The True Faith is characterised by belief in an all-powerful and compassionate God who helps believers in life, protects them from evil, rewards the just and punishes the guilty. God created the world and all things within it at the beginning of time, and judges the actions of everyone, both the faithful and the Pagans. After death, the souls of those buried by a priest of the True Faith in consecrated ground leave the world for God's judgement: the good enter Heaven, while the wicked enter Hell where they atone for their sins and eventually enter Heaven once they are worthy.
The power of God is made apparent through the miracles worked by the saints of the True Faith and the protection belief in God offers against the old powers of Paganism and darkness, the Elves, Undead, and Sorcerers. Belief in the True Faith helped the Selentine Empire overthrow the Empire of Wyrd; it is said that a person with sufficient faith has the strength to move a mountain. Followers of the True Faith oppose Paganism because it lures people away from the true God to the worship of false gods who have power in this world only, and generally try to convert pagans whenever possible. Most believers are Humans, though many Centaurs and Kattar and some Dwarves and Mercanians also follow the True Faith: the soulless Elves are unable to leave this world, and pay no heed to the word of God.
Followers of the True Faith usually belong to one of two religious communities: a church or a monastery. The great majority of believers belong to churches: there is usually at least one church in a village or a suburb of a town or city. A church is lead by a Priest, someone who has been trained in the tenets of the True Faith and who has been consecrated by an assembly of Priests or a Bishop. Priests perform the religious ceremonies that bring people into the community of believers, join them in marriage, separate them in divorce, and see people off in death to the judgement of God: they have the power to bless and to reprimand.
Large towns and cities with more than one church have a Bishop, as do some villages and towns with one church in the lands around the Coradian Sea and along the Azure Coast (where the True Faith was established in the first two centuries after the Saviour's death). The Bishop is first among equals of the Priests of that city, chosen from among them either by the congregation or by an assembly of Priests. In addition to serving as Priest for their church, the Bishop is responsible for the seminary, where new priests are trained, and thus has a significant role to play in preparing, appointing, and monitoring the performance of Priests both in their city and in the surrounding region. Bishops also attend any Council called to discuss matters of belief and practice. Eight of the Bishops are called Pontiffs because they are the Bishops of the eight great churches, founded in the first years after the Saviour's death by his friends and disciples.
By comparison with churches, monasteries are separate communities created by believers who wish to live in an environment sheltered from the demands of the world so that they can concentrate on broadening their understanding of the True Faith and strengthening their love of God and the Saviour. Each monastery is led by an Abbot, who performs the same role within the monastic community as a Priest would for a church. Many Abbots do not undergo the formal training that Priests do under the supervision of a Bishop, and there is often tension between a Bishop and any Abbots of monasteries that fall within the geographic region that the Bishop supervises. This tension is most notable in the south, where followers of the Tralline understanding firmly deny that Bishops have any role to play in monastic life.
Gatanades, now called the Saviour, was born in Ibrahim. He formulated and preached the True Faith a little under eight centuries ago, and was martyred by the pagan Selentines, who considered him and his message a threat. However, Gatanades' death did not weaken the strength of his message, and the True Faith quickly spread throughout the Emphidian kingdoms and around the shores of the Coradian Sea and the Azure Coast. Each city or town had its own church, led by a Bishop: the Bishops of the eight great churches were called Pontiffs to indicate their status as first among equals. The eight Pontificates are Alabanda, Beria, Helaga, Ibrahim, Pleuron, Selentium, Telios and Tion.
After two centuries of persecution and martyrdom, the Selentine Emperor Josturox converted to the True Faith and made it the official religion of the Selentine Empire. In the new era of freedom, different understandings of the True Faith began to appear. Everyone agreed that the Saviour had been a man, but was he also God? Had he been God when he was martyred and suffered death? Was he still both God and Human, or did he stop being mortal at some point? Over time, the True Faith as understood by the Pontiffs of Selentium won out over other interpretations, and the Selentine True Faith was widely (though not universally) accepted. Other branches of the True Faith (such as the Berian) continued here and there, but in most places it was accepted that the Saviour was both God and Human, and had always been so.
A tremendous shift in thought occurred with the rise of the Tashim True Faith about three hundred years ago. Akabah the Illuminate argued that Gatanades was always a man and had remained so after his death, never being or becoming God. This was reminiscent of older understandings, like the Angelan and especially the Lascarine, but Akabah also produced a new revelation of God's truth that added to and in some places overwrote the message of the Saviour. Furthermore, the Tashim understanding of the True Faith placed complete spiritual and secular authority in the hands of Akabah's successors as the Caliph of Demkhor, the Sacred City. Most interestingly, the Tashim True Faith was demonstrably true: God continued to demonstrate love and protection for Tashim believers (as had not happened, for example, in the case of the Palaeologians, whose churches were not havens from evil powers).
The Tashim True Faith spread rapidly across the deserts of the north, and brought about a revival of alternate understandings of the True Faith in other kingdoms. By the time the Tashim Caliphate fragmented into the Tashim kingdoms of today, Ranimia had adopted the Berian understanding as the state religion and the Tralline understanding had become prevalent in Holluin and spread to Duneld and Elmet. The Selentine True Faith remains the most widespread of the Saviour-based understandings, and has become on the whole more militant: the Order of the Rose and the Crusade would not have occurred two hundred years ago.