Church of Emerstari
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| Church of Emerstari | |
|---|---|
| Der Emerskekyrkas | |
 | |
| Abbreviation | EK (COE) |
| Classification | Protestant |
| Orientation | Lutheranism |
| Scripture | Kuing Georgsbible |
| Theology | Lutheranism |
| Polity | Episcopal |
| Defender of the Faith | Erik XII Georg |
| Patriarch of Emerstari | Erik XII Georg |
| Bishop of the Synod | Håkon Georg Hanssen |
| Secretary of the Church | Karl Jakob Dalmann |
| Munkligordre | Olafistordre Jakobsbrodernsordre Heligskorserordre Mariesdattersordre Margaretsostrensordre |
| Bishoprics | 27 |
| Region | Emerstarian Empire |
| Language | Emerstarian |
| Headquarters | Luthershjembyggning, Rensulier, Emerstari |
| Founder | Georg I Erik |
| Origin | 1444 |
| Separated from | Catholic Church |
| Separations | |
| Members | 83.21 million |
| Missionaries | Emerskeekumenik- liguppdraggruppett |
| Hospitals | St. Olafs Sykhussersgruppe |
| Aid organization | Emerskekyrkasnød- hjalpskegruppett |
The Church of Emerstari is the established state church of Emerstari. The Bishop of the Synod is the most senior cleric, but the Emerstarian king is the Defender of the Faith and Patriarch. The Church of Emerstari is also the mother church of the larger Emerstarian Communion. Georg I Erik renounced papal authority in 1444; however, the Church views itself as a protestant catholic church:
- Catholic in the sense that it retains many pre-reformation liturgical practices and sacrement and views itself as a part of the universal church of Jesus Christ in unbroken continuity with the early apostolic church and the original Catholic Church in Emerstari, established in the first century by Gorm of Flodland and St. Sigebert. Additionally, it holds the catholic creeds, the Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed and Athanasian Creed in its doctrine.
- Protestant in the sense that it is shaped by the doctrinal principles of Martin Luther outlined in Concordia.
Since the Reformation, the Church of Emerstari has used a liturgy in Emerstarian. The governing structure is based on bishorpics, with each bishopric headed by a bishop. Within, there are local parishes and individual churches and monastaries. The Alltmåndessynod is the governing body for the church and comprises of bishops and other clergymen; it is most known for electing the Bishop of the Synod. The Church is sometimes criticized by more liberal sects for its overall traditionalism and its views on the ordination of women, homosexutality, divorce, and abortion.
Organization
Structure
The Emerstarian king is constitutionally and, according to Emerstarian law, by divine right, the Defender of the Faith and the Patriarch of Emerstari. The foremost cleric who administers the Church for the King is the Bishop of the Synod, who is elected by the Alltskemåndeskessynod every ten years from among the presiding bishops. The Bishop of the Synod appoints several Secretaries of the Church as well. He is not so much viewed as a leader, like the Pope in the Catholic Church, but rather, the first among the bishops. There are twenty-seven bishops in Emerstari who each head a bishopric; within a bishopric, there are parishes led by a presbyters and then individual churches. Abbeys exist throughout the country, and while they may coordinate with the bishopric or parish they're in, they act independently, reporting to the Alltskemåndessynod. Cathedrals are often the seats of bishops, so they are under the jursidiction of the bishopric, but they are run on a day-to-day basis by Deans. Chapels, run by chaplains, are mostly independent from whatever bishopric or parish they're in, not even answering the Alltskemåndessynod, but they must be operated by an ordained minister.
In the terminology of the Church of Emerstari, a cleric (Emerstarian: klerk) is a person, ordained or not (this is so as to include nuns since women cannot be ordained), who has a position within the Church; an acolyte (Emerstarian: kyrkasfoljer) is someone within the Church training to enter an ordained position; a preacher (Emerstarian: prædikent) is a person within the Church ordained to preach the Gospel and preform religious functions such as funerals and weddings, whether they have a church of their own or not; a pastor (Emerstarian: prester) is an ordained person within the Church who preaches at a local church; a presbyter (Emerstarian: storskeprester) is the ordained person who preaches at a parish church and acts as the most senior pastor within a parish; a bishop (Emerstarian: biskope) is the ordained person who preaches at a cathedral and acts as the most senior pastor within a bishopric; a chaplain (Emerstarian: kaplan) is a person ordained to preach the Gospel and preform religious functions such as funerals and weddings at a military or private chapel; a dean (Emerstarian: dekan) is a person who is ordained but is appointed to manage the day-to-day operations of a cathedral; an abbot/abbess (Emerstarian: fratter/sorotter) is a person who is ordained and manages an abbey; a monk/nun (Emerstarian: munk/nunne) is someone who is ordained and is a member of an abbey. Monks and nuns are usually part of a specific order within the Church of Emerstari. While bishops are referred to as Your Reverend (Emerstarian: Dine Fromlig) to them or His Reverend (Emerstarian: Hans Fromlig) about them, many of the other positions use the styles Brother (Emerstarian: Broder) or Sister (Emerstarian: Soster). This differs from the styles in other sects, who may refer to their ordained persons as Father or Mother as a sign of respect; the Church of Emerstari figures that since we are all children of God, who is our Heavenly Father, ordained persons should be referred to as if they were siblings as opposed to parents.
