Epistle to the High Pontiff, From AELFSTANN OF LEOFRICSBOROUGH

[thesmellypocket 1841]

 

AELFSTANN OF LEOFRICSBOROUGH

 

EPISTLE TO THE CANONISTS

 

To Papa Sixtus VI, High Pontiff of the Canonist Church, True Keeper of the Covenant of Holy Godefridus, Appointed by God with the Primacy Over All Them That Fear God, Greeting...

 

I.Preface. Praise of the Canonist Religion.

I.WE CHURLS always give Your Holiness greeting, on account of the great honour in which we hold Your illustrious spiritual ancestors, Everistus and Clement, called in our tongue Eadward and Miltsolidus and on account of the Church of which God has given you true and immediate jurisdiction. Such a Church is the spiritual Mother of so many; for from her abundant breasts are many made to suck the pure milk of sound doctrine, and thus, while yet babes too weak for the solid Angelic food that is the contemplation of the Godhead through sight, grow into the fullness of the divine maturity through the infused virtue of Faith, the hope of things unseen. For as your Scriptures say: approximans Eum est nullus. 

 

II.I, Aelfstan, Priest of my race and people, would trouble Your Holiness with certain questions concerning my religion and Your Holiness' own. I would state from the beginning that I bear no intention to rip the babes from their mothers' breasts. For we Churls hold that You worship God according to a prophetic covenant as we do, and therefore, we would not seek to convert anyone, unless he be a heathen, and him to the worship of the Singular and Omnipotent God, to Whom alone is glory and empire, world without end. Amen. Instead, we would seek to worship God according to the covenant we ourselves received, and not permit Your children to worship Him according to ours. For we desire Your religion to flourish as we would our own. We see no contention between the Priesthood of Hengst and the Priesthood of Owyn. Everistus  and Benedict possess no emnity. Godefridus and Raedwald seek no strife; Saint Emma, honoured in our liturgy, draws not her sword against Aethelraelda, nor does the latter slay Canonists, but dragons. 

 

II.History and Explanation of the Churlish Religion. Its Relationship to Canonism. 

 

I.We trace our religion back to the time Your Holiness' own Scroll of Gospel details. It was in the time when seven thousand brothers were made for Horen, that a small group of them settled in Iegland, which is our homeland. Thus we hold the Scroll of Virtue and every Churl knows it by route. But they turned away from the tradition they had received from the mouth of our Holy Father, Saint Horenus, and, when a mighty dragon called Churlsbane (A name which means the Bane of Farmers, and our race are call'd thus) wasted so much of the land, his tyranny overcame our tribes. And so men turned away from the One True God and refused to trust in Him. They instead prostrated themselves before the dragon and exchanged the glory of the Creator for the creature, profaning themselves. 

 

II.A certain elder had intended to offer his virgin daughter in sacrifice to the beast, when a man who desired her hand, our Holy Father, Hengst, incensed at this, went forth to slay the beast, alone. But despairing upon the path, he was met by a certain Elfess, a Wood Elf of great wisdom, who had known Horen, and she told him of the Faith in the One True God. And she gave him the Aelfsword and Aelfstan, blessed with the benediction of the Creator. Now with these, he slew the Dragon Churlsbane, not without great aid from the virgin Aethelraelda. And the two, having slew the beast, married. Hengst became our first king, and received from God an holy and true and perpetual covenant, to worship Him according to a royal covenant, prescribing ritual sacrifices and moral laws which guide the Churls in righteousness, despite how much we fall short of them.

 

III.Now the Era of the Elfstone last for some few hundred years, and we grew into a great kingdom, and furnished many Saints. But then the obsession with Elvish magic overcame us, and evil befell the country. We had loved overmuch and with overmuch curiosity the lore of the Elves. So that there began a sort of new idolatry, that of great magical objects, for which Men became willing to steal, deceive, even kill. Anarchy befell the land. Taking advantage of this, a few interested Elves ventured from the forests, and taught to us a heathen religion, and almost all the people fell away once more. But as Man is unfaithful to the Covenant, God is faithful. For He would give us a new Covenant stronger than the first. 

 

IV.Now there came about a great terror upon the land, for the Aelfpriestas, that is, the Elfish Priests who had become chief of our people, organised a sect called the Secret Friends of the Gods, who butchered and destroyed wherever they went. For their idea of worship was to destroy cultivation, so that the very name of Churl, farmer, was fit only for thralldom and death. "O Churls, we consign you to the land of Oblivion." That is what we call the Void, for in many of your own writers, it is called Terra Oblivionis, to wit, the Land of Forgetfulness. All hope was lost. Men did not believe in the Covenant or the old stories and legends. But there were a righteous sect of Elves who had received the Covenant of Hengst in the elder days, and those we call Fiergennesmenn, to wit, in Your tongue, Woodmen. And some of these were able to pass on the Covenant to a man known only to us as Benedict. 

