Maragana Girl
Copyright 2004 by EC
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(warnings: judicial corporal punishment, forced public nudity, sex between adults, 
references to drug use, references to violence)

Post Script 3 - The Danubian Church and its impact on Danubian society


The Danubian concept of the Supreme Being

The Danubians have a monotheistic religion, which they refer to as the “Danubian 
Church” or the “Faith of the Ancients”. Although in theory the Danubians are 
Christian, by the end of the 20th Century the majority of what they believed came 
from ideas that predated the country’s official conversion to Christianity in 850 
AD.

The Danubians refer to God as “The Creator”. Before everything, even before 
time, light, and matter, there was the Creator. The Creator is much greater than 
human comprehension and, unlike the Judeo-Christian God, does not have any 
human characteristics such as anger. To attempt to apply earthly traits to the 
Creator such as names, emotion, or gender, is considered a serious insult to the 
Danubian deity, because human traits are limitations that are restricted to “the 
physical Earth”. However, because the Creator intended for humans to inhabit the 
Physical Earth, the Creator cares about the well-being of humans and will respond 
to prayer and public penance.

Opposite of “The Creator” is “The Destroyer”. The relationship between the 
Creator and the Destroyer is somewhat similar to the relationship between Judeo-
Christian God and Satan, but there are significant differences. The Danubian 
religion teaches that in the Physical World creation cannot exist without 
destruction, just as life cannot exist without death. The Destroyer brings death to 
the world, which is necessary to make room for new life. Danubians are not 
taught to hate the Destroyer, because destruction is an integral and necessary part 
of the Cosmos. However they deeply fear the suffering that the Destroyer is 
capable of inflicting and seek deliverance through prayer, public penance, and 
visions. Only the Creator can grant a living entity or an inanimate object (such as 
a Temple) protection from the Destroyer.

Both the Creator and the Destroyer communicate through visions. The Danubian 
Church believes that visions are what connect the Spiritual World to the Physical 
World and what give believers guidance to illuminate the Path of Life. An 
undamaged soul, healthy body, and accurate knowledge of the world are crucial to 
having truthful visions. A person that is knowledgeable about the world and has 
good intentions will enjoy visions granted by the Creator. A person blessed with a 
vision from the Creator is obligated to act on that vision, but often will seek 
assistance from a member of the Clergy to interpret its meaning and make sure it 
is indeed a vision from the Creator, and not a false one from the Destroyer.

An ignorant person or a person with an unhealthy body or damaged soul also can 
have visions, but those will be false images from the Destroyer. For example, a 
national leader with a damaged soul might receive a vision of glory, wealth, and 
power that would prompt him to lead his country to war. The false vision of a 
glorious war, if enacted, will bring suffering and destruction to the nation and 
disgrace and death to the leader. The Danubians often cite the rise and fall of 
Adolf Hitler the best example of a damaged soul with earthly power who received 
and acted upon false visions from the Destroyer. The CEO’s from Mega-Town 
Associates and their ambition to seize Upper Danubia’s forests for financial gain 
is another example of damaged souls in pursuit of a false vision.

The Creator and the Destroyer co-exist and counter-balance each other in the 
Physical World, but the Destroyer has no presence in the Spiritual World. All 
souls, both good (whole) and evil (damaged), travel to the Realm of the Creator 
upon death (which Danubians refer to as “the release of the body”). Upon entering 
the Realm of the Creator, human souls surrender their physical bodies back to the 
Earth and are forever liberated from the influences of the Destroyer.

The Danubian concept of the Afterlife

The Danubian Clergy does not claim to have an accurate idea about the specific 
conditions facing souls in the Afterlife. However, upon separation from their 
earthly bodies, all souls enter a single place, the Realm of the Creator. There is no 
separating of “saved” and “condemned” souls, nor is there any concept of a 
separate Heaven and Hell. Thus the Danubian Church avoids the theological 
problem of attempting to specify what exactly qualifies a soul to enter Heaven. 

