Flag of Acronis
 | |
| Use | National flag  |
|---|---|
| Proportion | 3:2 |
| Adopted | 6 June 2022 |
| Designed by | The Elders of the Church of Akrona |
 Variant flag of the People's Communion of Acronis | |
| Use | State and naval ensign  |
| Proportion | 3:2 |
| Adopted | 16 March 2023 |
| Designed by | Σavora Lašandri |
 Variant flag of the People's Communion of Acronis | |
| Use | Civil ensign  |
| Proportion | 3:2 |
| Adopted | 16 March 2023 |
| Designed by | Brenda Cantaš |
The flag of Acronis is the national flag of the People's Communion of Acronis. The design is attributed in law to the Elders, the religious leaders of the Akronist faith that is the state religion of the country, but it is fundamentally identical to the design of flags that have been used informally for decades among Akronist communities in Tavaris to be emblematic of the Tavari Akronist community. The identity of the first person to fly such a flag is unknown. The National Flag and Symbols Act of 2022, which was the very first bill passed into law by the first elected national legislature on the first day the Synod sat, provisionally established the national flag and a national ensign, a white field charged with the emblem of the People's Communion, subject to confirmation in votes held at the same time as provincial elections and the national census in November of 2022.
Between June and November, nearly every Akronist parish temple in the country held at least one public discussion session regarding national symbols, and many held several, all open to the public to share their thoughts on the proposed symbols. Each temple prepared a summary of each meeting and forwarded it to the Ministry of the Interior. The public, especially younger people, responded enthusiastically to the process, with media reporting that the public discussion meetings were almost always packed with people seeking to speak. It became quickly clear among the public that the National Ensign was unpopular, with the white field in particular described as "plain" and, due to its association with the white flag of surrender, possibly a cause for confusion if flown in military contexts. As predicted, the national ensign was rejected by voters, while the national flag and other national symbols (including the proposed national animal, the toucan, among other symbols) were approved by wide margins.
Even before the national ensign was formally rejected, potential alternative designs were in circulation at public discussions and being discussed. These meetings were often held simultaneously across the country and with participants in one parish in active communication with participants at other parishes online, to allow for ideas to spread across the country in real time. Many participants noted the Tavari vexillological tradition of using a separate ensign for private and government vessels. Indeed, Tavari law allows Tavaris-registered vessels owned by the Church of Akrona to fly their own particular ensign, a law that was not affected by Acronian secession and which Tavari Prime Minister Žarís Nevran Alandar has stated her government has "no plans to change." A design based on the Tavari naval ensign, which quartered and counter-charged the Tavari national flag, rapidly spread across Acronis through these meetings as well as through social media, with its creator proposing it as a Civil Ensign for use only by private citizens. Ultimately, this design was selected by the Synod and enshrined in law in the Civil and State Ensigns Act passed on 4 January 2023, with a delayed effective date of 14 March 2023, the one year anniversary of Acronis' legal independence. The national ensign was selected to be used as state and naval ensign. While no confirmatory referendum was held after this law was passed, parish temples once again held a series of public discussions afterward and Chief Administrator Σavora Lašandri announced her government was "well prepared to repeal the law if we encounter significant public push-back." However, few complaints emerged from the second round of discussions.
National Flag
The flag features an orange lozenge on a silver field. The diamond and the color orange have historically been used to represent Akronism and the Church of Akrona and represent the most holy moment in Akronist history, when the goddess Akrona manifested physically in the presence of the seven women bathing in the sea who would become the First Elders and tasked them with creating her church. At that moment, it is said that the natural crystal formations around the shore—that give the Crystal Coast its name—and the moon began to glow orange. While many shades of orange have been associated with Akronism throughout history, the law strictly defines the color used on the national flag as being "that color represented by the hexadecimal color code #FFAD00" and names this color "Crystal Orange."
