College of Levantine Churches

College of Levantine Churches
Classification	Protestant
Scripture	Bible
Theology	Protestant theology
Polity	Episcopal
Structure	Communion
President of the Congress of Bishops	Rev. George C. Collins
Administration	Congress of Bishops
Region	Worldwide
Origin	1954

The College of Levantine Churches is a Protestant communion of churches primarily within the Levantine Union. It is the largest Protestant denomination in Levantia and the second largest denomination behind the Catholic Church. Members of the College of Levantine Churches are typically referred to using the term "Collegiate", though this term is not used in any official Church capacity.

Ecclesiology and polity

"The one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered." - 1954 Agreement

The College of Levantine Churches is defined by the shared high church views on ecclesiology, theology, and, to a lesser extent, liturgy of the constituent members of the College. Accordingly, its governance is episcopal in nature, and this episcopal polity was the defining shared characteristics of the constituent members of the College prior to additional reforms made since the College's foundation. The College, accordingly, adheres to a belief in Apostolic succession, an unbroken, personal succession from the Twelve Apostles requiring ordination, though within the College there are different views as to whether or not ordination is a sacrament. While this belief is not as prominent or necessarily emphasized within its overall theology as it is in the Catholic Church, it is nonetheless a foundational belief of the College. Since the 1970s reform, the College teaches that the Church of Christ is the "whole Christian people, regardless of denomination, and the successors of the Apostles as assembled in the Congress of Bishops of the College of Levantine Churches."

Most theologians of the College and most of the constituent churches within it adhere to Branch theory, an ecclesiological proposition that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church includes various Christian denominations whether in formal communion or not. Adherents of branch theory believe the College, the Chantry of Alstin, the Catholic Church, the former Imperial Church, and several other churches are included. Branch theory is contested, especially by the reformed minority within the College who teach a modified version of the idea, arguing that only the College's members are "legitimate" branches under this theory.

Beliefs

The College of Levantine Churches proclaims a belief in sola scriptura, with Apostolic tradition informing right practice and belief based on the scriptures. Many of the main tenets of faith of the College of Levantine Churches is included in the lengthy preamble of the 1954 Agreement, the document which established the College. It includes a basic reformed theology and high church ecclesiology including firm belief in sacraments.

Sacraments

The College of Levantine Churches preaches two sacraments - baptism and the Eucharist - teaching that these were directly established by Jesus Christ in the gospels. Holy Orders is sometimes included in the list of sacraments, but Collegiate teaching does not confirm its status as such and views on the topic vary.

Holy Orders

"Scripture...sets before us Christ alone as mediator, atoning sacrifice, high priest, and intercessor. This precludes the role of any human mediator." - 1954 Agreement

Although commonly thought of as a sacrament, the College primarily teaches that it is likely not a sacrament due to its anti-sacerdotalist understanding of the Christian faithful, teaching that holy orders is a conveyance of a sacred trust to bishops and clerics while arguing that Christ alone is the mediator of the Christian faithful. Despite this, the College teaches that holy orders nonetheless has a "sacramental character" confering the status of successor of the Apostles. The sacramental character of the act is confirmed, according to Collegiate teaching, by Christ's historical call of the twelve apostles. Minority views within the Collegiate argue for Holy Orders as a true sacrament due to its source in the Gospels and sacramental character, with many proponents of its status as a sacrament originating in the successors of pre-merger independent Catholic circles.

Ordination of women is prohibited within the College of Levantine Churches. Historically, resolutions on the issue are proposed and defeated in each year's session of the Congress of Bishops.

Mary

The College of Levantine Churches professes that views of Mary's Assumption, perpetual virginity, and other related beliefs usually related to Catholic Mariology are extrabiblical claims that may or may not be held by individual believers but are not necessary to the Christian life. This position, known as the "Collegiate Compromise", was designed to reconcile the traditional beliefs of the Evangelical Catholic and Old Catholic segments of the Church with the more conventionally Reformed views. Under this posisition, the College of Levantine Churches makes no definitive claim on the truth of these concepts but rejects the importance placed upon them by the Catholic Church.