 

V.Now this Benedict was, like Hengst, incensed to see a man sell his only daughter as a thrall in exchange for a magical object of dubious quality. And so, he killed the Aelfpriest of that district. At that time, our king, Saint Raedwald, long since a captive puppet living under house arrest, escaped from the heathen clutch, and met with Benedict. Together they sought to destroy the rebels. He called for the Fyrd, which is, to wit, the national militia of all free Men of the land. He despaired, but despair became hope, and hope was realised, because the Men did come, and, as one of our writers has said "What was thought to echo in the pages of myth, coloured the pages of history." Now at Malinsham the Secret Friends were destroyed and the land was freed from the new Churlsbane - this time the Dragon was that idolatry which enchained the hearts of Men. 

 

VI.Benedict it was who received our second Covenant, according to which each of us is bound to make of our lives a Sacrificium Laudis - to wit, A Sacrifice of Praise. So we do not cease to offer praises to God for You, but according day, twice at least and seven times at most (and once as well at night-time), we make on Your Holiness' behalf a holy and priestly sacrifice, made acceptable to God. 

 

VII.Now there were Canonists in Iegland, Auvergnes. These Auvergnes were once our foes. And so there was periodic persecution between our religion and Your own. But, when we were embroiled in dynastic civil wars, the Witan elected the Auvergne king, Philippe, as King of the Churls, who took the Churlish name, Offa II, marrying a daughter who was a direct descendant of Hengst. Thus the Royal Covenantly line was continued. 

 

VIII.At this time a dispute arose among the Canonists of that country about whether it was lawful for Offa to offer sacrifices according to our covenant. He was in a difficult situation, because he was unwilling to abandon the Priesthood of Everistus and Clement and its sacred rites so that he could be our king. Yet, if he failed to do so, we would be forced to reject him. So Saint Leofric, a holy man, interceded for us. He approached the local Bishop and asked him whether it was licit for Philippe to offer our sacrifices. To which the Bishop assented. Thus, to this day, our kings, who offer the royal sacrifices, are Canonists, receiving of Your Sacraments. Thus he was able to remain a Canonist and continue as our king. 

 

III.Submission of Dubia. 

 

Thus, it is to Your Holiness that I would ask the following questions:

 

I: Do You consider it lawful that Churls who belong to the Covenant of Hengst should join in Canonist worship?

 

II: Do You consider it lawful that Churls who belong to this Covenant should receive the Sacraments of Ablution and Matrimony?

 

III: Do you consider it lawful for Canonists to offer sacrifice to God according to the mode of our religion, which contains nothing contrary to Canonist doctrine, but does not belong to the Church?

 

IV: Do You consider it lawful for Churls to receive of Canonist blessings and other sacramentals?

 

V: Do you consider it lawful for Canonists to venerate Churlish Saints, as we venerate Canonist ones? (For we hold the Priesthood of Everistus valid, and Your Saints as righteous worshippers of God according to that Priesthood.)

 

VI: Do you consider it lawful for Yourself or the Bishops of Dioceses to grant us the right to use Your churches for our worship, granting a dispensation from the necessity of re-consecrating churches? (For the Royal Covenant involves the blood of goats and such. For this must in our eyes be excepted, seeing that it is the worship of God, according to a truly received Covenant, and in no wise offensive to Him.)

 

VII: If you will not dispense us in the matter of bloody worship, will You allow Churls to use Your churches according to our other worship, which involves chanting of hymns and canticles and Psalms in Flexio?

 

POST-SCRIPTUM:

It is of note to add, Your Holiness, that some of our worship is already incorporated into Your own. For many of our Psalms, prescribed by Benedict, are found in Your prayer-books. 

 

I should also add that the veneration of martyrs proves that blood is not inherently unlawful when it comes to divine worship. For what is their blood, but as incense poured out before their Creator? Thus it is, blood can tend to God's worship, if done lawfully. I mean, avoiding the mere farmyard slaughter of animals, and human sacrifice, which we with all means and by all wises rebuke utterly. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by thesmellypocket

[Azukazi Khuzai 138]

"Blood is sacred! The sacrifice of the deus pataer must never be forgotten. We give the blood of our sacred herd, or holy flock so that the sacrifice that the Father of The Sky gave to us! The trve man! Who recalls the day of the first Tabernacles of the first horsemen who followed the master of mankind. They gave freely and purely the blood of their flocks and herds so the devotion is marked with the real sacrifice! The same the Skyfather gave to man."

 

-A scydrian charioteer looks out over the blood stained burial mound of his father. He clutches his heart in the love of his father, and the sky above-

[GoodGuyMatt 7066]

"Hmmmm" Hieromonk Osvald had gotten his hand on a copy of the parchment, and read it in the cave that he called home. "Two other covenants..." he huffed a bit, unsure of what to make of such. He was a man of compassion and trust, not of cynicism "Does this mean that they call these men of their culture to also be 'Exalted'?" he querried, still unsure of what to make of it all. The poor, dirty monk signed the Lorraine, and then began his prayer rule in front of an icon of Exalted Horen and Saint Jude, which he had nailed and hung on the sides of the caves. First he prayed St. Lucien's prayer many a time, and then began praying during the long hours of the night to GOD to enlighten his sinful, ignorant mind on the matters which he had read.