The Old Temple is a grouping of denominations of the Solar Temple, the predominant form of monotheistic worship. These denominations are characterized by the belief in a single Descent of the Sun, onto (or in the form of, depending on the specific denomination) the Prophet Ardamar on 1 Brilliance, PD 1 at Pustie. In particular, the Old Temple rejected the historical claim of the Emperor Atsef to Descent, and in modern times vociferously reject the claims of the Patriarch Vesten and his successors (Desite and Matalie) to Descent. Many of the various Old Temple denominations came to exist when their patriarchs separated with Vesten over the matter, in the period PD 1617-1620; the remainder formed in a second wave after 1728, when Patriarch Desite proclaimed his Illumination. (Some of the patriarchs splitting at that point joined existing Old Temple denominations instead.)
Some form of Old Temple worship is the official or dominant religion of the Noraman Republic, Montane Confederacy, East Bel, the Kingdom of Heghom, the Maritime Principalities, the Kingdom of Sus, and various minor powers. In syncretic form with traditional religious beliefs, it is also dominant among the PM/Great Checked Horde and the Sixty Tribes in the far East.
For most of the history of the Old Temple, the Patriarch (rarely, Matriarch) of Pustie was a primus inter pares of the various Patriarchs of the Old Temple, who were the spiritual leaders of their extensive (usually ethno-national) jurisdictions. However, when the Patriarch Vesten declared the Descent of the Sun onto himself in 1617, many Patriarchs anathematized him for heresy and severed connections with the Patriarchy of Pustie. However, Patriarch Vesten had the unwavering temporal support of several powerful secular and religious leaders, and was able to unify the Aelian States under the Present Temple.
The Old Temple's body of Patriarchs has no clear primus inter pares after the separation from the Present Temple, but has had two ecumenical councils since then - one in Noramahom, which anathematized Vesten and affirmed the uniqueness of Ardamar's Illumination, and the other in the Maritime Principalities, which dealt more with substituting the previous functions of the Pustien Patriarch.
Summary of Theological Positions
The Old Temple believes in a single uncreated immortal indefinitely-powerful non-omniscient deity which can be communicated with through verbal prayer, and deserves and demands, but does not require, the worship of mortals. The deity communicates through prophets and, uniquely in the case of the Prophet Ardamar, through Illumination. The Old Temple believes it should be established as the state religion, but does not officially favor forcible conversion to it, either of heathen or of heretical Templars. Worship of the one God is obligatory for salvation; the Old Temple believes it provides the most efficient ritual and most correct moral code to facilitate salvation; salvation for heathen and heretics is possible but correspondingly more difficult.