation, liturgy and missal was proposed in Parliament as necessary for cementing the King's identity as the Supreme Mundane Governour of the Church as well as to keep more in-line with general Orthodox thinking which provided for the use of the vernacular. The King James's Bible had been published in English in 1611, a few years prior to the Declaration of Supremacy. The eventual Cardican authorised version of the Bible was dedicated to St Edmund in 1704 by King Henry V and drew heavily from the King James's Version for inspiration and guidance. Copies were disseminated freely to every church and school within just a few years.

Latin remained in use for the liturgy, and moves to publish the liturgy in English proved controversial at the time, as the Latinate Rites of Chepingstow and Sulthey had been in use for many centuries prior and for nearly a century after schism. A compromise was established between those supporting the vernacular and the adherents to the Latin rites. The Latin text would be supplemented side-by-side with official English translations for the benefit of the people, but Latin would remain in use for liturgical purposes.

The Olnite Matter

The Olnite Matter concerned the marriage of Queen Mary to the Cardo-Catholic Earl of Scode.

Since the Establishment of the Church of Nortend, the doctrines of the church had officially little changed from the pre-Independence Catholic doctrines. Beginning in the 17th century, however, there was a growing popularity of Protestant concepts amongst portions of the country that sought to move the Church towards a more Protestant view.

Queen Mary had through her youth and early reign displayed a Protestant leaning in her faith, declaring the suspension of the initiation of any novices to religious establishments and appointing more protestant bishops. She, however, desired to marry Stuart Oln, the 5th Earl of Scode, originating from the ruling House of Oln of Albeinland, who was deposed in the Albish Revolution. Stuart was of the traditionalist branch of the Church of Nortend, and there sprung up two warring factions in Parliament, known as the 'Scodeliers' and the 'Droughers', which supported and opposed the marriage respectively. Ultimately, Mary I married the Earl in 1742 at the age of 27, and the Scodeliers grew to dominate the Church.

Non-conformity

Despite an acceptance of the Church of Nortend as the established church of the realm, religious tensions still simmered under the surface and occasionally came to a boil. The Acts of Allowance in the 18th century permitted for the first time people to establish their own non-conformist 'chapels' for those dissatisfied with the traditionalist, Catholic practices of the Church, and have preachers and teachers so long as they did not proselytise, build buildings that looked like places of worship or threaten social stability. The last provision was used to quietly shut down non-conformist churches that were growing too large and popular, and ultimately resulted in their eventual decline in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today here are only a number of congregationalist or independent chapelries, each professing support of a particular denomination but otherwise having little national structure or hierarchy.

Structure

The Archbishop of Limmes, the Most Reverend John Williams

The Church of Nortend is split into three ecclesiastical provinces headed by an archbishop, not to be confused with civil provinces, and sixteen dioceses, each headed by an bishop. The Archbishop of Sulthey is considered to be the Primate of Erbonia, subordinate only to the Sovereign.

Map of the dioceses of the Church of Nortend.

Archdiocese of Rhise

• Diocese of Keys
• Diocese of Oxley
• Diocese of Corring (Rockleham) and Fivewells
• Diocese of Rhighton
• Diocese of Rhise and Hoole

Archdiocese of Sulthey

• Diocese of Chepingstow
• Diocese of Mast
• Diocese of Polton
• Diocese of Staithway
• Diocese of Sulthey

Province of Limmes

• Diocese of Scode
• Diocese of Echester
• Diocese of Lanchester
• Diocese of Lendert
• Diocese of Limmes
• Diocese of Tow and St Cleaves
• Diocese of Walecester

A diocese is split further into archdeaconries, deaneries and parishes, administered by an archdeacon, a dean and a parish priest respectively. A parish is usually conterminous with a feudal manor, which are not to be confused with baronies, whilst a deanery is coterminous with a hundred.

Orders

The Church of Nortend recognises four orders of ministre, that of the bishop (episcopate), priest (prebyster), deacon (diaconus) and clerk (clericus). Of the four, only the first three are holy orders or in Latin, ordines majores. The clericate is termed a lay order or minor order, ordines minores. The positions of archbishop, archdeacon, primate &c. are not considered orders but rather appointments.

The rites for the ordination of bishops, priests and deacons are set out in the Book of Rites. Bishops may only be ordained by three other bishops, whereas a priest or deacon may be ordained by any single bishop.

Clerks are either boy clerks, academical clerks, minor clerks or major clearks. They hold various roles, such as that of the crucifer, thurifer, cerofer, and particularly, lector and chorister. University undergraduates are also required to be ordained as academical clerks, which is normally conferred during matriculation. Compared with holy orders, a clerk is able to relinquish his clericate simply by abandonment or by deed.

Doctrine

The doctrine of the Church of Nortend was and is modelled on the traditional teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church, with modifications especially during the period of the Reformation. These tenets are encapsulated in the Carta Ecclesiasticae, which has forty main points. The main differences between the Catholic and Cardican churches are, the belief in the Holy Mysteries, of auricular confession of sins, and of clerical chastity, and the requirement for all that is said to be able to be understood by the people. Other differences, as noted in other denominations such as Lutheranism and Anglicanism, such as the rejection of the devotion to Mary, and of the sacraments of matrimony, communion, unction and holy orders, are not seen in the Church of Nortend. The Church adheres to the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus, however not to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

The Church of Nortend, unlike some more liberal churches, is highly conservative in social matters. It holds as doctrine that only husband shall carnally know only his wife, and vice versa. It prohibits the ordination of women, and of the presence of women behind the rood screen. Women are not permitted to speak in a church, except the Queen, and are only permitted to sing in the congregation and to say the responses.

