Ecclesiastical Amendant Church of Ebrary
| Ecclesiastical Amendant Church of Ebrary | |
|---|---|
| Ecclesia Amendante Clerical de Ebraria | |
 Cathedral de Ceres | |
| Classification | Amendant |
| Orientation | General |
| Theology | Ebraricist |
| Polity | Episcopal |
| Governor-Primate | Marco Justio |
| Language | Ebrarese |
| Headquarters | Cathedral de Ceres, Ceres, Ebrary |
| Origin | 698 (autocephaly declared) |
| Separated from | Orthodox communion (1502) |
| Absorbed | Free Amendant Church of Ebrary (1940) |
| Separations |
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The Ecclesiastical Amendant Church of Ebrary (Ebrarese: Ecclesia Amendante Clerical de Ebraria), known formerly (and still informally) as simply the Church of Ebrary (Ebrarese: Ecclesia de Ebraria), is an Amendant Christian church which was the established church of Ebrary until 1934. Members of the church are generally denoted as Ebraricists (Ebrarese: Ebraricistas), so the church is also sometimes referred to as the Ebraricist Church (Ebrarese: Ecclesia Ebraricista). As Ebrary's longest-lasting functioning institution, it has played an important role in the history and development of the Ebrarian nation. The bishop of Ceres is the most senior cleric, supreme governor, and chief pastor of the church. It traces its origins to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Aroman-speaking colonies of Ebrary in the 5th-century. The church is headquartered in the historic Cathedral of Ceres in the Ebrarian capital of Ceres.
Due to its history, the Ebraricist Church views itself as respecting unbroken apostolic succession from the apostles. In 1939, the Adherentes Antiquate factions of the Church of Ebrary split and formed the Orthodox Aroman Church in Ebrary and the Ebrarian Orthodox Catholic Church.
History
Pre-Reformation
Christianity arrived in Ebrary in the 5th century, during which time Ebrary was colonized by Aromans. The first church was built in Ceres under the orders of Marcus Ebraius, namesake of Ebrary.
Before the Amendant Reformation, the Ebrarian church was headed solely by the Bishop of Ceres while in communion with other Orthodox Christian churches. In the late 600s, the Bishop of Ceres successfully established the autocephalous Orthodox church in Ebrary in response to the triumph of iconoclasm in the Aroman Empire. The Ebrarian church maintained the usage of icons and broke communion with the Enlightened Aroman Church, but did not acknowledge the primacy of Pope Calrissius who was driven from Arome to Salvia. Due to this history, iconoclasm never took hold in Ebrary to any notable degree until the Amendant Reformation.
After the formation of the Vorstish Kingdom of Ebrary in 780, the state and church became more heavily intertwined. The kings of Ebrary and Vorstland were crowned by the Bishop of Ceres until Ebrary gained independence and rule by a native dynasty in 1099. Thenceforth, the Orthodox church in Vorstland declared itself to be an autocephalous Orthodox church in its own right and independent of the Ebrarian church. This Vorstish Orthodox Church was not recognized by the Bishop of Ceres until 1204, causing a schism and lack of communion between the two churches up until that date despite broad doctrinal and liturgical agreement.
In 1502, King Charles 'the Greedy' declared himself head of the church in Ebrary in order to expropriate church lands and wealth for the use of the Ebrarian state. This caused a break in communion with other autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches. Discontentment with the state of the church ultimately led the priest August Roel to publish his "Proposal for Amending the Church" in Miron in 1513, which led to the Amendant Reformation.
Amendant Reformation
The Amendant Reformation itself is said to have lasted from 1513 to 1567. The church, stripped of much of its wealth and power and operating under a series of incompetent monarchs, styled itself "Orthodox and Catholic under Monarchical rule". Various acts of vandalism occurred performed by iconoclasts in many Ebrarian cathedrals and churches of the era. Church attendance dramatically lowered as a large number of Ebrarians were converted to various Amendant denominations. However, in 1567 the Vorstish King Gustav II took the throne and instituted a number of reforms to the church, installing Amendant-leaning bishops, and bringing the church more theologically aligned with the Amendant view. This effectively ended any pretense of the Church of Ebrary being an Orthodox church, although a large faction sympathetic to the old ways continued to exist in the church until the 20th century.
Era as a national church
As a national church, the Church of Ebrary held a wide variety of theological viewpoints. Various factions such as strict-Amendant factions, Sanctity-Ebraricist factions, and Adherentes Antiquate cliques (both iconoclast and pro-icon) formed in the church. In 1895, the Free Amendant Church of Ebrary broke away from the Church of Ebrary due to changes in liturgy which were felt by those leaving to not adhere to Amendant beliefs.