History

In 1954, following the formal establishment of the Levantine Union, the College of Levantine Churches was established by the Association of Old Believers, the Lutheran Church of Dericania, and the Independent Catholic Association of Levantia. These groups had been collaborating to various degrees during the early 20th century and had grown closer during the Second Great War, when they offered united relief services as well as a united front on teachings about the war. The official Chantric organization in Levantia joined at the end of the year, with the Methodist Church of Corcra joining in 1958 and several other churches joining in the intervening decades. The College was intended to be a formalized, though loose, communion of the major Protestant churches in Levantia with an Episcopal polity. The Churches mutually recognized each others ordinations and validity. The agreement included a long preamble establishing the basic shared tenets of the faith, and this preamble remains the primary confessional document of the College through today. The 1954 Agreement, signed between the members, established a Congress of Bishops intended to meet irregularly to resolve issues as they arose, while leaving individual churches to govern themselves autonomously. The College grew rapidly and incorporated both Levantine diaspora communities as well as organized Protestant communities abroad, with the Province of Sarpedon being established in 1960. Foreign missions began not long after the signing of the 1954 Agreement.

Constituent histories

Old Believers

"Old Believers", in the context of Levantine Protestantism, describes a varied number of beliefs and sects associated with descent from the Ænglish Church, the Protestant state church of the Ænglish Kingdom prior to its destruction in the Nordmontaine War. The Ænglish Church established a moderate position between Catholic practice and Reformed teaching and beliefs. A hierarchical church, the Ænglish Church was established as a continuation of the established Catholic Church in Anglei prior to the reformation, and retained much of its structure and outward rituals. Accordingly, Ænglish Church adherents retained a sense of "high liturgy" as opposed to many other reformed denominations.

With the destruction of the Ænglish realm in the Nordmontaine War, the vast majority of its adherents left Levantia for Pharisedoms such as Alstin, either as refugees or being deported there. Many more were sent abroad by the Dragonnades or converted back to the Catholic Church. Only a very small number of Ænglish Church adherents remained in the Ænglish duchies or Levantia as a whole by 1600. Of these, the vast majority publicly feigned adherence to the Catholic Church while meeting in secret to hold Ænglish-language liturgies according to the Book of Common Prayer. A small minority departed organized society to live as small sects living in the mountains and hills, living in a manner closer to tribes. The so-called "Wild Old Believers" were probably never more than a few hundred, but stories of rabid Protestants living in the wild remained the subject of popular Levantine legends and as bogeymen for centuries to come. Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, the Imperial Inquisition managed to root out dozens of cells of Old Believers, with few remaining by the 1790s. The separate nature of these cells meant a divergence of beliefs, with many groups becoming more reformed and eventually drifting away to more outwardly reformed underground groups. Most of the clergy during the underground period were either non-ordained volunteers, Catholic priests who had fallen away, or a rare cleric from Alstin.

Old Believers received a significant boon with the Treaty of Lariana. The Treaty of Lariana allowed for a significant influx of Chantric clergy whom could operate openly without the interference of the Imperial Inquisition; many Old Believers now partook in legal Chantric liturgies, which, although divergent from the Levantine practice, were preferable due to their legal status. Many faith leaders of the Old Believer community were also secretly ordained by Chantric clergy during this period. Like many other Protestant groups during the early 19th century, the Old Believers also benefitted greatly from the Alstin loophole

In 1890, the the newly founded United Angle States created a limited legal framework under which Old Believers could worship, streamlining the unenforced Inquisitorial laws, legal patchwork of Lariana-descended allowances, and other provisions. The legalization occurred within the context of nation building, as the small country hoped to engage this previously persecuted Ænglish minority group. The legalization had the intention - and effect - of bringing some Old Believers back to Anglei and boosting the population and economy in the country. In late 1890, the Association of Old Believers was established out of a number of the most prominent Old Believer communities in with leadership under the Bishop of Stretton, the only bishopric legally allowed. This organization represented the first time Old Believers received legal recognition in Levantia or any former Ænglish territory since the destruction of the Ænglish Church in the 1540s. The Association had a contentious first two decades as divergent groups had wildly different liturgical and doctrinal practices, with most of its teachings still rooted in the 1520s Acts of Godwin supplemented with work done by Chantric theologians in the intervening time. The Association convened a Convocation in 1915 which streamlined its theology and reunited most of its constituent groups under a Doctrine of Fifty Points. By this time, the Association, though small, was growing, and had faith communities erected throughout the Holy Levantine Empire and Ultmar. The Association formally entered communion with the Chantry of Alstin in 1922. By 1950, it's estimated that the Association had 125,000 adherents. It was a founding member of the College in 1954, having worked closely with the Independent Catholic Association of Levantia since its inception for mutual ordination and consecrations and the Lutheran Church of Dericania on political matters relating to the Third Fratricide.

