|
==== Ademarism ====
The Cryrian Church of Ademar serves as the nation's primary and official religion, with roughly 70% of Cryrians considering themselves to be practicing members. The Cryrian Church is formally headed by the Monarch, and certain members of the clergy are given seats on the Första Kammaren and other privileges' as if they were equal to the nobility. This has allowed the Church to retain a measure of its historical political power in modern Cryria, which it has most notably used to oppose euthanasia and the official recognition of same-sex couples, and the institution has generally served as a bastion of social conservativism.
The original Cryrians in Yasteria had worshipped a trifecta of deities - The God-Under-Seas, the God-on-Urth, and the God-in-the-Void. There are few surviving records of this pantheon, but it is expected that these deities represented the seas, land, and skies respectively. The God-Under-Seas was depicted as a powerful and unpredictable entity, but one which also offered the wealth and bounties of the oceans, and as such was initially the primary deity for the seafaring Cryrians. The God-on-Urth, in contrast, represented the stability of homes and hearths where all sailors sought to return, and was generally depicted as a kinder and more welcoming god. The God-in-the-Void stood for the mysteries of the night sky, whose stars the Cryrians used to find their way, and where lost souls were said to rest. The God-in-the-Void was as often feared as it was worshipped for its strange unknowable nature.
Scholars believe that the Cryrian concept of the God-on-Urth was heavily influenced and ultimately overtaken by Ademarism, and over time it became the sole Cryrian deity as the other two fell out of formal use. However, remnants of the original Cryrian religion persisted in folktales, myths, and superstitions, and Cryrian sailors were often known to give tributes and prayers to the two "forgotten" gods as soon as they were on the open seas. Many ancient Cryrian practices were absorbed wholesale into Cryrian Ademarism.
This form of Ademarism was carried by the Cryrians from Yasteria to the Isles. Much like the older, pagan religion the Cryrians had kept, Cryrian Ademarism at this time was completely decentralized. Different clans had their own clerics who trained their own pupils and successors, and kept only a loose system of mutually understood traditions and practices in common. In a manner reminiscent of Älemsi Shamans, Cryrian clerics played an important role in communications between different groups. Clerics were considered to be above even their own clan loyalties, and attacking a religious figure was anathema. Cryrian clerics oversaw important traditions such as the Great Wardings and Bekännelsekväll.
==== Other Religions ====
|