Upon facing the Creator all souls must come to terms with the consequences of 
their behavior in the Physical World. The ancient Danubian scriptures mention 
that the Realm of the Creator also is the Realm of Absolute Truth. In the Afterlife 
all the Earth’s secrets are revealed, all mysteries resolved, and all questions asked 
throughout life answered. To fully comprehend the way he was during the 
Physical Life, every follower of the Danubian Church is buried with a special 
mirror provided by the Temple. Upon separation from the physical body, the 
human soul holds the mirror up to the Creator, and every action from his life is 
reflected back as part of the soul’s exposure to the Absolute Truth. Each person 
sees himself for what he truly was during his sojourn in the material world, 
because a person’s Afterlife is a reflection of his physical life on Earth. In the 
Afterlife every soul must face the consequences, both good and evil, of every 
action taken while in possession of a body in the Physical World. Danubians 
assume that a person who followed the will of the Creator will enjoy a more 
pleasant Afterlife than one who lived in defiance of the Creator. However, what 
that actually means is determined by the Creator and is beyond human 
comprehension.

Two Worlds, Holy Sites, and the purpose of Death Marches

The Danubians do not believe in ghosts, but they believe that souls exposed to the 
Absolute Truth periodically get permission from the Creator to travel back to the 
Physical World and communicate to the living through visions. Usually such 
communication is very difficult, but there are special ancient places, such as the 
Sacred Ground of the Guardian Spirits behind Danube City’s Temple of the 
Ancients, where the Spiritual World is more closely connected to the Physical 
World and the dead more easily can communicate with the living. Living 
Danubians are eager to receive visions and guidance from the dead, so they 
frequently make pilgrimages to Holy Sites to pray for enlightenment that can 
guide their actions in the Physical World.

For a Danubian seeking divine guidance, even more important than visiting Holy 
Sites is the annual Fall Equinox Festival, or the Day of the Dead. The Fall 
Equinox, the day the Northern Hemisphere begins its journey into the depths of 
winter, is when the channels of communication between the Spiritual and Physical 
Worlds are much stronger than at any other time of the year. The long death of 
winter is rapidly descending over Danubia, so during the country’s passage into 
cold and darkness people must reflect on what it means to still be alive and part of 
the Physical World.

During the Day of the Dead, the Danubian Church calls upon the most humble 
and suffering members of society, convicted criminals and persons performing 
public penance, to offer their bodies to allow the dead to re-enter the Physical 
World and communicate with worshipers. The offering of the humble is done 
through a two-night torchlight procession. In ancient times slaves marched as 
well, but formal slavery was abolished after the country’s official conversion to 
Christianity.

The Danubian world-view and other religions

The Danubian Church does not claim to be a universalistic religion and there is no 
systematic effort or desire to convert non-Danubians. The Danubians are aware 
that their religion only exists within the borders of a single country and are able to 
accept that fact as the will of the Creator. Instead, what the Danubian Clergy 
believes is that the Physical World and the Spiritual World are separated, but in 
the Danubian territory the separation between the two worlds is much less than it 
is anywhere else. Because the rest of the Physical World suffers from a greater 
degree of separation from the Realm of Absolute Truth, the Creator allowed other 
religions to arise outside the Danubian nation. Why that should be is a question 
Danubian Clergy members do not pretend to understand. 

There is no perceived calling for the Danubians to try to change the minds or faith 
of outsiders. If an outsider becomes interested in the Danubian Church and wants 
to convert and practice the Danubian religion, the Clergy will educate that person 
in ancient scripture and accept him into the Church. Normally an outsider wishing 
to join the Danubian Church needs to prove his determination by performing 
public penance before he can be accepted as a full member. Kimberly Lee’s sister 
Cynthia performed public penance and converted the year after Kim and Sergekt 
got married and subsequently returned to her home in the United States, for 
example. However, the Path of her Life was to safeguard the Land of the 
Ancients. Just a few months after converting she fullfilled her Path in Life by 
returning to Danubia with the information Vladim Dukov needed to counter the 
Mega-Town coup that was provided by Jason Schmidt. Once that task was 
completed, the Creator forced her to permanently settle among her fellow 
believers and live out her physical life in Danubia.

Freedom of religion is not a part of Danubian culture and there is no tolerance for 
other faiths within the nation’s territory. All Danubians, even the most liberal and 
educated, agree that outside religions have no place in the Duchy. Foreign 
missionaries and proselytizing are strictly prohibited and punishable with 10-year 
sentences. Any Danubian converting to another religion must leave the country to 
practice it.