Chantric Christians in Levantia

A depiction of a Chantric liturgy, ca. 1630.

Adherents of the Chantry of Alstin were first recorded in Levantia in 1670, though commerce from Alstin reached Levantia as early as 1579 and presumably Chantric beliefs may have been present among the merchants, with commercial activity continuing on an irregular basis until the Treaty of Lariana in 1806. Chantric clergy arrived following the Treaty and were allowed to offer worship services, though initially these services were offered for the benefit of and mostly attended by Alstinian diplomatic personnel and merchants. By the late 1810s, it became local embassy policy for native Levantine Protestants to be allowed entry into these services, and by the 1820s it was encouraged alongside the embrace of the Alstin loophole, allowing for diplomatic protection of Protestant services if an Alstinian official was present. While the official presence of Alstin within Levantia helped other groups find some legal protection, Chantric Christianity itself quickly became the most prevalent and widely accessible form of Protestantism in Levantia, with worship services being held in the open and clerics being able to operate publicly, if somewhat limited to their proximity to Alstinian activity.

By 1845, there was a significant enough Chantric population in Levantia - possibly as high as 10,000 Levantines - to warrant a reorganization of Church function there. Previously, clerics associated with embassies or merchants were assigned largely on an ad hoc basis, serving very limited time abroad and returning to Alstin to their normal parish functions. In 1846, the Imperial Diet - in the midst of the Third Caroline War and needing to maintain good relations abroad - gave the government of Alstin, and by extension the Chantry, permission to organize a formal hierarchy in Levantia. This permission came with a strict prohibition on missionary activity and disallowance of "prosletyzing...in any manner". This had the effect of creating a less open method of joining the Chantric Church than had existed in decades prior as local clerics sought to avoid confrontations with the Imperial Inquisition, but committed Protestants were still able to join with some commitment. Historians have uncovered specific episodes of Chantric clergy offering bribes to local and Inquisitorial authorities in exchange for ignoring their growing populations, though it is unclear how widespread this practice was. The 1846 permission from the Diet lead to the adoption by the Chantry, in late 1846, of the Instrument of Organization in Levantia, which established a Bishop of Ericaner (in modern Lutsana) as head of the Chantry in Levantia, formally the ecclesiastical "Province of Dericania and the Vandarch". As a result, the Chantry's local church in Levantia took the popular name the "Provincial Church", though this name was never used in any official capacity. Along with a formal episcopate, the Chantry also assigned 25 permanent clerics to Levantia to serve under the Bishop, and gave the Bishop wide authority to ordain deacons and priests as needed. The Instrument of Organization created the first public-facing Protestant church organization in the Holy Levantine Empire since the end of the Great Confessional War. As was the case before, the public availability of the Chantry greatly increased its accessibility and desirability to local Protestants, with 50,000 adherents by 1900 and many native-born Chantric clergy being organized between 1846 and 1900.

As religious laws began to be eased by the end of the 19th century, the competitive advantage the Chantry in Levantia enjoyed declined, and accordingly its growth rate tapered off to begin the 20th century. While it remained the most prestigious Protestant Church in the Holy Levantine Empire, it began to lose ground to groups with localized influences and traditions. The Chantry's position of leadership among Protestant churches was enhanced by the Association of Old Believers, a Protestant group in Anglei, deciding to join formal communion with the Chantry in 1922, bolstering both the local Chantry leadership as well as the Chantry's overall position in Levantia. By 1950, it retained its position of prestige and influence over Levantine Protestantism, but had fallen behind in terms of having the most adherents, having about 85,000 members by that year. The hierarchy in Levantia and Alstin were reluctant to join the Church to the emerging College established in 1954, but the local adherents and even most clergy felt more of an affinity for Levantine interests than Alstinian ones. By the end of 1954, the Province of Dericania and the Vandarch was given permission to formally join the College of Levantine Churches. As a result, the Chantry's independent church in Levantia ceased to exist, but its two local churches - the Province as well as the Old Believers - were joined together, and the College as a result entered into partial communion with the Chantry of Alstin as a condition for the Provincial Church joining the College.

