How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony

At the heart of medieval European society was, above all, Christianity, specifically the Catholic Church.

The center of community was the church congregation.

The most authoritative intellectuals in various regions were priests.

And naturally, the most important focal point of the local community was...

The cathedral.

At the cathedral, they celebrate the birth of a person and perform the sacrament of baptism so that person can establish themselves as a Christian.

Next, in a traditional Catholic cathedral, they celebrate a person's coming of age with the sacrament of confirmation.

And in everyday life, the cathedral is where people participate in the faith community by attending Mass every week.

It's also where two people are officially recognized as forming the most basic faith community, a "family," through the sacrament of marriage, and where funerals are held when someone dies.

Thus, a person's life begins and ends at the cathedral.

That's how a community is maintained and moves through the space called a cathedral.

Since medieval times in Europe, the cathedral could be considered the heart of a community.

It's ultimately similar to how our church building in Chesapeake served as both a parliament building and a meeting place for the apostles and me for a while.

It's natural. It's convenient to hold meetings and make important community decisions where people gather every week. For the same reason, in original history, church buildings became the center of early American pioneer communities.

So the beginning was very simple.

"Now that our population is approaching 70,000, wouldn't it be nice to have a proper church building?"

"Well... of course."

"Mrs. Dare is right. We can't have priests like Hewett or Harriot holding important ceremonies outdoors forever. For example, if it suddenly rains during Mass..."

As for how our church operates... well...

The only thing I can really say is that it's quite improvised.

Priests and deacons are roughly elected by vote or take turns in office through drawing lots. Usually, those who have learned our doctrine from Hewett or Harriot take the role of priest.

People going far to trading posts need someone to celebrate Mass and preach, so we dispatched those who had studied doctrine to serve as priests.

Or trading post people elect them by vote.

The same goes for positions above deacon and priest. Usually, bishops are roughly elected by vote among priests, and occasionally I appoint someone and dispatch them to distant locations.

Archbishop... we don't have that yet. With a population of only 60,000-70,000, why would we need to elect an archbishop? It would be as ridiculous as a 5-person club electing a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and auditor.

Anyway, archbishops would probably be elected by bishops later.

...What is this? This terrible hybrid of Catholicism and Protestantism?

Anyway, since our community has both Catholics and Protestants, it ended up being this mixed together.

Some refuse to say priest and say pastor instead, and some refuse to say bishop and say superintendent, but it doesn't really matter so I just leave it be. Doctrinal debates only give me headaches.

Above the elected deacons, priests, and bishops are the apostles, and ultimately me.

I'm roughly... well... something like the Pope of the 'Nemo sect,' no, the 'Nameless sect.'

Looking at this summary, I've used words like "roughly" and "approximately" a lot. It seems our church organization really is operating quite loosely.

Well, it will work out somehow later. It's not something to worry about now.

Anyway, even if the church organization is like that, other important matters can't be handled so casually.

For starters, even though it's loose, the Nameless sect is still Christianity, so everyone gives baptism to new believers. They preach using Bible content and frequently hold communion.

And usually, church events are held every Sunday. That means believers need to gather around the priest (...or pastor or whatever) once a week.

People gathering means a place to gather is needed.

And that gathering place is the cathedral.

I didn't know, but apparently people felt sad about calling a shabby hut with a roughly planted cross a cathedral.

Especially when I occasionally drop by to give words of encouragement, public opinion like 'It's too shabby for an angel to preach in!' sometimes arises.

Above all...

"Beauty and grandeur sometimes inspire holy reverence. Even from a practical perspective, we need something like a proper cathedral."

"...Does Hewett think so too?"

"Of course. Why did Catholics create icons? Wasn't it to make preaching easier to barbarians?"

Right... I understand.

They mean that having something "cool-looking" helps maintain dignity and aids in missionary work?

From that perspective, the grand and decorative elements of cathedrals and churches could be seen as designed under extremely practical purposes. They overwhelm people once built.

That's how... our denomination's first "cathedral" building project began.

"Didn't we say we shouldn't erect statues! We must remove everything except paintings and crosses!"

"No... why get rid of such nice things? Are you planning to just show a single cross to natives who have never experienced Christianity before? Saying, this is our God?"

"Can't that be well explained through preaching?"

"If preaching alone were enough, we wouldn't need to build such a cathedral in the first place, would we?"

"...Mr. Hewett, Vicente, that's enough from both of you. Aren't you ashamed in front of the believers?"

Of course, it was very eventful.

Now it's the early 17th century.

The era of religious wars.

...For now, I barely mediated the conflict between Hewett and Vicente.

We decided to install a crucifix showing Jesus hanging on the cross, but exclude all other statues of saints and angels.

Oh, this is exhausting.

I barely held back a sigh as I left the meeting room and looked at the "construction site" of the cathedral.

It's been about a year since the idea came up... and they're still just laying the foundation.

Complex and magnificent buildings like cathedrals take a long time just to design.

They've been arguing for days just about whether to erect statues or not, so it would be a miracle if the construction didn't take long.

Still, at least a warehouse to store materials and interior decorations for the cathedral has been built, so I went to take a look...

Creeeeak!

"...Are these all donated items?"

"Yes. At least for now."