Heresies

As with any centuries-old religious tradition, the Corps has a variety of views on theological matters. Some of these are relatively trivial, and treated as a mere peculiarity or quirk (otim, pl. otimme). Others, however, cross into some more fundamental error, and can be described as heresies or errors (komar, pl. komarre). Anyone may fall into error and be corrected (by a priest, for instance) without serious consequence. But for someone to resist correction of an error and openly proclaim a belief, or (worse) for a priest to advocate for a heresy, is a serious problem that will be corrected.

While the Corps is totalizing in nature - it regards itself to be the only true religion, based on the Epiphany of Zunuga - it treats nonbelievers differently than heretics. It is understood that a nonbeliever - whether Hulti, or a follower of the Umnakan lightning-god, or the Luetkan whale pantheon - can be persuaded over time, whereas a heresy must be rapidly prevented from spreading and corrupting the entire faith. The following komarre are some of those known to theologians:

Error of the Lost Child
This heresy holds that Zunuga died (for the second and final time) in childbirth, and that her child, (known by many names, including Rushultagri), survived - and therefore, would be corpseborn. Under one version of this heresy (but not the only one), the lost child went on to have children in Ashnabis and build a life surrounded by adherents of the view that by her second death, Zunuga's child has/had a special connection to death and life. This belief is deeply heretical and grounds for removal from holy orders.

Error of Happenstance
This heresy regards it as normal and natural for the Hand to take new babies whose mothers died in childbirth and adopt them out to their immediate families, with a fictive mother. Usually this would be a sister or cousin or some other close female relative who would be treated as if she just so happened to be the mother all along, even though the pregnant woman died. This erroneous theology disrupts the 'tide' of babies sent to live with the corpseborn, with the children of corpseborn sent to live among people.

The Error of Gargesh
Gargesh was a Hand in Omba who, in 561, began training men and, even worse, Voices in the mysteries of the Hand. The rejection of a gender separation of the duality of the Corps coupled with Gargesh's disdain for the Corps leadership led to the suppression of this belief, though it is still to be found here and there. Instead of insisting that those wishing training need to transition to the socially appropriate gender, Gargesh insisted that anyone could receive Hand or Voice training, or even both.

The Espali Error
This is the belief that the two parts of the Corps are interdependent not just in the ways as two parts of the body (Hand and Voice) but as two partners in a marriage. Practitioners of Espalism travelled as Hand and Voice priests together, married, and proselytized widely among groups who would perhaps otherwise find the celibacy requirement of Hand and Voice to be unusual or unpalatable. Espalism as a social movement is thought to have gone extinct around the end of the Empire but still has occasional adherents.

Five-kinds Error
There is a non-heretical perspective that holds that there had always been saints, but that these were misrecognized as haunts and thus destroyed or maltreated by ignorant Hulti or members of non-Corps faiths (Naming). But a variant of this denies that haunts and saints are different at all. This heresy holds that there are not actually six Kinds, but only five, and that all haunts are saints, and vice versa, simply with different abilities. By denying that haunts are a different Kind, and by suggesting somehow that haunts are saintly, it calls into question how we treat both haunts and saints.

The Unvaulted Error
A heresy in which some Voice priests collaborate with Corpseborn communities in some areas to store their ancestors after death, rather than cremating them, normally separately from other Ancestors. While there are some ignorant people who regard corpseborn as lacking a spirit entirely, thus incapable of becoming ancestors, this has never been theologically correct. The heresy, rather, is that corpseborn should not be honoured ancestors or spoken to after their deaths.

Error of Seeds and Flowers
The Corps holds that spontaneous resurrection has only happened once - during the Epiphany of Zunuga. But there are always stories about someone who came back from the dead on their own - as if Zunuga's rebirth was merely the first flowering / Unfolding of a phenomenon that has left seeds elsewhere in the world. These are generally discounted as people who were not really dead in the first place, or people who were resurrected by a Voice but who later deny it.