Independent Catholic Association of Levantia

Self-identified independent Catholic groups have a long history in modern Levantia. Due to the widespread prevalence and social dominance of the Catholic Church throughout the Levantine Union, many groups who have otherwise separated from the authority of the Pope have nonetheless retained a self-proclaimed "Catholic" identity. The largest concentration of these groups are "old Catholic" in nature, that is, individual communities and churches who separated from the Catholic Church over the issue of Papal infallibility as defined at the First Vatican Council.

1974 Reform

Following nearly two decades of function, it was clear to College leaders and observers that the organization had been a success. The success necessitated the need for change, however, as the original vision of a loosely aligned association of mostly independent Churches was not the structure best serving the needs of the faithful. By the early 1960s, co-mingling of many congregations and clergy had begun in earnest. In some areas, churches began to close and merge as smaller congregations of different branches of the College - especially Chantric Christians and Old Believers - began to worship as one congregation. These began as one-off arrangements agreed to between the Episcopal Congregations mostly to suit the needs of rural or remote congregations, but by the late 1960s consolidation requests became commonplace. It became clear to Church leaders that the political and historic differences between many of the Episcopal Congregations were just that; largely self-imposed. Once the groups were bounded together by a common communion, differences began to rapidly melt away, especially among the four primary "high liturgical" groups - the Old Believers, the Chantists, the independent Catholics, and Lutherans. Consolidation in remote and rural areas was joined in the late 1960s by the "congregation wars" in large cities. As adherents of the four largest Episcopal Congregations began to view their churches as mostly interchangeable, some congregations began to poach believers from other Collegiate Congregations due to a number of factors including convenient locations of churches and newly built structures capable of comfortably holding much larger congregations. While consolidation was viewed positively, the congregation wars were viewed negatively by the public and Church leaders, and by 1970 it became clear that serious structural reform of the Church was needed.

In summer 1973, the Congress of Bishops met and agreed to meet later that year in plenary session as a standing body of the Church, reforming itself from an ad hoc arbitrating body to a full blown authority in the Church. The five Episcopal Congregations met that summer and all gave their approval for the Congress to meet in this fashion and make changes to the structure of the College as set forth in the 1954 agreement. While the original concept behind the standing session was to create new streamlined methods for consolidation and giving the Congress the authority to mediate the congregation wars, it would soon take a life of its own. With all of the Bishops of the College gathered in Corcra in November 1973, the initial recommendations proposed to it by the meeting earlier in the year were debated but surprisingly set aside. The Bishops residing together in close confines, speaking to each other for the first time in many cases, lead to a new spirit of reform and change, and the Congress resolved to expand its mandate and fully reform the College. The session would continue through early 1974, during which time congregation consolidations increased in pace as the public became aware of major changes coming to the College. By March 1974, the Congress of Bishops voted on a comprehensive reform package that took the unprecedented step of merging four of the five Episcopal Conferences into one Fraternal Church, a high church liturgy amalgamation of the former Old Believer, Chantist, independent Catholic, and Lutheran congregations. The Bishops also voted to reform local governance of the Church by creating "Metropoles". The changes were ratified by the Episcopal Conferences by June 1974 and took effect 1 December, 1974.

Fraternal Church Merger

The liturgical similarities of the high church predecessors of the Fraternal Church were well known and frequently noted during the 19th and 20th centuries; pictured here is a Lutheran Church of Dericania service from 1927.

The largest change of the 1974 Reform was the establishment of the Episcopal Congregation of the Fraternal Church, merging together four separate institutions - the Chantist, independent Catholic, Lutheran, and Old Believer churches - into a single continuum of worship and governance. The high church liturgical commonalities of these churches was apparent to both scholars and adherents by the early 20th century, given their origin as derivations of the old liturgy of the Ænglish Church, which itself was derived from the pre-Tridentine Mass. Once the College was formed and the theological differences between these four groups were set aside, calls were made as early as 1958 for dissolution of the boundaries between the churches, but calls were not taken seriously until late 1960s, and it was thought to be decades away before the Congress of Bishops suddenly instituted the merger in 1974. Recognition of ordination and streamlining Holy Orders of the four churches occurred in 1964 in what is now viewed as the precursor of the establishment of the Fraternal Church.