Disestablishment, reorganization, and merger
The Church of Ebrary was disestablished in 1935 after the Ebrarian Revolution established a liberal democracy. In 1939, the iconoclastic Adherentes Antiquate faction (Persistas) of the Church of Ebrary split and formed the Orthodox Aroman Church in Ebrary in order to join the Aroman Church. In early 1940, the iconodulist Adherentes Antiquate (Eccetistas) split to form the Ebrarian Orthodox Catholic Church. In late 1940, the Free Amendant Church of Ebrary merged back with the Church of Ebrary to form the Ecclesiastical Amendant Church of Ebrary.
Since the Ebrarian Revolution
The Ecclesiastical Amendant Church of Ebrary was effectively neutral during the Ebrarian Revolution, but has supported the government of Sovereign Protector Daniel Lucas since he took power. The Constitution of Ebrary guaranteed the church is able to appoint members in both the Senate and the High Ecumenical Council. The church also recieves a great deal of funding from the government's church tax, and has generally supported the political status quo.
Organization
The Ebraricist Church adheres to an episcopal polity, with an ordained hierarchy of bishops, priests and deacons. The Bishop of Ceres heads the entirety of the church, with subordinate bishops heading each diocese which correspond roughly to the provinces of Ebrary.
Male graduates of church seminaries are ordained as deacons, then eventually as priests. It is permitted for deacons to marry, but not priests or bishops. Unmarried priests who have taken an optional vow of celibacy may be eligible for appointment as bishops and other higher church offices. Women may take vows as a ministrant (servant) for their local church, but they are not ordained. Due to the influences of the Amendant Reformation, monastic or holy orders do not exist in the Ebraricist Church.
Governor-Primate
The Ebraricist Church is headed by the Bishop of Ceres, whose official offices are both Governor of the Lord's Church in Ebrary and Bishop of Ceres. Since the disestablishment of the church, the Bishop of Ceres and the church's governor have been the same individual (previously, the Ebrarian monarch held the office of Governor). As Governor, the Bishop of Ceres appoints subordinate bishops and other church officials and is in charge of the financial and other temporal holdings of the church. As bishop, the Bishop of Ceres influences church theology, liturgy, and worship.
Selection of a new bishop
Historically, the Ebrarian monarch appointed a new bishop of Ceres on the death, resignation, or removal of a prevous bishop. Due to the lack of a separate individual as Governor of the Church of Ebrary and Bishop of Ceres, the current Bishop maintains a council known as a "Regency Council" who serve to select a new bishop when needed. This Regency Council exercises the powers of the Governor of the church concerning removing and replacing the Bishop of Ceres. The Regency Council generally comprises the heads of dioceses, as well as other prominent priests and theologians in the Ebraricist church.
Doctrine and practice
The canon law of the Ebraricist Church identifies the Christian Bible as the source of its beliefs. Doctrine also derived from the writings of the Church Fathers and early leaders of the church in Ebrary and ecumenical councils, as long as these do not conflict with scripture. The doctrine of the Ebraricist Church is formulated in the Ebrarian Book of Devotion and Main Articles of Faith. Not actually adopted until 1950, the Main Articles of Faith serve as the Ebraricist confession of faith.
While embracing Amendant doctrine, the Ebraricist Church maintains certain traditions from the Orthodox church. The decisions of the early ecumenical councils are accepted, with belief in the trinity, resurrection, and incarnation being central. However, the Ebraricist church is distinguished by its allowance of different traditions with somewhat differing theology to coexist within it, particularly concerning the doctrine of justification. This tendency is termed General Amendant, and is contrasted to the more fundamentalist, evangelical approach of the Missionarist Amendant denominations.
The major factions of the modern Ebraricist Church are,
- Rigoristas, the more strict Amendant faction of the church. While generally still remaining within the category of General Amendants, they are less tolerant of alternative modes of worship and seek to remove some vestiges of Orthodoxy in the Ebraricist Church.
- Moderatistas, the moderate faction of the church which seeks to accept different modes of worship and beliefs.
- Ebraricistas Sanctitate, those in the Ebraricist church which are strongly influenced by, or identify to a degree with, the Sanctity movement. Tend to be somewhat in-between Moderatistas and Rigoristas in terms of their stances of theological and liturgical issues.
Iconography
The Church of Ebrary allows both aniconism and iconodulism to coexist in its organization, while the church stands against explicit iconoclasm (destruction of icons). The bishop of a diocese is the sole authority to decide whether the usage of icons will be permitted in his diocese. A priest or bishop must not forbid communion to any baptized person in the church due to their position on icons, and this extends to those baptized in other churches the church is in communion with. The bishop and his diocese must must decide the locations and churches where icons are permitted. These regulations were formulated after the disestablishment of the church to unite the anti-icon and pro-icon factions of the Ebraricist community, and both factions have continued to exist with little incident since then. Currently, the Bishop of Ceres permits iconography in the Cathedral de Ceres, the headquarters of the Ebraricist Church. Iconodulism is most common in western Ebrary while aniconism predominates in eastern Ebrary.