The Danubian Church and scientific discovery

Unlike Judeo-Christianity, the Danubian faith does not have a detailed “Creation 
Story” for the Physical World. The Danubians believe that the Creator made and 
fine-tuned the Physical Earth long before the first humans arrived to inhabit it. 
The Danubians never attempted to guess how old the Earth was or how long it 
took to create, because such knowledge was considered “the divine secret of the 
Creator and part of the Absolute Truth”. To speculate about the age of the 
Physical Earth without any evidence would have been considered sin.

When fossils were discovered and the Theory of Evolution appeared during the 
19th Century to challenge Christian concepts about the Earth’s creation, the 
Danubian Church was the only religion that did not see evolution as a threat to its 
core beliefs. The Clergy already accepted that the Earth had existed long before 
the first people and that the Creator had spent many years preparing the Physical 
World for human habitation. The Clergy viewed evolution not as a threat to their 
faith, but instead as a possible explanation of how that ancient process might have 
taken place and the method by which the Creator prepared the planet. Even 
extinction made sense to the Danubian Clergy, because the death of species fit 
nicely with the concept of oblivion brought about by the Destroyer.

As more information about the Earth’s pre-human past became common 
knowledge though scientific discovery, the Danubian Clergy accepted it with total 
enthusiasm. It turned out that through revealing fossils to humans, the Creator was 
blessing the world with a portion of the Absolute Truth. The Creator had shown 
confidence in people by granting them knowledge of a time that was outside the 
human experience, but apparently not beyond human comprehension.

During the late 20th Century the Danubians became much more certain about 
their religious beliefs while the rest of Europe lost its faith in the supernatural. As 
scientific discovery undermined the creation accounts of other religions, the 
Danubians were convinced that their own view of the Cosmos and the relationship 
between humans, the passage of time, and the Physical World had been 
vindicated. 

Yes indeed, the Earth is much older than humans and took a very long time to 
create. Yes, the planet’s violent history proves that the Creator and the Destroyer 
fiercely fought each other while destroying and recreating the world into what we 
see today. To think…we now have proof that the Destroyer wiped out entire 
continents with ice sheets, and floods, and volcanic eruptions, and even struck 
down the planet with meteors, but the Creator always restored the planet and 
restored life... Yes, that’s what we’ve been saying all along…

The Danubian Church and the sanctity of the human body

Proper custodianship of the human body is central to Danubian theology. The 
Danubian Church teaches that every human being consists of a soul, which is 
immortal, and a physical body, which is a gift temporarily provided to each soul 
by the Creator. The human body is the Creator’s covenant with the Earth, lent to 
allow human souls to travel through the Physical World and interact with other 
human souls. Because each body is “on loan” from the Creator, it is the sacred 
obligation of every person to care for his or her body as carefully as possible.

The Danubian belief in the sanctity of the human body is important for 
understanding how Danubians live their daily lives. Physical health is a moral 
obligation, so Danubians are careful to exercise and eat nutritious food. To eat 
unhealthy food purely for the pleasure of taste is considered sin. For example, 
junk food is not available in the Danubian Republic, because eating non-nutritious 
items that damage the body is considered an offense against the Creator. 
Mistreatment of the human body also is the reason why the use of intoxicants is 
so savagely condemned by the Danubian clergy. The idea of injecting oneself 
with heroin, smoking meth, or snorting cocaine horrifies the average Danubian.

The same harsh judgment applies to lifestyles that allow the premature 
deterioration of the body, such as the American “couch potato”. Likewise, foreign 
practices such as tattoos, cosmetic surgery, and piercing for jewelry are 
considered acts of vandalism against the body, which ultimately is the property of 
the Creator. The only surgery permitted in the country is what is needed to 
safeguard or enhance a person’s health. The prohibition against altering the body 
for the purpose of vanity extends to dyeing hair and using make-up. If the Creator 
gave a woman brown hair for example, for her to change the color to blond would 
be considered an act of defiance and overt rejection of the Creator’s gift to her 
soul. Equally abhorrent to Danubians are religious practices of other faiths such as 
self-flagellation and fasting that inflict lasting damage on the Creator’s gift to the 
soul. During the Middle Ages aversion to Roman Catholic penance rites became a 
major source of conflict between the Danubian Clergy and the Vatican.

