Heresy

A heresy was a belief in a given deity that substantially deviated from the mainstream of that deity's church. Some of these deviations were tolerated by the deities.

Overview
Over time, churches experienced change and new ideas, and sects and factions arose and were tolerated or driven out. Every time such a thing happened, deities were presented with a choice. They could reject them, do nothing, or support them.

What happened with the new idea depended on which option the deity took for it.


 * Rejection: When a deity rejected the new idea, it basically protected the status quo. The church continued to support the ideals it did before the rise of the heresy, but only at the cost of reducing the church's membership as some people who embraced the heresy left the church. Ultimately, this action led to a loss of divine strength for the deity for having less worshipers.


 * Doing Nothing: When a deity was faced with the rise of a heresy and did nothing, the people who would have been driven away if the deity rejected the new idea remained in the church. This would allow the deity to have additional worshipers at the cost of a loss of authority if the new idea was one in competition with the old one.


 * Support: A deity could support a heresy by declaring it to be the actual truth. This action turned the heresy into the effective truth and thus the new mainstream tenet of the church.

Known Heresies
There were a lot of heresies on Toril. For example:
 * Cult of Shared Suffering: The Cult of Shared Suffering was a heresy of Ilmater. The idea behind the belief was that the Crying God's burden could be understood by suffering too.
 * Dark Moon heresy: The Dark Moon heresy was the belief that Selûne and Shar were not separate deities but different personas of the same deity.
 * Risen Sun heresy: The Risen Sun heresy was the belief that Lathander was not merely the reincarnation of Amaunator but was also close to becoming the Netherese god.
 * Three-Faced Sun heresy: The Three-Faced Sun heresy was the belief that the sun was an overgod with two aspects that were eligible as objects of worship.