Bishoprics
The Church of Emerstari is organized into twenty-seven bishoprics, each led by a bishop, twenty in Emerstari proper. There are no archbishops; the most senior bishop is an elected Bishop of the Synod, currently Håkon Georg Hanssen.
| Diocese | Founded | Cathedral | Incumbent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biskopesland Rontseljere | 78 | Rensulier Cathedral | Mikael Ulf Bjornmann (2000– ) |
| Biskopesland Uppsalle | Uppsalle Cathedral | ||
| Biskopesland Ekkesburg | Ekkesburg Cathedral | ||
| Biskopesland Vasterland | Hjorring Cathedral | ||
| Biskopesland Erke | Yoerk Cathedral | ||
| Biskopesland Marland | |||
| Biskopesland Fjellborg | Fjellborg Cathedral |
History
Early Christianity
Christianity first arrived to Emerstari under St. Sigebert sometime in the first century, supposedly in 78 AD, when he entered the court of Njell of Flodland to prosyltize. Njell promptly converted and took the name Gorm, which in Emerstarian means he who worships God. Previously, many Emerstarians practiced Emerstrú, a pre-Judaic Abrahamic religion brought by Hemar, great-grandson of Noah through Japheth and Magog, when he settled Emerstari. Much of Emerstari had converted by the fourth century; though, various heathen traditions, deriving from Norstrú, a heresy of Emerstrú, persisted until the eleventh century. Some aspects of it remain in certain folkloric tales. In these early centuries of Christianity in Emerstari, Emerstarian monks were composing some religious hymns and poems in Proto-North Scanian.
Several Emerstarians were canonized in the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, including one king, Jakob II, and several queens. Jakob II was said to be chaste; though, some theories claim he was infertile as well.
Reformation
In 1444, Georg I Erik ascended to the throne after victory in the War of the Emerstarian Succession. Having converted several years prior, like a portion of Emerstarians, one of his first actions was to deny papal authority and established the Church of Emerstari as a Lutheran church. At this time, Georg I Erik ordered for the Bible to be translated into Emerstarian; the first Emerstarian-translated Bible, known as the Bible of Georg I Erik sits in Rensulier Cathedral today and is used in royal coronation, marriage, and funeral ceremonies. The translation ordered by King Georg is still the translation officially used by the Church of Emerstari today in spite of more contemporary translations. Several Emerstarian neighbors had reformed as well, and throughout the sixteenth century and even into the seventeenth century, multiple holy wars were fought, mostly based on political grounds.
21st century
In the modern era, the Church has sometimes been criticized by more liberal sects of Christianity and non-Christian groups alike for its positions on the ordination of women, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, divorce, and abortion and contraception. Alternatively, the Emerstarian Crown has criticized some of the Church's clergymen in the past for possessing more liberal views, most notably when Erik X Gustaf requested Bishop Harald Leff Frederikssen to retract a statement on divorce and proceeded to dismiss legislature. There is also some debate about the fact that religion, according to the beliefs of the Church, is taught in Emerstarian public schools.
The twenty-first century has also seen a rise in mission and aid work outside of Emerstarian colonial territory. Besides the various monastical orders of the Church, two organizations managed by the Church exist for these matters, which any Emerstarian can join, even if they are not Lutheran: Emerskeekumenikliguppdraggruppett (The Emerstarian Ecunemical Mission Group) and Emerskekyrkasnødhjalpskegruppett (The Church of Emerstari's Aid Group). Since the Middle Ages, the Olafistordre (Olavian Order), has operated hospitals, which are today known as St. Olafs Sykhusser or St. Olaf's Hospitals.
