====== Human religious communities on Hearthside ======

The first permanent human religious institution to be established at Focus was a Catholic mission in the heart of the City of Eternal Noon, established by an order of Dominicans founded for the purpose of preaching to the yinrih. It would eventually grow to become a cathedral. The mission was originally going to be named in honor of St. Lucy, but when the High Hearthkeeper took Lucy as her human-pronounceable name, the mission's name was changed to St. Hildegard, an odd choice for a Dominican-run institution. It was thought that Hildegard of Bingen, as a female polymath, would resonate with Wayfarers interested in baptism. Christian monasteries from various churches also spring up in the desert surrounding the capital.



There are two Jewish enclaves on Hearthside, a mostly Orthodox community established soon after First Contact within the jurisdiction of the City of Eternal Noon, and a separate, mostly secular, autonomous region established later when swaths of unused land were granted to human settlers.



Islam is represented by a large Uighur community named New East Turkistan, established under the same land-grant program as the above mentioned Jewish enclave.



Other faiths are far from absent, though they are mixed in with other human settlements.



On the subject of land grants, these grants are quite large, with enough space and resources to support a modest self-governing polity. Hearthsider political philosophy has always emphasized subsidiarity, with a comparatively weak federal government and very strong local governments. These human communities effectively operate as nations unto themselves, with the Weremoot and Wifemoot only dictating interplanetary relations.



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