Prior to the sacking of Rome, the Ebenistas drew up a controversial and divisive doctrine in the last decade of the 22nd century.
So damaging was the drafting of this document that what are here called 'Ebenistas' should more correctly be known as 'neo-Ebenistas' - the ones who reformed post-schism, leaving the rump of the church to practice their religion as prescribed in the old Manifesto of Zagreb, written in 2087.
The Zagreb document summarised and re-asserted the main points in the original Book of Eben: that the Master Fisherman had created the universe whilst in a very deep sleep, and that the fishes red and blue had been derived to negate His cosmic Loneliness, which stretched as far from west to east, and as far from north to south as any being has been ever capable of imagining.
It added some new paragraphs confirming that every new life is a gift from Eben, and stated that the universe can only ever truly be understood in all its majesty by the dreamer who simultaneously intersects a trillion, trillion dreams.
As a demonstration of a progressive religion, the Zagreb notice was a disappointment, and came in for criticism from several un-named higher priests in the e-papers: Zagreb was evidence of a meek, retarded faith which ought to be brought out of its medieval slumber, complained a bitter Portuguese delegate, and an African representative drily observed that, as a historical document, it was incomparable.
An uneasy truce took hold between the traditionalists and modernisers; though the latter group's annual meetings in Bratislava, chaired by Preferential Ninkovic, were increasingly rebellious.
Ninkovic and his like-minded associates felt that their faith was too backward-looking - able to speak with authority about the origins of humanity and the gift of existence, but unable to advise individual humans what to do with that gift.
What they should be doing with it, declared the bearded, well-spoken Ninkovic, is thanking the Master Fisherman for their existence by going out into the streets with the intention of marginalising, and then effacing, the atheists, who were no more than miserable apostates.
A Christian, a Muslim or a Jew might not wake each morning with purple blood flowing through their veins, but at least they recognised a higher power, albeit the wrong one.
The atheists, however, were a different matter. Without the glory of God in their veins, Ninkovic had it, they were no more than zombies living unfulfilled, broken lives.
Meanwhile, in Zagreb, a handful of traditionalists were debating the precise wording of a brief statement which would see their faith bisected, and ultimately lead to the progressives' arrival in Rome.