The silver on the flag was selected to be emblematic of the stone used to construct the Temple of the Emergence, the seat of the Elders and one of the most important temples in Akronism. It is used to symbolize "a solid, impervious foundation upon which our government and church stand." More informally, the silver is popularly said to represent the civil, non-religious government of Acronis' bifurcated system of governance, while the orange represents the religious government of the Church of Akrona. The color is defined in law as "that color represented by the hexadecimal color code #C5C5C5" and names this color "Acronian Silver."
State Ensign
The design of the Acronian State Ensign (which, because it is also used by Acronis' small contingent of armed naval ships, is properly a State and Naval Ensign) is attributed to Σavora Lašandri, the first Chief Administrator of Acronis, who initially designed it as the National Ensign, to be flown by private Acronian citizens as well as by state and naval vessels. A white field was chosen to represent peace, and the emblem of the civil government was placed in the center. Lašandri stated that she deliberately placed as few elements as possible in her design so that "as much peace as possible will always show through." However, participants of public discussion meetings largely panned the flag, saying it was "plain" and questioning the use of a white field as ill-advised in military situations, and the national ensign was rejected by voters.
Public discussion participants largely coalesced around the idea of a civil ensign proposal while deciding not to propose a state or naval ensign, instead leaving these for the Synod. A series of informal polls found that most parishes agreed with the sentiment that "the government has the right to decide what flag to fly on ships that it owns." As a result, with relatively little debate, the Synod re-adopted the previous national ensign as the state and naval ensign while adopting the popular design for the civil ensign that would only ever be flown from private, non-governmental vessels.
Civil Ensign
The Acronian Civil Ensign was designed by Tovar resident Brenda Cantaš, a 29 year old coffee shop employee who brought the design to a public discussion held in her home parish temple, the Temple of North Tovar. Cantaš had previously come in second place in a contest to establish a municipal flag for North Tovar Township in 2017, and at the meeting where she first proposed her design, she described herself as a "flag nerd." The civil ensign is split into four quarters, in which the national flag is placed in the top left and bottom right, and a "counter-charged" version of an orange field with a silver diamond in the other two quadrants. The design is inspired by that of the Tavari naval ensign, which quarters the national flag but does not counter-charge it—Cantaš said that she made the choice to invert the colors because otherwise it would have simply been the national flag with four smaller diamonds instead of one large one.
By counter-charging the colors, the civil ensign is also emblematic of the Tavari national flag, which Cantaš said was unintentional but that, when she realized it, she decided to keep. In an interview with the Crystal Coast Free Press after the Synod enshrined her design into law, Cantaš said that "it seems that, in the immediate aftermath of our secession, Acronians have chosen to embrace, rather than reject, our Tavari history and, for many of us, our Tavari identities. I hope that, by selecting this flag as one of our symbols, it helps solidify that attitude in our national consciousness. I hope it will ensure peace into the future."
Standard of the Matron
The Matron, who is the head of the Church of Akrona, is the Acronian head of State. On 6 June 2022, the same day as the national flag was provisionally introduced, Matron Vana Dandreal issued an Administrative Declaration establishing the Standard to be used to represent her in official contexts. She is said to have designed it herself. The design is an orange field—a darker, redder orange than that of the national flag—on which is the "open diamond" shape that was used as an emblem by the Church of Akrona as an organization prior to Acronian independence and two border stripes, all in the Crystal Orange color used on the national flag. The darker shade of orange is not legally defined.
The same Administrative Declaration also establishes a standard for the Elders, which is the same as the Standard of the Matron except without the border stripes, which would be flown in situations where one or more Elders, but not the Matron, act in an official capacity on behalf of the People's Communion of Acronis. Administrative Declarations do not have the same force as statutory law and are instead merely policies of the religious government, and while the Synod initially considered enshrining the Matron's Administrative Declaration in statutory law, eventually it was decided to scrap the effort so that future Matrons can easily change the Standard to a design of their own preference.