Category: Capitalist Paradise | ||
Civil Rights: Very Good |
Economy: Very Strong |
Political Freedoms: Very Good |
Regional Influence: Shoeshiner
Location: Africa
3
Old Believers

Old Believers or Old Faithful are adherents of the pre-Christian Germanic religion, especially in the context of Vinlensk exceptionalism and ultranationalism. While thousands of people practised the religion from the medieval period to the modern day, the modern movement began as a part of the Romantic conservationism of the 19th century ad. Pointing to the ancient, hardwood forests covering Vinland, especially before industrialisation, and drawing parallels to the deep forests of allied Prussia and Germany, philosophers of the period called to the familiar motif of the world-tree Yggdrasil and the emergence of the Swede, Geat, and German ancestors of the Vinlendings from primeval forests. To appeal to Skraelings, they also promoted an association with Skraeling traditions regarding natural forces and nature. By ascribing Germanic gods to different saints, they made polytheism more understandable to a Christian population. In the humiliation surrounding defeat in WW1, the Old Faith found thousands of new adherents, especially among the wealthy and famous. The Mjolnir Club began as a secret society of Old Believers within the circles of prominent government officials, military officers, and industrialists in the early 1920s before annexing to the Coup Anonyme (the shadowy military intelligence service of Vinland) to form the feared Mjolnir/Anonyme in 1945. Religions other than Catholicism were legalised in 1990, and the Old Faith has seen steady growth since then. A notable few Skraeling nationalist leaders promoted adopting the Old Faith syncretised to traditional belief systems as a rebellion against the Catholic Orthodoxy before the religion's legalisation, and they brought their followers with them, drawing attention to these beliefs.