By the mid-to-late 1400’s, the leadership of the Church was faced with a debate between its members that was not easily quelled. Shepherds from many congregations in urban centers were increasingly requesting funding from the leadership of the Church in Ironstead. In those days, money that was given to the Church was given to the Church as a whole, and the leadership within Ironstead would allocate the money as it deemed necessary for the good of the flock. The senior Shepherds that heralded from the cities of Elan consistently raised objections at the Church’s equilateral distribution of wealth, arguing that the Church should give more to the larger flocks in the cities. Those who came from the rural regions retaliated that the Church should provide funding in order to best ensure the spread of the faith throughout Elan as a whole.The Church did not settle the debate at the time, leading to friction between the two groups in the following years.
In 1480, pressure from Shepherds throughout major cities and especially in Duriana led to Parliament instituting the Enrichment of Church Congregations Act (ECCA), which allowed for Shepherds to own land for the first time since the founding of the Church, and it allowed congregations to donate money directly to any Shepherd they chose instead of the Church in Ironstead. This change in the law incited an uproar throughout the clergy of the Church and especially in the senior leadership. Many Shepherds were satisfied with the change and heralded it as acting to remedy the debate that the Church was unwilling to settle. Other Shepherds expressed intense opposition, feeling that members of the Church had inappropriately influenced the government in a way that benefited them alone and not their congregations. The passing of the ECCA led to further, increasingly hostile debates between urban and rural Shepherds.
In 1505, a young Shepherd from rural Huxley, named Pax Neworth, wrote a thesis that they called The Objections, submitting it to the senior leadership in Ironstead and spread copies among Shepherds throughout the city. The Objections outlined the sentiments, arguments, and accusations that various members of the rural Church community had aimed at the urban Church community in the years since the passing of the ECCA. The adoption of the ECCA’s policies within the Church was first addressed, with a critique of it as a major hypocrisy in the Church. The opulence and wealth quickly accumulated in the cities was viewed as a warping of the Church into being like the Houses of old. The increasing focus and elevated importance of the Triumphs was labeled as idolatry and heresy. It was further insinuated that this practice was a return to paganism, which would be a disastrous return to a violent and degenerate time in Elanite history. Pax would conclude their work calling on the Church’s leadership to initiate a synod, in order to bring order back to the Church and reunify under the founder Zell’s original intentions with the Church.
Shortly after the posting of The Objections, a rebuttal was written by a member of the senior leadership, Jonas Quillbrook and was similarly distributed, called The Rejections. The Rejections was less eloquently written than the thesis it was rebutting, but its accusations were more hostile in nature. The first refutation was in the accusations against wealth, calling a disinterest in wealth a degradation of the Church and a failure to acquire enough resources to spread the faith throughout all parts of society. The second refutation avoided the attack on the Triumphs, and instead accused those Shepherds that did not engage in rites as falling into paganism themselves, since they were not following Church practices. The rising movement toward a belief that anyone can have a relationship with the Divine was also attacked; the refutation being that such a claim is blasphemy.
After the publication of The Objections and The Rejections, debate raged throughout the Church, with the most heated responses occurring in Ironstead. The leadership of the Church initially attempted to maintain decorum and unity, but it quickly fell apart as it became apparent that neither side was willing to back down. A synod was called in 1506 in the main place of worship in Ironstead in an attempt to try and find a solution to the infighting. The Synod at Ironstead fell apart on the ninth day of meetings in a brawl, after which both sides named themselves the True Church, disavowed the other, and blamed the other for the inciting incident.
The feuding parties, which would become known as the Low Church and High Church would establish their new structures, codes, and belief structures shortly after their separation. Both claimed different parts of the Church’s wealth and properties in Ironstead and throughout Elan. In places in which there was tension over such claims, there was uncoordinated violence. This new divide in Elan would fall chiefly on the lines between urban and rural, as well as wealthy and poor. The tensions between the Low Church and the High Church would simmer and occasionally boil over throughout the next century, especially over the Church headquarters in Ironstead. And in 1611, Prime Minister Allian Dune would finally intervene in the conflict, on behalf of the High Church, to try and stop the conflict. The Holy Treaty was signed by both sides, leading to peace and the splitting of Ironstead in two, one side for each new branch of the Church. This treaty would also articulate the division between the two branches in the eyes of the Elanite government. However, this treaty was unable to fully remedy each branch to each other, with both calling the other illegitimate and refusing to communicate with each other, even to the present day.