The Faith of Arim has grown around the acts of Saints... individuals of legendary devotion to the Faith who, in their piety, see to the prosperity of the faithful and the proper care of their Sparks. These saints are generally of two sorts... Heroes of the Faith, which include martyrs and others who have done great deeds that the Primate of Tiber choose to recognize, and the Archons, who found a Mantled Order.
The priesthood of the Faith exists for a single purpose: to attend to the Quality of Mercy through the Seven Sacraments. These Sacraments are the core of the faith: the reason Arim created the priesthood was to see that the Spark received the proper attention. However, there are only a handful of priests that actually see to the Sacraments... the vast majority of priests serve some special function within the sprawling organization that is the Faith of Arim. These functions require specific study, which is why all priests of Arim take a mantle... it denotes what their function is, and how they fit into the Faith's hierarchy.
Of note are the "Gray Mantles" which are not actually part of an order. All those who join the Faith are Gray Mantles (called Brethren) until they join a Mantled Order. Nearly half of all priests, however, are Gray Mantles, and they fulfill the vital functions associated with day-to-day tasks... these range from cleaning the altars to tending the gardens to manual labor to caring for orphans. Generally, if there is an unskilled task to be performed, Gray Mantles do it.
However, Gray Mantles are not Mantled, and therefore suffer no restrictions on their behavior. By the same token, they are not allowed to administer the Sacraments in any manner. Instead, this privilege happens after an individual receives the Sacrament of Mantling, which creates them as a mantled priest. This (typically) requires them to give up all worldly ties (i.e. Status and marriage). In return, they receive the ability to administer the Sacraments, and become Abbots (Status (Religion - Arim) 2)... which allows them to direct any Gray Mantle they might encounter.
Mantled Priests exist in a particular hierarchy, where Abbots answer to Vicars of their Mantled Order (and only their Order), Vicars answer to Bishops (who are generally the highest ranking individual in an Order in a given area), and all priests answer to a single Primate (who alone has the ability to command all members of the Faith). There are exceptions... generally the Order of the Heavy Mantle (called the Whites) have multiple Bishops in a single Primacy (as Whites are the most numerous order, and most tied to particular locations). Further, there are rarely enough priests of the Sublime Sea (called the Blues) to justify a Bishop in any given Primacy, as they spend most of their time abroad. However, the import an thing to understand is that a White Bishop and a Black Abbot do not answer to each other... they have their own chains of command that lead to the Primate.
There are four different kinds of Mantled Orders... each will be described in a subsequent entry.
The priesthood of the Faith exists for a single purpose: to attend to the Quality of Mercy through the Seven Sacraments. These Sacraments are the core of the faith: the reason Arim created the priesthood was to see that the Spark received the proper attention. However, there are only a handful of priests that actually see to the Sacraments... the vast majority of priests serve some special function within the sprawling organization that is the Faith of Arim. These functions require specific study, which is why all priests of Arim take a mantle... it denotes what their function is, and how they fit into the Faith's hierarchy.
Of note are the "Gray Mantles" which are not actually part of an order. All those who join the Faith are Gray Mantles (called Brethren) until they join a Mantled Order. Nearly half of all priests, however, are Gray Mantles, and they fulfill the vital functions associated with day-to-day tasks... these range from cleaning the altars to tending the gardens to manual labor to caring for orphans. Generally, if there is an unskilled task to be performed, Gray Mantles do it.
However, Gray Mantles are not Mantled, and therefore suffer no restrictions on their behavior. By the same token, they are not allowed to administer the Sacraments in any manner. Instead, this privilege happens after an individual receives the Sacrament of Mantling, which creates them as a mantled priest. This (typically) requires them to give up all worldly ties (i.e. Status and marriage). In return, they receive the ability to administer the Sacraments, and become Abbots (Status (Religion - Arim) 2)... which allows them to direct any Gray Mantle they might encounter.
Mantled Priests exist in a particular hierarchy, where Abbots answer to Vicars of their Mantled Order (and only their Order), Vicars answer to Bishops (who are generally the highest ranking individual in an Order in a given area), and all priests answer to a single Primate (who alone has the ability to command all members of the Faith). There are exceptions... generally the Order of the Heavy Mantle (called the Whites) have multiple Bishops in a single Primacy (as Whites are the most numerous order, and most tied to particular locations). Further, there are rarely enough priests of the Sublime Sea (called the Blues) to justify a Bishop in any given Primacy, as they spend most of their time abroad. However, the import an thing to understand is that a White Bishop and a Black Abbot do not answer to each other... they have their own chains of command that lead to the Primate.
There are four different kinds of Mantled Orders... each will be described in a subsequent entry.
- Open Orders include the Whites, the Blues, and the Roses. These are the only Orders that can administer the sacraments to the unmantled (and as such, they are the most common). Priests of Open Orders almost always display their colors, and are easily identifiable as priests due to the nature of their calling.
- Cloistered Orders include the Blacks, the Browns, and the Purples. They are different from the Specialized and Hidden Orders in that they can administer the Sacraments to any Mantled Priests (but not Brethren or common folk) and that they have to forsake personal property and relations. Generally, they focus on esoteric knowledge (such as the Blacks and the Occult, or the Purples and the body).
- Specialized Orders include the Golds, the Greens, the Yellows, and the Drab. The difference between a Cloistered Order and a Specialized Order is that priests of Specialized Orders cannot administer sacraments to anyone outside their own Order, even Mantled Priests of a different Order. They generally have a very particular function (for example, the Golds are guards, the Greens are messengers).
- Hidden Orders include the Reds and the Silvers. These Orders are invisible and their membership secret (to the extent that they may actually hold Status outside of the Faith). They have very particular roles that require their identities to remain unknown.
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