Core doctrinal beliefs
Bible
The Church of Emerstari holds the Lutheran belief that the Bible of the Old and New Testaments to be the only divinely inspired book, and thus, the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and the only norm for Christian teaching. Sola scriptura, or scripture alone, is one of the five solae and is the formal principle of faith in the Church of Emerstari and is the final authority for all matters of faith and morals as Luther taught that the Bible was the written Word of God. The Church of Emerstari holds the Bible as literal, so stories like creation in Genesis, which some more liberal sects interpret as metaphor, the Church of Emerstari holds as legitimate happenings. Rationalism was a highly opposed idea in Emerstari.
Sufficiency
The Church of Emerstari, as Luther believed, is confident that the Bible contains everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life, to avoid falling into degenerecy and wickedness. There are no deficiencies that need be filled with pronouncements of the Pope, new revelations, and/or present-day development of doctrine.
Justification
The Church of Emerstari holds the doctrine of justification, a core doctrine of Lutheranism. It believes that man is saved from its sins by three of the five solae: through God's grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), and through scripture alone (sola scriptura). As in Lutheran beliefs, it holds that God made the world, including man, perfect, holy, and sinless. However, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God through free will, and consequently, people are fallen from paradise and born with original sin, unable of the avoidance of committing sinful acts. As a result of this, man is deservant of eternal damnation in hell, which is believed to be a real place along with heaven, but God in eternity has turned His Fatherly heart to Earth and planned for its redemption because he loves all people and does not want anyone to be eternally damned.
The Church of Emerstari rejects decision theology, determining that faith is a gift from God, created in the hearts of Christians by the work of the Holy Spirit on the Earth and baptism.
Trinity
The Church of Emerstari is trinitarian, rejecting the idea that God the Father and God the Son are faces of the same person, claiming that the Old and New Testaments show them to be distinct. The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son in Lutheran theology. Per the Athanasian Creed, "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal."
Two natures of Christ
The Church of Emerstari believes Jesus is the Christ, the savior promised in the Old Testament. They believe that he is both by nature God and by nature man in one person. In Luther's Small Catechism, they believe he is "true God begotten of the Father from eternity and also true man born of the Virgin Mary".
Sacrements
The Church of Emerstari sees sacraments as sacred acts of divine institution. Whenever they are properly administered by the use of the physical component commanded by God along with the divine words of institution, God is, in a way specific to each sacrament, persent with the Word and physical component. The Church believes he offers forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation to all who receive the sacrament.
Baptisms
The Church holds Baptism as a saving work of God, mandated and instituted by Jesus Christ. According to Luther, Baptism is a "means of grace" through which God creates and strengthens "saving faith" as the "washing of regeneration" in which infants and adults are reborn. Since the creation of faith is exclusively God's work, it does not depend on the actions of the one baptized, whether infant or adult. Although baptized infants cannot articulate that faith, the Emerstarian Church, as Lutheran, believes that it is present all the same.
Eucharist
The Church of Emerstari considers the consecrated bread and wine literally becomes the body and blood of Christ for all those who eat and drink it; Luther refers to it as the sacramental union.
Confession
Confession is optional in the Church of Emerstari as it believes that forgiveness is between an individual and God; however, it believes that sometimes, it is best for an individual to seek advice regarding forgiveness from a pastor of the Church. As other Lutherans do, members of the Church of Emerstari typically kneel at the communion rails to confess their sins while the confessor listens and then offers absolution while laying their stole on the penitent's head. Clergy are prohibited both by Church rules and Emerstarian law from revealing anything said during private Confession and Absolution and may face excommunication if they do.
Conversion
While one does not need to be a part of the Church or be baptised in the Church to be Emerstarian Lutheran and practice and attend, to be part of the Church, one does need to be baptised and fill out Baptismal Papers. One can also simply be baptised within the Church without becoming a member of the Church of Emerstari. Per Lutheran belief, conversion is the work of divine grace and power by which man, who is born of the flesh, and void of all power to think, to will, or to do any good thing, and who is dead in sin is, through the gospel and holy paptism, taken from a state of sin, impenitence, and spiritual death under God's wrath into a state of repentance and of spiritual life of faith and grace, rendered able to will and to do what is spiritually good and made to trust in the benefits of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Predestination
The Church of Emerstari holds divine monergism as one of its beliefs, that salvation is by God's act alone, and therefore reject the idea that man, in their fallen state, have a free will in spiritual matters (though, it believes that man have free will in other matters). They thus, cannot work spiritual reighteousness in the heart without the presence and the aid of the Holy Spirit. As Luther believed, the Church of Emerstari believes Christians are saved, that all those who trust in Christ alone and his promises can be certain of their salvation.
