Religious Ceremonies

This Article is based on the Official Translations of the Light Novel series! The Light Novel series is the source material for the adaptation of the Anime and Manga series. The information and terminology on the article will be based on the source material rather than the adaptions.

Ritual Spring Prayer causing the "Miracle of Haldenzel"

Religious ceremonies are performed at various times during the year. There are a few ceremonies which are very important, like the baptism, and there are a few which are done internally within the temple.

*The name of rituals written in italics have not yet been mentioned and thus are just descriptors of what they do. Ritual names in regular text have been used as such in the source material.

Temple Ceremonies

All these ceremonies are either performed by priests or shrine maidens from the either the local duchy temple or the Sovereign Temple or involve them in some way.

Farming Villages

Since there exists only a single central temple in the capital and since nobody wants to put the burden of having to travel the long distances between the capital and each village on either the priests or the local population, Baptisms and Coming of Age ceremonies are all held together only once a year in villages and towns other than the capital on the same day as the Harvest Festival.

Baptism

See Baptism

Coming of Age Ceremony

This is a ceremony which is held in celebration when a child comes of age and formally becomes an adult. This happens at the age of 15 and is celebrated seasonally and near the end of the season in Ehrenfest.

Commoners' Coming of Age Ceremony

The commoners' ceremony is held at third bell. Apprentices generally are not allowed to participate in the temple ceremonies. Commoners gather in the temple wearing clothes using the divine colour associated with their birth season and listening to the tales of the gods read by the High Bishop. After gaining the blessing and praying to the gods, they leave the temple.

How the coming age ceremony works in the orphanage: The person would bathe early in the morning and put on the newly given clothes and finally chant prayers and gratitude in the ceremony. Grey priest and shrine maidens attendants are usually given a small gift by their master or mistress.

The words of the prayer are:

"O Geduldh, Goddess of Earth; O Ewigeliebe, God of Life; hear my prayers. May you grace those who have newly come of age with your blessings. May those who offer their prayers and gratitude be blessed with your divine protection."

Noble's Coming of Age Ceremony

A noble's coming of age ceremony is performed in the course of the Interduchy Tournament at the Royal Academy.

See Interduchy Tournament/Coming of Age

Dedication Ritual

See Dedication Ritual

Fealty Ceremony

Incense being spread for Myne's Fealty Ceremony

The Fealty Ceremony is performed to induct new blue priests or shrine maidens. It is normally held by the High Bishop in his or her chambers in front of the altar, on which the seven Divine Instruments are arranged, with the Cloak of the God of Darkness and the Crown of the Goddess of Light on the top tier, the instruments of the Five on the second tier, and the third tier holding flowers, fruits, bells, incense, and the Robes about to be gifted to the newly appointed applicant. The new blue priest or shrine maiden vows to serve the gods and receives their robes at the end. The vow goes as followed:

"O mighty King and Queen of the dark and light, most righteous and divine rulers of the wide heavens. O splendid gods of the Eternal Five, most righteous and divine rulers of the vast mortal realm. Goddess of Water, Flutrane, God of Fire, Leidenschaft, Goddess of Wind, Schutzaria, Goddess of Earth, Geduldh, God of Life, Ewigeliebe. King and Queen, show your divine power that extends throughout the wide heavens and vast mortal realm. Eternal Five, bless we of the vast mortal realm with your divine power. In eternal gratitude for your heavenly powers, I shall worship thee for eternity. I shall live with just hearts, calm hearts, and resolved hearts. I shall have faith in thee as the true and just gods. I vow that I shall pray to thee, gods of nature; I shall thank you, and I shall prepare offering for thee."

Funerals

Poor City Commoner Funeral

In the neighborhood of the deceased, the family, friends, and neighbors come together to tell stories about the deceased and support the grieving relatives throughout the remainder of the day and the night. During the night, the participants take turns to nap. While it is acceptable to eat and drink, no meat is eaten until the funeral is finished.

In the very early morning, the congregation goes to the temple, and the relatives of the deceased enter. A grey priest - or in very rare exceptions a blue priest - will officially record the death and hand over the citizenship medal of the deceased. This medal serves as a show of government approval for the burial and a substitute gravestone for those too poor to afford a real one. It is common to fix the medal to a grave marker the family carved out of wood during the night vigil. Since most poor commoners can not read, the placement of the medal on the grave marker often helps the illiterate relatives to later find the correct grave again when visiting the graveyard.

With the medal in hand, the congregation moves to the graveyard outside the city, where the commoners themselves dig the grave, bury the body, and set up the grave marker. Those few commoners that are literate sometimes carve short epitaphs onto the marker, like "Our beloved daughter."

The funeral is held in during the morning since it is believed that the gate of the dead only opens when the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Light meet at dawn.