In relation to scientific fields, the Church is generally accepting of new ideas where they do not contradict scripture. The concept of evolution on the macro-scale, however, remains highly controversial. Whilst the story of creation is seen as literal, the Church officially does not completely find this repugnant to the general theory of evolution.

Liturgy

The liturgical practice of the Church of Nortend is set out in three books, known as the Books of Liturgy. These are the the Book of Mass, Book of Offices and the Book of Rites which were promulgated in 1709, 1710 and 1713 respectively. All three are used conjointly with the St Edmund's Version of the Bible, and the Book of Tones which includes all official hymns and chant tones.

Language

The official language of the Church of Nortend is Latin and the Books of Liturgy have side-by-side Latin and English texts. Texts are divided into the accentus and the concentus. The former includes the text said by the priest, deacon or clerk, including the Major Propers, being the Preface, Collects and Prayers, as well as any Directions, Readings, Lessons, and Chapters. The latter includes the texts said by the congregation and/or the choir, being the Ordinary, being the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, as well as the Minor Propers, being the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Tract, Sequence, Offertory and Communion, and the Hymns, Canticles, Psalms and Antiphons.

Most offices and masses are known as an officium commune or missa communis where the accentus is always chanted in English and the concentus is chanted in Latin when chanted by the choir, and English when chanted by the congregation. The Psalms, Antiphons, and Canticles are frequently said in English during the Offices even when chanted by the choir.

An office or mass sung entirely in Latin is known as an officium solemne or missa solemnis. Such solemn offices are only normally sung on festa duplicia or other solemn occasions such as at a Requiem Mass or Coronation. The three universities and most common and independent schools maintain the sole use of Latin in their liturgy, as well as monastics and canons regulars celebrating Mass and the canonical offices at abbeys, priories, convents and monastic cathedrals and collegiate churches.

The concentus in both Latin and English are sung by choirs in ordinary plain song, full chant, or in polyphonic festal settings. The accentus is usually chanted recto tono.

Canonical hours

In accordance with the Canons of the Church, the Church of Nortend recognises and prescribes the eight canonical hours of Nocturns (Midnight prayer), Mattins (Dawn prayer, also known as Lauds), Prime (Morning prayer), Terce (Late morning prayer), Sext (Noon prayer), Nones (Afternoon prayer), Vespers (Evening prayer) and Compline (Retiring prayer).

Whilst all eight are mandated for daily recital for regular clergy and monastics, by necessity the practice of secular clergy is vastly different to that of the monastics and regular clergy. Whereas all eight offices are separate in their monastic form as used by monastics and regular clergy in abbeys, priories and other religious communities, they are combined into three offices in the Book of Offices, for use in public prayer and services in secular cathedrals and churches, and by secular clergy.

Regular offices

Choir monastics, as well as the canons regular, are normally required to sing all eight canonical offices spread throughout the day, as provided in their respective rules. The day of the choir monk or nun is structured around the canonical hours, which are sung in choir. Given the time-consuming labour required of lay brothers and sisters of the monastic orders, they are not generally required to sing all of the canonical offices. The important Mattins and Vespers are usually retained and sung in choir and the rest privately recited.

Cathedral offices

The cathedral form of the canonical offices, as ordered in the Book of Offices, are in the form of three offices known as Mattins, Nones, and Vespers. They are formed from the condensation of individual regular canonical offices; Nocturns, Mattins and Prime are merged into 'Mattins'; Terce, Sext and Nones are merged into 'Nones', and Vespers and Compline are merged into 'Vespers'. These are ordered to be said at morning, noon, and evening respectively by all secular clergy, preferably publicly in their parish church or chapel.

Very few parishes have the need to say publicly all three combined offices daily. Despite this, the canon law requires that Mattins and Vespers be said audibly in every parish church every day, even when there is no congregation. Nones is optional on weekdays but not on festal days. In secular cathedrals, the secular canons are required to say the three offices daily publicly as well.

Music

The quire of the Cathedral of St Peter, Lendert-with-Cadell, looking towards the Chancel.

The Church of Nortend has a rich and long history of both choral and congregational singing and chants. Most parish churches maintain a vested choir of boys and men clerks in minor orders which provide choral chant and singing during services. This is typically accompanied by a pipe or reed organ, or on festal occasions, perhaps a band of musicians such as a quartet or orchestra.

It is the tradition that all liturgical portions of offices are sung through, except in Lent wherein only festal services are sung. Even in parishes without a choir, congregational singing is considered an important skill, which is helped by weekly practice.

In a traditional service in accordance with the Books of Liturgy, the concentus of the Offices and Mass are chanted by the choir cum vel sine the congregation, in either a monophonic plain chant or a harmonic full chant, often used on festal occasions. The concentus include the responsories, psalms, antiphons, hymns, canticles and the ordinarium of the Mass. The psalms and antiphons are unmetrical texts, and are usually sung to standard tones. The responsories, hymns, canticles and ordinarium are freely composed, although standard settings are promulgated.

The accentus comprise the portions of the Offices and Mass which are chanted by a single ministre or lector. It includes the versicles, collects, certain prayers, the Gospel, the Epistle, readings and lessons. The accentus is chanted in a manner similar to normal speaking to certain standard tones.

Secular Mattins and Vespers at secular parish churches and cathedrals also have provision for the singing of anthems known as 'figures' or cantus figurati, which are composed works sung by the choir. They usually are complex pieces and may or may not be in Latin, with orchestral or instrumental accompaniment in addition to or in lieu of the organ.