Religions

There are three primary religions in Grienzland, although all three purport to worship the same Living God. Most, however, identify far more strongly with their specific branch of Ortueism than with the overarching family of religions. There are a number of other religions as well, though these are far less commonly represented within the Fatherland as they are elsewhere in the world.

=Ortueism= "Main article: Ortueism"Ortueism is the overarching category of the three religions practiced in Grienzland. It used to be practiced by nearly everyone in Uropa until the political movement of the Ascendancy of Man began to denounce and replace it with the secular religion of the Eminence of Man.

= Other Religions = Besides the three branches of Ortueism there are several other religions in Uropa, but only three of them are particularly common: The Eminence of Man, Yhassuatism, and the Unnoticed Life.

The Eminence of Man
"Neither kings, nor priests, nor monsters shall impede the exaltation of Man."While Ortueism is by far the most popular religion in Grienzland, to the West the young religion known as the Eminence of Man is rapidly growing in strength. Although it has only existed formally for just over half a century, it has already been appointed as the national religion of the Gallian Republic, and has a growing influence in the Commonwealth and the Rossiyan Federation as well. Recent attempts at making inroads in Ortueist leadership in Grienzland has been thwarted by official Imperial Decree, leading to increasing international tensions.

The Eminence of Man is the secular religion that arose in the Gallian Republic as the state alternative to spiritual religions that had been traditionally practiced by their population. A direct descendant from the school of thought collated into the political movement of the Ascendancy of Man, the Eminence of Man is an effort to maintain ethical and philosophical continuity in the absence of anything supernatural, spiritual, or eternal. It preaches the inborn supremacy of humanity and importance of Rationalism, and denounces what it calls the destructive influence of paranoid superstitions and irrational mythologies. Increasingly, the Eminence of Man has also brought into question the legitimacy of social classes and the "artificial nature of arbitrary divisions" between humans.

The primary misdeed that the Eminence of Man denounces as evil is that of one human claiming superiority over another. All are seen as equal within the masses of humanity, and to strive for power is to seek to subjugate others. Preventing the freedoms of others is anathema within the Eminence of Man, as it limits the potential of humanity to flourish.

In addition to denouncing those with institutional power, the Eminence of Man aggressively castigates what it calls "Monsters in human disguise." Referred to by the Ascendancy of Man as "pseudohumans," any nonhuman races capable of taking on the form of a human are seen as abominations worthy only of destruction. In the tenets of the Eminence of Man, a nonhuman beast assuming the shape of a Man is an act of great evil, a perversion of the divine human form and an affront to the supremacy of mankind. This hatred initially manifested in the reinstitution of Wolfen Persecution Laws, and swiftly spread to Fey Cats as well. In time, it began to encompass most nonhuman races with humanoid anatomy, though still primarily focused on ones that originate in Uropa rather than other continents.

Yhassuatism
As much a system of history, philosophy, and culture as it is religion, Yhassuatism is the worldview of the nomadic Cassumite people who originated out of what is the modern day Osmaniyan Empire. Difficult for outsiders to understand or analyze, it is divided up among many different written and oral components. As such, it has been described as the most fluid and changing of religions, and devoted practitioners invest countless hours studying and reading and debating the tenets and finer points of Yhassuatism over many years, if not their entire lives.

Claimed to be the originator of the cosmological history currently held by Ortueism, Yhassuatism has little in common with the religion it is said to have preceded. Even the monotheistic notion of a singular, all-powerful deity as presented in Ortueism is debatably absent from Yhassuatism, which posits in many instances the inherent divinity distributed throughout the souls of the Cassumite people themselves and their mother Sarupa.

The Unnoticed Life
Not much is known to the people of the Fatherland about this fatalistic religion of the Rossiyan Federation except that it puts an evil goddess in charge of the world. Responsible for the deadly blizzards of Winter, the Dark Tyrant has nothing but hate for fire and heat and light and day. The majority of the religious rituals and teachings revolve around how best to avoid her attention and how not to rouse her from her brooding meditation. The harshness of the Winter is said to be determined by how well she is appeased during the year; not enough worship and sacrifices and she'll wake early, dimming the sun as her power grows.

The Holy Winnowing
Taking refuge in the attraction of extremes, the Holy Winnowing seeks to bring about the awakening of the Dark Tyrant through excessive indulgence in gluttony, lechery, and all other forms of debauchery. The official stance is that through rousing the Dark Tyrant, mankind can enter a period of harsh cleansing, and the brutal Winter will strengthen the moral character of those who remain. They speak of being ushered into the halls of the Living God after surviving the Winter, but only rarely — most of their teachings focus on forcing the ire of the Dark Tyrant.

Previously a secretive mystic school, the Holy Winnowing is technically an offshoot of Austericism, purporting to provide a synthesis between the Unnoticed Life and Ortueism. For most of its history however, its practices were harshly denounced by the Austeric Church of Rossiya as a cult promoting heresy, and supported its historic suppression by past Itors, until Itor Mikhail welcomed the mystic Nicolai Rubashkin into the Federal Council.