Farming Village Commoner Funeral

Little is known about the funeral rites of commoners outside the city at this point. What we do know is that during the funeral a small amount of blood is taken and smeared on a board. At the next harvest festival, this blood is used by the scholars accompanying the Priest to identify the citizenship medal of the deceased to hand over and officially record the death. Presumably at this point, the deceased has already been buried.

Harvest Festival

The Harvest Festival is held in autumn, where the blue priests and shrine maidens travel to the countryside alongside scholar officials and visit towns and villages. This is when the baptism, coming of age, and starbind ceremonies are conducted for these places. Also taxes are collected and empty chalices are retrieved for the Dedication Ceremony. The blue priests are normally given a percentage of the taxes which are brought to the castle using a magic circle by the scholar official, where their families would need to fetch their collected share.

The commoners celebrate the occasion with serving food and drinks and holding a sports competition resembling soccer and a bit of handball or rugby. In the game of warf, a feybeast is kicked around with the players representing their villages.

Healing Ritual

Myne performing the Healing Ritual

The Healing Ritual is performed by a blue priest or priestess dressed in their ceremonial robes, after an extermination of a mana-absorbing feybeast or feyplant, to heal the land and restore the mana of the earth. It is expected to receive a call from the Knight's Order during autumn, since this is the time when Trombe are most likely to grow to dangerous sizes. The priest needs a divine instrument, the Staff of Flutrane, and chants the appropriate words of prayer:

"O Goddess of Water Flutrane, bringer of healing and change, O twelve goddesses who serve by her side. Please hear my prayer and lend me your divine strength. Grant me the power to heal your sister, the Goddess of the Earth Geduldh, who has been wounded by those who serve evil."

The Knight's Order normally calls for two adult priests, the first blesses the knights before the battle, and the second performs the Healing Ritual. They choose specifically male members of the clergy to avoid the spread of rumors, since the vast majority of knights are males. Only when absolutely no suitable adult, male priests are available will the temple send out apprentices or shrine maidens.

Royal Academy Gathering Spot

In order to provide the students with the necessary material needed for their education, each duchy sustains a so called "gathering spot" at the Royal Academy. These gathering spots are fitted with a complex magic circle that can be used to fully regrow the entire plant-life in short order, should it ever be necessary. If the healing ritual is invoked within such a gathering spot, it will activate the magic circle and combine to provide the desired effect. A regular healing ritual is stopped once a short layer of grass has grown over the affected area, but this special ritual is continued until all plants have been regrown to their full size and the point of being ready to bear fruit.

Enacting this more elaborate healing ritual in gathering spots usually falls under the responsibility of the Sovereign Temple and takes dozens of priests and shrine maidens multiple days to finish.

The only known case where this ritual was enacted by a single person not affiliated with the Sovereign Temple was when the Ehrenfest gathering spot had been attacked by a ternisbefallen and partially devastated. Since not being able to gather the ingredients provided by the gathering spot would be a severe problem for the students, Lady Rozemyne decided to try to rectify the damage by invoking a regular healing ritual - which she was familiar from having participated trombe exterminations in the past - with her schtappe morphed into a copy of the Staff of Flutrane, unaware of the presence of the magic circle.

Despite doing to job usually performed by multiple blue robes, she managed to finish the ritual on her own by merely using some high-grade rejuvenation potions. Despite her only needing to regrow part of the gathering spot, rather than its entirety, this is still a feat previously unheard of.

Inauguration Ceremony

This ceremony is used to inaugurate the High Bishop. It requires the full turn out of the temple's staff and of the grey and blue priests and shrine maidens to attend, as they are introduced to the new High Bishop. At the end, they pray to the gods using the common words of prayers:

"O mighty King and Queen of the endless skies, O mighty Eternal Five who rule the mortal realm, O Goddess of Water Flutrane, O God of Fire Leidenschaft, O Goddess of Wind Schutzaria, O Goddess of Earth Geduldh, O God of Life Ewigeliebe! We offer you our prayers and gratitude. Praise be to the gods! Glory be to the gods!"

Spring Prayer

Spring Prayer (祈念式, kinen-shiki) is held annually in early spring. During the ceremony, blue priests and shrine maidens travel around the duchy to fill the land with mana and make it fertile, increasing the annual harvest.

See Spring Prayer.

Starbind Ceremony

The Starbind Ceremony (星結びの儀式, Hoshimusubi no Gishiki) is a religious ceremony, typically held in the summer, where new marriages are officiated.

See Starbind Ceremony.

Other Ceremonies

The following ceremonies are generally held without the presence or participation of temple priests or shrine maidens.

