Prayers of thanks

Today we celebrated Amarr's victory in the Drifter crisis, with prayers of thanks in Gottin's Lamp's chapel and a pilgrimage to the holy sites and monuments near Amarr.

Of special importance during this pilgrimage was our stop in Safizon, at the wreck of Empress Jamyl's titan. 

Jamyl I, who ruled before our current Empress Catiz, was assassinated by a Drifter fleet. Her body was never found, and the wreck of her flagship titan still lies smoldering in Safizon. So, it was especially fitting to visit it now, when for the first time we have dealt a really severe blow to the Drifters, as we reclaimed their home world. The first reclaimed world since the battle of Vak'Atioth!

Her death is not fully avenged, but at least now we can visit the site of her martyrdom with head held up high. With new confidence in our ability to defeat the Drifters, we prayed for her intercession with God to ask for guidance and continuing victories against the demonic Drifters.

We left a bouquet of flowers, with a ribbon reading "From LUMEN, in gratitude for the victory over the Drifters, YC127". 

Celebration

I am preparing a celebration of the Empire's conquest of Sanctified Vidette - we will have a prayer of thanks in the Chapel tomorrow, followed by a pilgrimage along some holy sites. 

I hope the celebration will not be marred by rumors of a secret den of sin in operation here in the 24th Imperial Crusade station in Mehatoor, apparently in an abandoned basilica in a lesser used part of the station. This was the subject of a fiery sermon by arch-deacon Tovaan, I was told. If it really exists, then I expect that the reverend mother Kahoudi and her team will be rooting out this evil.

Personally I have not heard any rumors about such place - but I will ask our pilots. I have noticed that whenever there is some sort of debauchery going on they somehow are always know what and where. 

Relicology

I am quite excited as the Vita finally arrived at the period where the fight between the Council of Apostles and the Emperor culminates, and a victory of Heideran V's forces is beginning to take shape. This would be the moment where the most precious relics would be transported to hiding places.

To understand what "most precious" means, it can be useful to keep the Theology Council's classification of relics in mind. The Council of Apostles, one and a half millennium ago, would have used the same classification. It comes in a two-dimensional grid, with on one axis the proximity of the relic to the saint during their life, and on the other axis the estimated authenticity of the relic.

First, the gradus proximitatus. Three levels are distinguished: the first grade consists of relics that are mortal remains of the saint (parts of the body) or an essential attribute - meaning an object with which the saint is always depicted with or associated with. There is a level even above this first grade - extraordinary objects that were in contact directly with God or the Sefrim - but one can academically discuss whether to call such objects relics at all. They are sometimes given their own category, the "dona extraordinaria".

The mid-grade of proximity are objects that the saint has used or touched during his life (excluding the essential attributes). These could, in the case of martyrs, even be the tools used to torture or kill the saint.

The lowest tier consists in objects that have touched relics of first grade. You can place prayer beads on a relic during your veneration of the relic. Taking your prayer beads home, these can still inspire you and grace you with the blessings of the saint! There is strong discussion about whether objects touching relics of the mid-grade should also be counted as third-grade relics or not, and this debate led four millennia ago to a war which ended in a stalemate and the unsatisfactory compromise formulated by the third council of Iphria, introducing a fourth grade of proximity. Up to this day, the matter has not been resolved conclusively and is the subject of intense academic research. 

The other classification (the second axis) is the gradus veritatis. Archeologists and historians at the Theology Council will investigate every claim that a certain object is a relic, and establish its degree of verity.

After removing the items that can be be proven to be false, they will classify the remaining claims into again three categories. The highest level are those relics that can be proven - by scientific analysis or clear historical record - to really belong to the saint. The middle grade are relics that are likely to have belonged to the saint, but cannot be convincingly proven so. The third class is formed by relics for which there is reason to doubt whether they belonged to the saint. 

Take as example a case where the saint in question was buried along with other persons in the same grave, and it cannot be resolved which bone belongs to which person. A bone from that grave would be first class in gradus proximitatus, but third class in gradus veritatis. At the same time, in superposition so to speak, it could also be classified as third class proximitatus for which it is first class veritatis. 

Obviously, when in these logs I refer to the most precious relics, those would be relics of both high proximity to the saint and high degree of verity. And, regardless of semantic debate, I would include the dona extraordinaria.

Statues of faith and servitude

At last there are some descriptions of artefacts that are holy to the Tetrimon and were hidden away when the tensions between the Council of Apostles and the Emperor grew and first crossed some red lines. 

The story is tangential to the biography of Tetrimon IV, but speaks of holy statues representing virtues of faith and of servitude, moved to a temple in the New Eden constellation. There is not much more than that written down in the Vita, but it is a first encouragement that this biography may contain interesting leads.