Danubian religion teaches that the only purpose of clothing is to protect the body 
from injury or physical discomfort. The Creator gave humans the knowledge to 
create clothing to help people shield their bodies from the harsh conditions of 
winter. To wear clothing for any other purpose is considered vanity and an act of 
sin. Especially sinful is to wear clothing that alters the body’s appearance or 
causes physical discomfort, examples being items such as corsets or high-healed 
shoes. 

The Danubian Clergy teaches that the fashion industry is nothing more than the 
Destroyer’s effort to encourage humans to deface and reject the Creator’s gift to 
the soul. Danubians refer to the emphasis that foreigners place on clothing as “the 
evil worship of cloth”. Seekers of wealth have brainwashed the public to venerate 
clothing instead of the human body, and in doing so have created a sinful culture 
that requires people to pour large amounts of money into material possessions for 
the sake of public approval.

The Danubian Church and law enforcement

Many outsiders and critics of Danubian society perceive a contradiction between 
the Danubian Church’s attitude towards caring for the physical body and the 
government’s use of corporal punishment to discipline convicted criminals. For 
the Church there is no such contradiction, because the religion considers physical 
pain, prolonged exposure, and public humiliation as necessary to re-orient a 
damaged soul and give the criminal the opportunity to find the Correct Path in 
Life. Upon conviction, the criminal progresses through the shock of the initial 
punishment to a period of prolonged suffering. From suffering the criminal 
experiences remorse, and from remorse the criminal can reflect on the 
consequences of having a damaged soul and acting on the false ideas promoted by 
the Destroyer. From that point the criminal is ready to seek redemption and re-
enter society as a normal citizen. Both the Church and the government argue that 
unless a criminal undergoes intense trial and suffering, he will never feel 
compelled to ask the Creator for redemption and change his Path in Life.

The lives of Danubian Priests and Priestesses

Danubian clergy members are well-educated. In modern times to become a Clergy 
member an aspirant must graduate from high school and master all academic 
subjects before starting Seminary. Apart from Biblical Studies, Scriptural Studies, 
and theology, Danubian seminary instructors teach history, writing skills and 
oratory, psychology and counseling, social sciences and economics, comparative 
religions, and the fundamentals of Danubian criminal law. Apart from the 
academic topics, Seminary students need to become fluent in archaic Danubian 
and are required to memorize ancient Danubian religious writings. A prospective 
clergy member must understand the past and be able visualize how people lived 
throughout history.

Danubian clergy members take a vow of poverty upon entering the Seminary. 
Seminary students, men and women alike, own nothing but a single black prayer 
robe, which must last the entire four-year program. If the robe wears out or is 
damaged, the Seminary student may not replace it. If a Seminary student’s robe 
cannot be worn anymore, that student must remain naked throughout the 
remainder of his or her studies. To avoid unnecessary wear and tear on their 
prayer robes, Seminary students routinely perform Public Penance during the 
warmer parts of the year. Upon swearing in, new Priests and Priestesses burn their 
Seminary clothing and are issued Temple garments; black robes for men and 
black dresses for women. Clergy members must wear their garments at all times 
when in public. Unlike the prayer robe of Seminary students, the outfits of Clergy 
members must be replaced whenever they show signs of wear and tear. However, 
a Priest or Priestess may only be issued one outfit at a time. At no time may a 
member of the Danubian Clergy wear any clothing other than the official religious 
garment.

Members of the Danubian Clergy do not practice celibacy. In fact, to become a 
full member of the Clergy, a Seminary student is first required to find a “proper 
partner” of the opposite sex. Priests and Priestesses marry each other, normally 
serve together in the same Temple, and bear children to set an example of 
haráshkt jettít. Younger children live in the Priests’ quarters with their parents, 
while older children live with relatives. To prevent nepotism and hereditary 
privileges, the first generation of children of Clergy members are not allowed to 
follow their parents into the priesthood.

Support from family members is important for Priests and Priestesses to properly 
perform their duties. When a person becomes a Priest or Priestess, the Church 
expects the family to support the Clergy member with meals, child rearing, and 
the few material needs he or she might have throughout life. Usually that is not a 
problem because any household that has a Priest or Priestess as a member is 
honored and considered blessed by the Creator. The school-aged children of 
Clergy members normally live with relatives. Also, because food is not allowed in 
any Danubian holy site, Priests and Priestesses normally eat at the houses of the 
relatives that are taking care of their children, but must return to the Temple to 
sleep.

