Baptism

Baptism (洗礼式, senrei-shiki) is a religious ceremony in Yurgenschmidt. It is held when a child turns seven, marking the beginning of their life as a full-fledged member of society and conferring the rights of citizenship.

Both commoner and noble children are baptized, although the details of the ceremony differ between the two. Among the commonalities are:


 * Citizenship Registration . To become a citizen, a child registers their mana on a small silver disk that is then entrusted to the highest-ranking local authority. Commoners who cannot channel their mana do this using a blood fingerprint.
 * Clothing. On the day of the baptism, a child dresses in white clothes embroidered in the divine colour of the season they were born.
 * Prayer and Scripture Readings. During the ceremony, children are read the tales of the gods out of the bible and taught how to pray.

For noble children, an individual baptism is held their birthday. The family commisions the services of a blue priest to come to their home and conduct the ceremony, usually trying to hire as high-ranking (and therefore prestigious) a member of the clergy as they can afford.

While the ceremony is private, the family may invite friends, family, or acquaintances to attend the baptism. As a rule, the higher-ranking the family, the more guests will be present. At the baptism of an archnoble child, the guest list can total well over one hundred.

The priest begins the ceremony in a gathering hall, and the parents lead their child from a waiting room to the front of the hall. From there, the child walks up alone to the priest and is given a noble's citizenship medal, which they register with mana.

After that, one of the parents presents their child with a magic ring, allowing them to channel mana and give blessings. The priest blesses the child with the relevant god's blessing and the child gives a blessing in return. After the ceremony, the child is then introduced to those who have gathered to celebrate the baptism according to status by walking up to the child one family after another.

Winter Baptism and Debut. Nobles who are born in winter, live far from the capital, or simply cannot afford to hire a priest's services, are all baptised together at the start of winter. The process is the same as for a noble baptism, but the children are baptized in order from lowest to highest rank.

After the baptisms are finished, all children baptized that year make their formal debut into society. The debut consists of a harspiel performance dedicated to their birth season's god, and the order again proceeds from lowest to highest rank.

In the capital city of a duchy, where the temple is located, baptisms are held on the first seasonal day of each season.

Processions begin in the main streets at the edge of the city and progress to the central plaza. Once all the processions have gathered, they then move on to the temple. While moving, the wealthy children walk in the front, while the poor children walk in the back. Only the children themselves may enter the temple for the ceremony, while the adults wait outside. Once in the temple, they are registered by blue priests using blood to mark the silver disks then are sat on carpets. To keep the noise down and suppress the screams of the more squeamish children having their finger pircked, the temple employs magic tools that dampen any sound from the children to a mere whisper. Once all the children are registered, the High Bishop then arrives and tells the children the shortened version of the story of the gods and seasons after which they are taught how to pray. Finally the High Bishop blesses the children with the relevant god's blessing.

For all other commoners, the baptism ceremony is held during the harvest festival. Since everyone is baptised at the same time of the year, clothes can be handed down no matter when in the year they were born. The ritual is the same as the capital city where the children are registered, read the story of the gods and seasons, taught to pray and then be blessed.


 * Since under Bezewanst the blessings spoken over commoners were mere words without any mana in them and his long reign as High Bishop, Rozemyne's true blessings are seen as an unusual novelty.
 * Rozemyne's baptism was performed by Ferdinand. To help solidify her title of Saint of Ehrenfest, her guardians instructed her to bless every person present. This caused great surprise among the nobles, which in turn caught Rozemyne off guard since she had assumed that such big blessings were the norm in noble baptisms until she witnessed the stunned reaction of the audience.