Vanukean elected Pápež
Pápež Vladan I, in traditional Jelbic liturgical vestments
December 4708 - In a historic election, the Holy Sobor of the Terran Patriarchal Church has elected the first Vanukean Arch-Patriarch in its history. 75 year old Kardinál Rnárd Trmékez was elected Pápež, narrowly defeating his closest rival, Deltarian-born Kardinál Štefan Řezník. Unprecedented as it is, the election of the Church's first Vanukean Arch-Patriarch was made even more exceptional as a result of the pontifical name chosen by the new Pápež, who adopted the name Vladan in honor of 36th century Deltarian political leader Kardinál Vladan Martinek.
As a priest and later Archbishop of Naban and later still as Kardinál, Vladan Martinek is a controversial political and religious figure and an unlikely inspiration for the leader of Terra's second largest Hosian community. As leader of his own political party in the Deltarian Czardom, the Hosian National Party, Vladan Martinek made himself a champion of Hosian morality against Czarist dictatorship and of the independence of the Church from the abuses of absolute monarchy, condemning secular government, slavery, and genocide at great personal risk to his own life. In government Vladan Martinek led what many see as an example of what a Hosian-based regime ought to look like in Deltaria, by taking steps to eliminate slavery, cracking down on corruption, reducing the power of the aristocracy, condemning what the Church sees as immoral practices, including homosexuality, and even going as far as to force the hand of the Czar to accept significant reduction in his power. For all these and more, Vladan Martinek's fall from power at the hands of Czarism led to his violent persecution, as most of his cabinet was executed and he himself was blinded with a red-hot iron and confined to a monastery, where he spent his last days and ultimately died of starvation.
Long neglected in a nation where the Terran Patriarchal Church had essentially become the religious department of the Czarist state, the revival of Vladanism by none other than the new Arch-Patriarch points to a resurgent and more confident Church. Freed from the shackles of monarchist oversight and purged of Czarist and aristocratic elements in the aftermath of the war against the Coalition, the Terran Church may now feel emboldened enough to flex its long dormant political muscle and assert an independent role in Deltarian and Terran politics. The first act of Pápež Vladan I points in that direction, as on the same day of his assumption of the Pápežate he canonized his namesake as Saint Vladan the Confessor. By granting him the title of "Confessor", traditionally given to saints who have witnessed to the faith and suffered for it but not to the point of martyrdom, the new Arch-Patriarch implicitly recognized that the politically-motivated imprisonment and torture of Kardinál Vladan Martinek due to his leading an anti-Czarist government was motivated by anti-Hosian sentiment, and thus that governing Deltaria in the name of the Church is an act of faith. The implications of the Pápežate of His Holiness Vladan I on Deltaria and the wider Terran Patriarchal communion remain to be seen. A politically active Church will certainly have a significant impact on the young and still fragile Deltarian Federation, the first liberal democratic Deltarian regime in centuries.