The Congress of Bishops decree on the establishment of the Fraternal Church lead to administrative issues in the Fraternal Church's early years. Overlapping bishoprics lead to an unusual solution among the College, with the longest tenured bishop of any given place being made bishop of the Fraternal Church there and all other bishops being made coadjutor bishop, the use of which was approved only for this occasion. Many bishops chose reassignment to empty sees rather than become a coadjutor, leading to an unexpected improvement in the number of well organized Metropoles by 1980. More complicated was the reorganization of clergy and church buildings at the congregation level, as most Protestants in any given area of Levantia were suddenly joined together into a single continuum of faith and administrative structure. How this was handled largely depended on the individual Metropole. Many Metropoles offered congregations the chance to vote to remain independent or be merged together, with many congregations voting to merge and pool resources with a few historic ones remaining independent. A minority of Metropoles, mostly concentrated in Fiannria saw their bishops force a reorganization plan, leading to discontentment and bitterness for years to come.

Reformed Church Project

Beginning in the late 1980s, an effort was made to attract reformed adherents into the College. Adherents of the project believed that reformed theology was not necessarily incompatible with episcopal ecclesiology. To that end, the Episcopal Congregation of the Reformed Church (ECRC) was created as the College's third Church at a meeting of the Congress of Bishops in 1994, merging small groups recently joined to the Church as well as some of the more reformed elements on the periphery of the Fraternal Church. By 2010, it became apparent that the effort to attract adherents away from some traditions such as Mercantile Protestantism had largely been a failure, though the ECRC nonetheless had about two dozen congregations across Levantia by that year. College leaders began to shift away towards the active construction of the ECRC after 2010, with both rhetoric, attention, and funding shifting to other matters. Since then, the project has been largely deemed a "failure" in internal College documents, and some Bishops have offered that the ECRC remains merely a "token outreach effort" to the other major current of Protestant thought.

Organization

Episcopal congregations

Episcopal congregations are the administrative arm of the respective Churches within the College, serving both as a representation of that Church itself as well as the basic organizational structure in which it functions. As the name would suggest, the episcopal congregations are lead by a colleges of all bishops within that Church, functioning as the effective leadership for their respective Churches. Prior to 1974, the episcopal congregations held significant autonomy and power over their Churches, ranging from personnel to theological decisions. Each of the constituent churches that formed the College had their own episcopal congregation. Since the 1974 reforms, episcopal congregations are primarily limited to having authority over their Church's liturgical practices and any rules that may accompany them. In addition to the deliberate reforms to unify the Church, the practical impact of the formation of the Fraternal Church (which had a vast majority of the College's adherents and bishops) meant that the significance of the episcopal congregations was largely superseded by the Congress of Bishops, which became the central organizing element for the College.

Episcopal congregations are lead by a Bishop-Congregant, a rotating office with a one year term elected by their fellow bishops. In addition to authority over liturgy, the Bishop-Congregant has the formal task of submitting his nominations for bishops to the Congress of Bishops, though this action is merely a formality on both ends; the Congress of Bishops almost always approves any nominee, and the nominations themselves are forwarded along by nominating committees within the episcopal congregations; these committees receive and consider petitions from metropolitan churches and even groups of lay persons.

Episcopal Congregation of the Fraternal Church

The Fraternal Church is readily recognizable due to its high church liturgy and more elaborately decorated churches, especially in and around the sanctuary.

Provinces

The College of Levantine Churches, adopting an earlier Levantine Chantric Church structure, divides Levantia and locations abroad into provinces, geographical areas which encompass large numbers of metropoles, which are the basic administrative unit of the College.

In 1978, within the context of the Occidental Cold War, the Province of Sarpedon split off from the College to form the Ecclesiastical Assembly of Sarpedon. Since the Assumption Accords, the Ecclesiastical Assembly has been afforded delegates to the Congress of Bishops, effectively merging the Assembly back into the College as an autonomous section.

