Covenant Faith

"We are all brothers and sisters in our faith. Let us be seated, and listen to the divine we adore. Their light is our guide in this dark, cruel universe. Let us be the keepers of their torch, and light the way for others. Let us pray, and find the peace of the Foreborne."

- Aeoras, the First Prophet

Within the sphere of the Local Group, few religions are as widespread, well-known, and influential as the Covenant Faith. Also known as the Ankoran Cult, this faith is the state-religion of the Ankoran Covenant and is one of the largest religious followings in the Local Group. The Ankoran Cult can be traced back to its origins in the stone-age beliefs of the ankoran, during which time they were undergoing the process of uplifting by an enigmatic race of precursors, who the modern Covenant believes transcended reality to become gods.

The Covenant worship these precursors, known in modern times as the Foreborne, as a collective entity in a form of henotheism that accepts all precursors as individual divine entities, though worships each collectively as a single unitary divinity.

Theologically centred around the concept that, in one way or another, all religions divinely inspired by the enigmatic precursors worshipped by the ankoran, Covenant theology maintains that its own holy scripture, as sacred as it may be, was constructed by a primitive species, who could not comprehend the true divinity of the Foreborne. It also believes that the religions of other species originated from the same mortal lack of comprehension of what the precursors truly are or have become. Following this logic, every religion, from Christianity and Islam to the Cult of Drakon, holds some kernel of the sacred truth, however small, in its teachings. Only when put together, like pieces of a puzzle, can these small kernels create the full picture of the sacrosanct truth; the final goal of Covenant doctrine, and the adherents of the cult.

Sects
Although the end goal of the Covenant’s religion is a single unified faith incorporating elements of all faiths, the Covenant’s state-religion is itself, unsurprisingly given its age, though somewhat ironically, divided between a variety of sects and denominations. Like all faiths, there will always be disagreements between the faithful, whether on the interpretation of holy scripture, or the traditions absorbed by the faith from outside of it, and whether such traditions truly deserve a space in the Covenant’s holy doctrines.

In the ancient past, before the Covenant was propelled into the seat of a galactic superpower, there were once efforts to reunify the Covenant’s religious faith. Denouncements of sectarianism, inquisitorial purges, and charismatic preachers would appear, intending to return the faith to its original pure state. Yet of all these proponents of unity, none ever succeeded, and most only helped sculpt even more schisms and sects. Eventually, the Covenant ceased its attempts to keep the faith whole; denouncing past mistakes and declaring sectarianism an unavoidable part of the faith. After all, a core tenant of their doctrine was that mortals could not truly understand divinity, thus it was only natural that different understandings would emerge. Where once it was decided that divisions would weaken the faith, now it was understood that division would strengthen it, as the faithful from different sects debate and engage in interfaith dialogue to achieve a deeper understanding of the Foreborne.