Messianity

Messianity, also known as Sassanism, and Mandachaeism, is a monotheistic Nohraic faith centred around the teachings and the history of the Prophet Sasan, and those of his disciples. Messianity believes that Sasan was adopted by God from a young age, and is the last of a long line of prophets who preached the true version of God's teachings, which includes Nohra, Paisos, and the Tathagata. Arising in the 1st century in the cosmopolitan region of ..., Messianity took on many aspects of other monotheistic religions, such as ideas of reincarnation and rebirth, the search for truth and meaning, and the eternal struggle between a dark material world and a holy spiritual one. Sasan travelled the world, spreading his word, before he was executed It has since spread to become one of the largest faiths in all of Eordus, with ... billion followers.

Messianity, after the death of the Prophet Sasan, spread through the commentaries of Sasan's disciples, which were eventually gathered into a holy book.

Emperor Martinian I of the ... Empire, which at that time ruled vast swathes of the Marenostro, converted to Messianity as a youth when his desperate mother sought to find a cure for his epileptic fits. When he grew up and took the leadership of the Empire from Emperor Saloninus, he recognised Messianity as the state religion of the Empire. Messianity, spreading across the Marenostro, came to dominate the religious landscape of southern Estere. After the Empire's collapse, the religion came under attack as several holy sites were raided, or were at risk of being raided, by various pagan groups migrating from the east and from the north. It was from this that in the year 889, the Illuminated Rabbenus Symmachus declared the first of what would become many holy wars, the Crusades, or Holy Marches, to retake territories which had fallen to pagans. These Holy Marches achieved great success initially, solidifying the faith within its core lands of southern Estere, but after the Northern Reformations, in which various pagan religions borrowed from Messianity to establish a formal religious hierarchy and scripture, Holy Marches became more costly, and grew to have little effect against these reformed faiths. The decline of the Holy Marches also coincided with a mentality of maintaining Messianity, rather than expanding it further. However, discoveries and colonisation efforts by Esterian explorers on other continents during the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries allowed the spreading of Messianity into the New World, Mauria, Seria, and the Campes.

Entymology

The term Messianity arises from Latin "Messianus", a borrowing from Greek "Messī́ās", which in turn is borrowed from the Hebrew word "mashíakh", meaning "one who is annointed", or "Messiah".

History

Coin of Emperor Martinian II, with a standard-bearer displaying the Messianic Cross

Organisation and Denominations

The head of faith for the Messianic Church is the Illuminated Rabbenus, who is considered the ultimate authority in matters of faith, knowledge, scripture, and morality. The Illuminated Rabbenus and his bishops are seen as the successors to the Apostle Marcus, of whom leadership of the faith was conferred to by Sasan before his death. Spiritual matters are the concern of the Illuminated Rabbenus, but since the 17th century and the Council of ..., the official representative of the church is the Secretary, who acts in the Rabbenus' name, and organises material affairs and the administration of the Church. He in turn is guided by Messianic Senate, comprising of high-ranking members of the church. Some have compared the organisation of the church to that of a constitutional monarchy, with the Illuminated Rabbenus as a figurehead, while real power is invested in the Secretary, elected by and responsible to the Messianic Senate.