Motyavian Orthodox

Orthodox Church of Motyavia

A religious and social institution indigenous to the region surrounding and including Motyavia. Drawing from the Hebronian, Scandinavian and African Bulsamic traditions, the earliest settlers in the region to call themselves Motyavians integrated their tribal faiths into a unified church.

The Central Tenets of Motyavian Orthodoxy are:

- The acceptance of love as the highest good

- Observance of the Orthodox Cannon, called the Meshobah, composed of parables, religious poetry, and mythical history from the three veins of Motyavian culture.

- Weekly congregation to celebrate the cooperative Spirit of Motyavia which is manifest in all the faithful and an accompanying feast prepared in each local church

Parishes

There is a formal system of administration carrying authority in the church from the Patriarch in Meskova, the spiritual center of the country, to the provincial prelates, and down to the priests in the local parishes. Generally and parish church consists of no greater than 100 congregants. New churches are built each year to keep pace with the population. Although the structure within the Church carries authority to govern dogma from the Patriarch to each parish priest, each parish has a Parish Council to regulate temporal affairs within the parish.

Sacraments

There are 5 sacraments in the Church are to be performed by a parish priest.

- Baptism in which a newborn is blessed with the soil and water of Motyavia

- Confirmation in which a child is formally recognized as an adult in the church at around age 18 and is eligible for marriage

- Marriage in which the priests weds a man and a woman in the church

- Ordination in which a man or woman is recognized as a preist of the Church after completing several, usually 5, years of study and training

- Final Rest in which the body of the deceased is returned, uncovered, to Motyavia in a church cemetery