Iustitia Protestant Church

Iustitian Protestant Church
Classification	Protestant
Scripture	The Holy Bible
Polity	Episcopal
Archbishop	James Bradley
Language	English
Headquarters	Iustitia City, Libertas Omnium Maximus
Origin	1669 Iustita
Branched from	Church of Valahandia
Members	26.3 million baptized members
Tax status	Church
Other name(s)	Protestant Church of Iustitia

The Iustitian Protestant Church (often abbreviated to IPC) is a Christian communion native to eastern Hesperida. Most worshipers are Maximusian, the church's nation of origin, though the institution maintains diocese elsewhere. Within the Maximusian Republic, the Iustitian Protestant Church is the most widely adhered-to faith and around 30% of the nation's population are baptized members. Founded in the late 17th century by Arthur Covington in the former Valahandian Royal Colony of Iustitia, the nascent church splintered off from the Liberalia-based Church of Valahandia, and would go on to be named the state-church of the Republic of Iustitia from 1802 until the formation of the modern republic in 1840.

The IPC's ecclesiology is undoubtedly High-Church; worship focuses on ritual liturgy and the singing of hymns, while church governance is strictly hierarchical. As the name suggests, the Iustitian Protestant Church practices Reformed theology and does not emphasize legitimacy through apostolic succession. Individual congregations within the broader communion do not always bear the IPC name, particularly those located beyond the borders of the Maximusian Republic, but all adhere to common rites, prayers, and exist within the church's episcopal framework of diocese presided-over by bishops. The current head of the IPC is Archbishop James Bradley.

History

The history of the Iustitian Protestant Church is inextricably linked to the history of the Iustitia Colony, an overseas dependency of the Valahandian mercantile empire from the 16th to late 18th century. In 1568, the Valahandian monarch Jannes I (anglicized as "John I") tentatively embraced the Reformation, banning Catholicism in Valahandia and severing ties with the Papacy, but preserving much of the old church's structures and hierarchy. This new church became the official faith of Valahandia, dependent on the Valahandian monarchy as a source of legitimacy. Jannes I was later canonized, as the Church of Valahandia venerates saints, along with many other Valahandian patrons of the faith. In the Valahandian colonies, varying degrees of religious freedom existed, so conversion from Catholicism to the Church of Valahandia was not expected, per se, but most of the colonial gentry embraced the new church in order to stay in the good graces of their monarch. Within a century, most Iustitians had made the conversion.

The University of Iustitia, then a school of divinity (which still exists as one of the university's colleges), was one of the premier seminary institutions training Church of Valahandia ministers in the colonies. One such graduate of the university, Aurthur Covington, grew disillusioned with the elevation of secular Valahandian heroes to saintly status and increasing crown interference in the conduct of the church. Between 1649 and 1662, Covington wrote fervently on the issue, garnering significant attention and support within the colony. In 1663, he was censured for his views by the Church of Valahandia in Doundain, but this only emboldened the scholar and his associates, leading to the penning of the 1665 Articles on Grace, which outlined a new trajectory for the faith rejecting doctrines relating to veneration of the saints and church-state entanglement. The articles were rejected by Doundain, despite widespread support for the measures in the colonies. Four years later, a convention of two hundred ministers and allies of Covington convened outside of Iustitia City and produced the Catherinesburgh Confession, a new catechism enumerating the foundational sacramental axioms professed by the convention. The Confession formalized the divorce of hundreds of colonial churches from the old Valahandian episcopate, though not every Hesperidan diocese was willing to sever ties with the mainland or fully adopt the new catechism. Many of these holdouts continue to exist today, particularly in Bjeorg.

In 1669, Covington was named the first Archbishop of Iustitia, though the existing episcopal structure in the colony was left largely intact otherwise; only a few bishops had to be ordained, usually to fill openings left by clergy who refused to accede to the Confession. Naturally, both the Valahandian crown and Archbishop of the Church of Valahandia were infuriated by the schism, but had few avenues of legal recourse, and then-monarch Frederik was unwilling to commit the political capital needed to reinstate loyalist ministers to hundreds of congregations across a colony on the other side of the Olympic Ocean. In open defiance of the will of their king, many of the same colonial elites who had once been eager to convert to the Church of Valahandia in order to demonstrate their loyalty to the throne in Doundain embraced the new Iustitian Protestant Church, worn down by a century of neglect. Over the next century, most holdout pre-confessional congregations either gave-in and fell in to the new episcopate or died out.

Doctrine

Iustitian Protestants hold the Holy Bible to be their highest and only divinely-inspired authority on all matters of morality and faith. This doctrine is known as sola scriptura. Iustitian Protestants practice infant baptism and maintain that, in receiving Eucharist, they are consuming the physical body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation, rather than in a symbolic sense. Iustitian Protestants do not venerate the saints, but do affirm the distinct tripartite nature of the holy trinity, the duality of Christ (that he has two natures, one entirely human, one entirely divine), and every other element of the Nicene Creed.