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Cozauism is a religion based on the doctrine of Cozauh Tlecoyani as written in the seven codices of the Teocuezalin. As the state religion of the powerful Angatahuacan hegemony, the Cozauist Temple became influential across much of western Oxidentale and southern Malaio where Angatahuaca held significant political and military sway. Today, Cozauism is the majority religion in the Nahuasphere nations of Zacapican and Pulacan that emerged from the core territories of the former Angatahauacan empire. The institution of the Temple holds spiritual authority over matters of religious orthodoxy and the interpretation of the Teocuezalin and is organized according to a regimented hierarchy headed by the Tlatocateopixqui or "Holy Speaker", the formal head of the Temple and spiritual leader to the many millions of Cozauists around the world. Although the current Tlatocateopixqui no longer wields the considerable temporal powers of their medieval predecessors since the secularization of government in the 20th century, the office retains its centralized authority over the international network of several thousand Cozauist temples. The legitimacy of the Temple as the governing authority of the Cozauist religion is based on the direct line of succession from Cozauh Tlecoyani himself to all subsequent Tlatocateopixqui.
The Cozauist religion is neither fully polytheistic nor monotheistic, incorporating aspects of both cosmological systems into a semi-henotheistic form of monolatry. Xotlatozca is the supreme god of Cozauism and the focus of worship, but other gods are acknowledged in in specific circumstances permitted to be worshipped in parallel within the Temple. Cozauist mythology and cosmology draws heavily from its polytheistic precursor, a system of traditional religion practiced in pre-Cozauist Zacapican that was comparable to the White Path still prevalent in the modern-day Mutul. The origins of the Cozauist creed and the Teocuezalin's seven codices that modern Cozauists hold sacred can be found in the efforts of Cozauh Tlecoyani, an important lord in medieval Angatahuaca and a notable religious reformer, to establish a centralized and consolidated religious system integrating the beliefs, mythology and ritual practices of Angatahuaca's subject peoples into a single organized institution.
Beliefs
Cosmology
The Cozauist worldview is based on several cyclical processes based in the natural world, such as the cycles of rain, tides, and the seasons. Each cycle is subject to an infinite recursion, containing within it smaller versions of itself and likewise being part of a larger process that cannot always be perceived by mortals. The most important of these cycles is cyclical time, also known as the Cozauist doctrine of the Suns, which is based on the infinitely repeating cycle of the day, the year and the universe itself. According to the first codex of the Teocuezalin, the current universe was created when Xotlatozca, the self-igniting flame, Moyocoyani or "the one who created himself", came into being at the beginning of the cycle and subsequently brought about all the creations of the material world by transforming into the Sun. As the Sun of the current universe, Xotlatozca will eventually reach a zenith before extinguishing, plunging the world into darkness in the Cozauist vision of the apocalypse. The cycle will then begin again.