Strength and Speed Prayer

The purpose of the ritual is to petition the gods to grant them strength and speed to to win the upcoming competition. Judging by the wording, the ritual might also be used before actual battle, but so far it has solely been enacted before sporting events.

This ritual is generally associated with the duchy Dunkelfelger. While it is technically not exclusive to them and is taught to all participants of the knight's course at the Royal Academy, most students tend to only learn it for passing the lesson and then never consider it again. Likewise rather than praying genuinely, the students usually just say the words and perform the motions like a rehearsed play. Dunkelfelger nobles, however, dutifully perform this ritual before every ditter match they participate in, and most pray earnestly to the gods while doing so.

To enact the ritual, all the players of the same duchy gather in a circle around the person leading the prayer. So far, this ceremony was shown only once, when the prayer leader was an archduke candidate, which makes it likely that the prayer is lead by the highest status noble of the duchy currently present.

Once everyone is in position, the prayer leader starts by shouting "Grant power to those of us going into battle!" after which all participants transform their schtappe into spears with the spell Lanze. Then they perform a prayer song in unison, while doing something akin to a sword-dance, but with their spears. Apart from twirls, the dance also includes the participants thrusting their spears into the ground, then withdrawing them and pounding them against their chest-plates in time with the singing to produce a metallic chorus, while the leader in the middle of the circle performs a more elaborate dance.

The lyrics of the song are:

"We are those who offer prayers and gratitude to the gods who have created the world. Grant us power so that we might obtain victory. Grant us Angriff's mighty power that is second to none. Grant us speed so that we might obtain victory. Grant us Steifebrise's speed, which is second to none."

Once the song and dance are finished, the leader thrusts his spear into the air and shouts "Fight!" followed by roars from those in the circle.

Usually there is no visible effect of the prayer and while it serves to hype up the participants, they don't feel any changes beyond the psychological effect. However, when Rozemyne of Ehrenfest performed it while wielding her schtappe transformed into Leidenschaft's spear, it produced a loud boom and large-scale blessing. The colours of the motes of light were for the most part blue, but also contained some red, yellow and green ones as well. All the students affected by the blessing felt a massive boost in their fighting abilities to the point where they were unable to properly move on account of their bodies having become too fast and strong for their reactions to keep up on such short notice.

The archduke candidates present speculate that the reason why the ritual usually does not result in a true blessing is because while the Dunkelfelger nobles pray earnestly, they do not put any mana into the prayer, while Rozemyne in contrast put too much mana into it, resulting in the Ehrenfest students being so over-blessed it became a hindrance rather than a boon.

While in the modern day, the ritual is performed right before a ditter match, in the past it was performed the day before. Rozemyne and Hannelore speculate that this was done either to allow the recipients of the blessing to get used to the way their bodies and mana moves and thus avoid the kind of blundering that happened to Ehrenfest's apprentice knights from being over-blessed by Rozemyne or that in the past everyone participating contributed mana as a group, which could easily leave those with lesser mana capacities too drained to play without some rest.

Verfuhremeer's Calming Ritual

This ritual is derived from an old legend. The story goes that long ago some of Leidenschaft's subordinates got into a particularly heated fight, which became so intense that it cause a heat wave to erupt over the lands, and Verfuhremeer, the Goddess of Oceans, used her powers to calm the fighting gods and cool down the lands affected by it back to their usual temperature.

It is speculated that the ritual was originally created to counteract unusually hot weather, similar to how Spring Prayer can make spring come early, however, in the modern day, the ritual is primarily used by Dunkelfelger both to thank the gods for granting them victory in ditter and to celebrate the win.

The ritual is done by a single person, in the only case shown so far, an archduke candidate. To perform, it the noble in question transforms their schtappe into Verfuhremeer's Staff with the spell Streitkolben and performs a dance, consisting of many whirls and turning motions, while presumably singing a prayer-song. In the course of the prayer, the performer also dedicates some mana to the gods.

Usually this ritual has no visible or immediately tangible effect. However, if the pre-ditter prayer has been performed in a way that gave a true blessing, the mana cast over them will be withdrawn from the recipients. The mana will first rise up like a haze and then gather over the praying person until it looks like a giant whirlpool. Accompanying this visual display is the sound of crashing ocean waves. Upon the completion of the ritual, this mana will shoot up into the heavens. Apart from dispelling the blessings of the pre-ditter ritual, this prayer also calms the affected nobles, cooling both temperature and tempers.

The prayer itself is spoken in an ancient dialect only very few nobles are still fluent in.

Trivia

• Myne's first dedication ceremony started on Earthday.
• When Rozemyne became the High Bishop, the adults around her would recite the tales of the gods as her childish voice did not carry well.
• When Rozemyne became the High Bishop, she was very strict with the children during the baptism and made everyone repeat their first prayer until they got the posture right.