History of Tessera

Acacius dies an old man, having conquered and converted three continents.

In his last year, Iban Acacias went mad and decided to sleep with every girl in Berytus, desperately attempting to create a blood legacy. He even exiled his adopted son Acacian. But when he sent for the wife and daughter of a blacksmith, the man was enraged, and disguised himself as a woman, pretending to he his own wife. He was taken to Iban Acacias, and stabbed him, but he did not die right away. For three days he suffered, and tried to kill himself, but failed. Then on then on the fourth morning he was bitten by a poisonous spider, and convulsed to death, foaming at the mouth. The blacksmith had been taken prisoner, but he was pardoned by Paul Simon when Iban Acacias had died. This story is recorded in the Great Codex as “Iban Acacias, who had gone mad, died stabbed by a father of the city, who had disguised himself as a woman.”

The Council of Salon is convoked by Emperor Iban III to settle the Divinity Crisis, determining that the Heliand is co-eternal with the Ancient of Days, and anathematizing the positions of the Empress Privia. "A domestic squabble which engulfed the Imperion is settled by a Theological Council."

Hieronymous the Partlicist produces Arkium, the most dangerous material in existence, and demonstrates its effectiveness as a weapon in the Hell Sands Desert. The results of this are unclear, but it was apparently so significant that Metropolitan Alexios II ordered Hieronymous executed and all records of the event destroyed. Today this is known as the Arkium Purge, and even accounts of this exist only in third hand sources. Since 304 attempting to synthesize the compound has resulted in the penalty of excommunication.

Metropolitan Celandine the Great organizes an invasion of the Empire of Mides to usurp the apostate Padishah Amalthea and place the Emunite prince Matevosian on the throne. Though ultimately unsuccessful and bloody, the First Great Holy War united the Emunite realms under the banner of the Metropolitan, and it remains one of the longest periods of peace in Eirene other than the Peace of Acacius.

Metropolitan Celandine the Great convokes the Third Theological Council of the Unbroken Church, issuing anathemas against Monism and apostasy, and empowering the regional civil authorities to punish heresy with death. It also defined the Book of Simon, the four Synopticons, and the two Epistles of Acacian as the sole scriptures of Emuna, collectively the Canon.

Triggered by Theodorian of Amalfi's use of the Ninth and Eighth Chaos Seals to defeat Toliman, some 40,000,000 people were killed in the ensuing two apocalypses. The exact details remain unknown, but the destruction was so total that it collapsed the western half of the Berytusian Empire, and led to the eventual formation of the western kingdoms.

With the death of Metros Adrian II during the first session of the Council of Apannina, the presbyters of Berytus elect Metros Adrian III, who is not acknowledged by the western Council, which instead continues to issue edicts in the name of Adrian II. Most of the western Church accepts the Council's edicts, triggering a crisis of legitimacy. In 474 Pontiff Begingi forces the Council to elect him as Metropolitan, and in 475 Adrian III dies. Emperor Carloman directs the presybertariate of Berytus to not elect a new Metropolitan, instead declaring a sedevacante ("empty seat"). They do not accept the order and instead elect a sequence of Metropolitans unrecognized by either the Imperion or the West. In 483 Begingi dies and his son Basilios forcibly dissolves the Council of Apannina and surrenders to Emperor Carloman in the Peace of Zadak. Carloman lifts the edit of sedevacante and the presbyters elect Metros Adrian IV in 484, thus ending the crisis.

Patriarch Alija Klemens of Crocodiliopolis is elected Metropolitan of Berytus over the objection of Emperor Chloris V, and imprisoned the same week. This marked the beginning of the bubbling Enetoi Schism.

Emperor Chloris V convokes a Theological Council (canonically irregularly) which pronounces excommunication against Metropolitan Boutros II and elects Ymir IV as metropolitan. The authority of this council is rejected by the Haugrkirk Emuna.

The Elvish Haugrkirk Metropolitan Petris I is elected in 796, reigning for 113 years, the longest of any metropolitan. He reasserted orthodoxy and reunited with the Yothian Church in the Union of Abbas. The Petrine Era is widely considered the apex of the power of Eirene, and the technological and cultural achievements of the age have not been replicated since.

Metropolitan Sextus VI convokes the eighth Council of the Haugrkirk, focused primarily on combating both the commonly held fear that the world would end in the year 1000, and also to counter the influence of Semelism in the far west. The Council held sessions for almost the entire year (less one day), and produced more anathemas than any other. Most notable is the Great Syllabus of Error, which lists 3,349 propositions condemned as heresy.