Divine providence
The Church of Emerstari believes that God preserves his creation, cooperating with everything that happens and guiding it. While God cooperates with both good and evil deeds, with evil deeds he only cooperates with them inasmuch as they are deeds, not as they are evil. He concurs with an act's effects, but he does not cooperate with the corruption of an act or the evil of its effect. Luther believed that everything exists for the sake of the Christian Church and God guides everything for its welfare and growth.
Good works
The Church of Emerstari sees good works as having origins in God, not in the fallen heart of man, and that they are fruit of faith. Obversely, their absence would demonstrate that faith is absent. Emerstarian Lutherans do not hold good works as a factor of obtaining salvation, for they believe that they are saved by the grace of God, based on the merit of Christ in his suffering and dead, and in the Triune God.
Judgement and eternal life
The Church of Emerstari does not foresee any sort of earthly millenial kingdom of Christ before or after his second coming on the last day. The Church, as other Lutherans do, teach that at death, the souls of Christians are immediately taken into the presence of Jesus, where they await the second coming of Jesus on the last day. When the last day comes, all bodies of the dead will be resurrected will be reunited with their souls. The bodies will then be changed, those of the wicked to a state of everlasting shame and torment, and those of the righteous to an everlasting state of celestial glory.
All nations shall then be gathered before Christ, where he will publicly judge all people in righteousness in the presence of all people and angels; his final judgement will be just damnation to everlasting punishment for the wicked and a gracious gift of life everlasting to the righteous.
The Church of Emerstari believes that claiming any particular date as the Second Coming of Jesus is heresy, that no man can know.
Saints
The Church of Emerstari acknowledges the saints of other Christian sects in general as well as on certain days; however, the Church does not venerate its own saints nor does it teach Emerstarian Lutherans to pray to saints. Similarly, it does not teach Emerstarian Lutherans to pray to the Virgin Mary, though it still holds her in high esteem. This is because the Church of Emerstari holds that one should pray to God the Father through God the Son.
Angels
The Church of Emerstari recognizes the existence of angels as Martin Luther did. Indeed, he is quoted as saying, "That angels are with us is very sure, and no one should ever have doubted it." Moreover, the Church recognizes their existence through their mention in Bible, in the Old and New Testaments. The Church of Emerstari holds that angels are heavenly intelligent beings made by God, as he made man as earthly intelligent beings; it believes that angels are the highest and noblest messengers of God. Emerstarian Lutherans believe in the existence of guardian angels, sent by God, to watch over and protect an individual. Some clergy figure that certain individuals, such as sovereigns, as the appointed leader of a nation by God, have more guardian angels than the average person. However, unlike in some sects, Emerstarian Lutherans do not pray directly to their guardian angel(s).
Membership and attendance
According to the Church of Emerstari, 71.6% of Emerstarians are baptised, legal members of the Church; the Emerstarian census reveals 84.4% of Emerstarians identify as Christians of some sort. Members may be excommunicated in rare circumstances, most notably in the cases of revealed satanists. According to the Church, again, 21% of the population attends an Emerstarian Lutheran church on a weekly basis; though, more than two-thirds of the population attend during the Christmas and Easter seasons.
Monastic orders
Several monastic orders, including the Olafistordre (Olavian Order), the Jakobsbrodernsordre (The Order of St. Jakob's Brethren), Heligskorserordre (The Order of the Holy Cross), Mariesdattersordre (The Daughters of the Virgin Mary's Order), and Margaretsostrensordre (The Order of St. Margaret's Sistren). Members of these orders are required to take vows of various sorts to join; each one has a different mission. For example, the Olavian Order swears to raise the poor and cure the sick whereas the Order of St. Jakob's Brethren work iith the Daughters of the Virgin Mary's Order to live pious lives, help the widowed, and shelter the orphaned. Historically, the Order of the Holy Cross was partly a military order, swearing oaths to God and his appointed sovereign of Emerstari, the King of Emerstari.
Other activism
As there are orders that require vows and a certain lifestyle to join, the Church as a whole manages two groups, to evangelize and aid; one is not even required to be a member of the Church of Emerstari to join these groups. The first of these, Emerskeekumenikliguppdraggruppett (the Emerstarian Ecunemical Mission Group) organizes missions overseas to various countries to spread the Gospel of Christ. The second of these, Emerskekyrkasnødhjalpskegruppett (the Church of Emerstari's Aid Group) organizes trips overseas and works to aid communities in poverty, in war, in disease, or in instability.
Population: 71,042,576 · Capital: Hrenshallå · Languages: Emerstarian | ||
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