Metropoles

The College of Levantine Churches is divided into administrative areas known as "Metropoles", which are similar in scope and role as dioceses within the Catholic Church. Unlike the Catholic Church, Metropoles are governed by Metropolitan Committee, comprised of three bishops, one from each of the episcopal congregations. This structure, in part based on Matthew 18:20 ("For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."), is designed to ensure each of the episcopal congregations are represented in local governance. Metropolitan Committees handle responsibilities such as sanctions of clerics, ordinations, as well as submissions of individuals to the episcopal congregations to be considered for consecration as bishop. Each bishop within a Metropole is responsible for the daily administration and oversight of most issues for their particular Church within the Metropole. Accordingly, despite the equal share of authority within Metropolitan Committees, it has been observed that the bishops of the Fraternal Church have de facto authority over all believers within a Metropole due to the overwhelming majority presence of the Fraternal Church within the College. As a result, Fraternal Church bishops are often expected to make shows of humility to the two other bishops within Metropolitan Committees to avoid offense or pretention of authority.

Metropoles were formed as part of the 1974 reforms, consolidating many disparate local administrative structures. Prior to the establishment of the Episcopal Congregation of the Reformed Church in 1994, most Metropolitan Committees had two members, though some particularly large Metropoles had three, with the third member agreed upon by the bishops of the Fraternal and Methodist episcopal congregations within that Metropole.

Mission Areas

In addition to the organization of the College in Levantia, the College has erected "Mission Areas", administrative jurisdictions outside Levantia for the purpose of missionary activity and spreading the faith. The majority of active mission areas in the late 2020s are in Alshar, with a sizeable and growing number being in Crona. Mission Areas function under a shared jurisdictional basis, with individual congregations and metropole-like "regions" functioning in an area, while a growing number of missions also include independently operating "faith engagement groups", non-clerical organizations of volunteers which preach to local populations. The faith engagement groups are known to be more Evangelical in theological outlook and temperament than the primary Collegiate hierarchy.

As of 2028, 12 Mission Areas existed serving 19 different sovereign entities. Of these, 6 are in Alshar, 4 are in Crona, 1 is in Audonia, and 1 is in Polynesia. Three of the four mission areas in Crona were established between 2015 and 2026, and these three serve the Nysdra Sea region including Cusinaut and now Varshan as well as other adjoining regions. The one mission area in Polynesia is exclusive to the area of Stenza.

Ecumenical relations

Full communion

The College of Levantine Churches has full communion with one church outside of its structure, the Ecclesiastical Assembly of Sarpedon (EAS). The EAS was established out of the College's Province of Sarpedon in 1978 during the Occidental Cold War as an effort to make Collegian Protestantism more appealing to the residents of Sarpedon. Leaders of Caphiria were weary to allow "Levantine Churches" to operate within the country in the context of the Cold War, and the EAS was established to distance Collegian Protestantism from a purely Levantine center. Accordingly, the EAS retains all of the theology and ecclesiology of the CLC and adheres to the statement of faith made in the 1954 Agreement. With the Assumption Accords and end of the Occidental Cold War, the EAS was afforded a limited delegation to the Congress of Bishops, having the de facto effect of reintegrating it within the College.

Partial communion

The College of Levantine Churches has established, within its ecclesiology, the concept of "partial communion". Churches in partial communion with the College of Levantine Churches are recognized as having "valid historic episcopacy and clerical ordination" and whose theology "is substantially similar" to that of the College, even if it possesses "specific cultural or traditional methods of exploring and explaining theological concepts", meaning that the church in question largely teaches the same doctrine with some minor differences in expression. These differences in expression may prevent full communion, but partial communion churches are viewed, nonetheless, to have some share in the role of the Church visible.

Chantry of Alstin

Main article: Chantry of Alstin

Partners in the Church Invisible

Partners in the Church Invisible (commonly referred to as "PCIs") are Christian Churches with whom the College does not share communion, but nonetheless recognizes as having some valid Apostolic succession as well as legitimate exercise of the Christian ministry and sacraments. The primary organization falling under the status of PCI is the Catholic Church, though recognition was extended to the Imperial Church during its existence and, controversially, the Democratic Christian Church of Corumm and the East.