Unfamiliar with these artefacts, I have tried to look up their importance in the Theology Council records. There was not much there, except for some surpisingly recent investigations of the Royal Amarr Institute and Hedion University, dating back some eighteen years ago. This report was inconclusive as to whether the cult of the statues is to be upheld for our current-day faith - research into it seems to have been discontinued a few months after it was started.

An inspiration

The archaic language of the Vita, along with its many references to works that have been purged after the moral reforms, make the study of this book hard. I am transcribing and translating into modern Amarrian, but only got to the childhood of Tetrimon IV thusfar.

In between the hard work I am taking breaks in the monastic cathedral of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl for some prayers. It has depictions of king Khanid, and of members of the Khanid Order of Paladins trading with what appears to be barbarians on some newly discovered planet. 

Contemplating this, an idea came to me to resolve my wealth problems! This problem arose from receiving rewards from the Amarr Navy and from the wormholers for help during the Drifter crisis. I was given an amount totally incompatible with my vow of poverty, which states that I should only keep what I need for my quest to find the lost relics of the Empire.

Now, I have been intending for a while to organize a trade fair for relics in order to get to know the active collectors better. The plan is that this for sure will help me to find lost relics. But this idea has been collecting dust among my many other intentions. 

Now, I figure that I can combine the trade fair with simply buying interesting relics, should they present themselves! Thus, the isk will be used towards my God-given goal as perhaps it was always intended.

I have no experience at all organising these things, but luckily Maerrin has offered to help. She has expertise, being a well-known socialite in capsuleer circles.

Lost books

Sometimes, mundane explanations are best.

I had been imagining all sorts of convoluted explanations as to why exactly the books with Tetrimonic records were missing. Perhaps they were purged, along with other works declared heretical after the Moral Reforms. Or perhaps they have been moved to a safe place, a "monk hole" for books, exactly to avoid the purge? 

In the end, it was the restoration crew of the library itself who moved the books, just recently. No-one had touched them, before that. They were moved not out of any concern about their potential heretical nature, but simply because the bookcase needed to be repaired. They had been stacked somewhere else, on the floor in a niche at the side of the library. And that is also why the bookcase had 'disappeared'.

I found the book that I was looking for, the "Vita Magistrorum Magnorum - Tetrimon IV", a contemporary biography of grand master Tetrimon IV, written by his followers. He opposed the Moral Reforms and is said to have hidden artifacts from the Council of Apostles, to prevent Emperor Heideran V from finding them. There was also a rare copy of a volume of the "Deliberationes Concilii Apostolorum", records of the meetings of the Council of Apostles, from the time of the Moral Reforms - an important historical document. It is part of a very long series of recorded debates, going back millennia, that were considered part of Scripture before the reforms.

Undoubtedly, now both books are deeply heretical, and they would have been purged right after the end of the Moral Reform wars by the Theology Council, which was then newly created by Heideran V to replace the Council of Apostles. There may still exist copies in the Tetrimon Monastery, but if they have copies, they do not let anyone near them. Luckily, Baron Redwolfe's abandoned monastery remained untouched and today falls outside of conventional Tetrimon control. 

These books are not for the general public, as it could harm those untrained to withstand heresy. But for the trained theological expert, armored by a strong faith, it ought to be possible to study them for the benefit and glory of the Empire.

Resuming research

It is good to be back to my routine in Gottin's Lamp. A lot of work has been piling up while I was away, waiting for my return...

Now that also that is done, I am returning my attention to the library at the monastery of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl. It not only has records of the Khanid Order of Paladins, but also old historical records of the Tetrimon order, around the time of the Moral Reforms. 

Some of those seem to be on a missing bookshelf. It is not unlikely that an ancient collapsed, or succumbed to wood rot (the place had humidity problems). Perhaps these books were placed somewhere else, but the catalog was not updated. So, I will head back to the monastery to look through the other bookcases, one by one.

Patience is a virtue.

Cleanup crew came

Having completed my survey of the Empire's latest system, I decided to return. Frankly, camping out in space a whole week is more than enough. 

The Amarr Navy research station prefers not to open its hangars to capsuleers at this point. But they have done a good job cleaning out the discarded shuttles and corvettes that I still found here at the start of my exploration. 

Well, maybe also capsuleers contributed, in particular a certain "Hans I" from a corporation called "The Stellar Paradox" seems to have taken it upon himself to help clean up the mess and turn the abandoned ships into short-lived flaming plasma torches. Good man.

Ah, I will be happy to sleep in my own bed again tonight.