Historical and doctrinal developments of the Danubian Church

The Danubians were Pagan until about 850 AD. The native religion envisioned a 
Creator and ancestral spirits, so the conversion to Roman Catholicism with a 
Deity and Saints was relatively easy. However, that easy conversion, along with 
the country's isolation, allowed the Danubians to develop their own interpretation 
of Christianity, one heavily influenced by ancestor worship. Danubia's conversion 
to Christianity was not as complete as in other countries, which allowed the 
Priests to develop their own interpretation of the Afterlife and definition of sin 
and morality. 

In spite of the heretical nature of Danubian Christianity, the only major threat to 
the Danubian Church came in 1504 and 1516, when the Holy Roman Empire 
attempted to invade the country and impose the Inquisition. The two Holy Roman 
attacks were among six invasions successfully repelled by King Vladik the 
Defender during the early 1500s. As a result the Counter-Reformation never was 
imposed in Upper Danubia and the country’s church continued to develop 
separately from churches in surrounding countries.

When Danubians officially converted to Christianity, the Pagan concept of the 
Realm of the Creator merged with the Christian concept of Heaven. The idea of 
passing through Purgatory to enter Heaven also became accepted among 
Danubians and remained part of the faith until the early 20th Century.

However, there was no equivalent in Pagan Danubian philosophy for Hell. While 
it was easy enough to recast the Destroyer as Satan, the Danubians could not 
accept the idea that Satan had any presence in the Spiritual World or any control 
over souls once they were separated from their physical bodies. The concept of 
being “separated from God” makes no sense to a Danubian. Upon physical death 
all souls return to face the Creator and dwell in the Realm of Absolute Truth, so 
how could there be any partitioning of souls into a separate Heaven and Hell?

The mixed reception to core Christian beliefs also applied to the Danubian 
acceptance of Saints, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. The Danubians accepted the 
Saints with no problem, because the role of Saints closely matched that of the 
Spirits of the Dead. The role of Jesus presented more of a problem. The Danubian 
Pagan religion did not have any concept of Original Sin, and thus the ideas of 
“Salvation from Sin” and a “Savior” did not fit. Also Danubian theology rejected 
the idea of “the Son of God”, because…why would the Creator have a son? How 
was it possible that the Creator could be reduced to a mortal human body and be 
seen and executed by other humans?

In spite of 500 years of frustrated efforts by visiting bishops to make them 
understand the difference between Jesus Christ and the Saints, the Danubians 
stubbornly insisted on treating Jesus as little more than any other Saint. The only 
exception to the limited role of Jesus was Easter, where the commemoration of 
death and suffering appealed to the Danubian mindset. The Danubian Clergy 
incorporated the Day of the Dead practices into Good Friday, so during the 
Middle Ages there was a second annual Day of the Dead ceremony during the 
spring that corresponded with Easter.

Yet another source of frustration for visiting bishops was the fact the Temple of 
the Ancients remained intact and continued to be actively used by Danubian 
Priests, although it had been renamed “The Dwelling of the Saints.” In 1250 AD 
the Danubians reluctantly agreed to build a large Cathedral in Danube City to 
replace the Temple. The Cathedral was completed in 1337, but the planned 
demolition of the Temple never took place. Instead the two buildings took on 
separate roles in the Danubian religion. The Cathedral was used for formal 
religious services, while the Temple continued to be used by ordinary worshippers 
praying to individual Saints.

There was a brief period in history during which Danubian Christianity began 
evolving to more closely resemble mainstream Christianity that existed 
throughout the rest of Europe at the time. During the 15th Century the religious 
transformation was particularly evident in the southern provinces of Lower 
Danubia, which had greater contact with the outside world than Danube City and 
the Rika Chorna Valley. The Pagan influence of Danube City was waning in the 
south, especially after the Bishop of Danubia moved from Danubikt Mostk to 
Sumy Ris in 1460. The main Seminary moved to Sumy Ris in 1471. Ultimately 
the southern bishops and the nobles hoped to make Sumy Ris the new religious 
and political capitol of the Danubian Kingdom, replace the Royal Family residing 
in Danubikt Mostk, and take over the entire country.

In 1496 the Bishop of Sumy Ris ordered the arrest of four Priests that had traveled 
from Danube City, tried them for heresy, and ordered them burned at the stake. 
Although the four Priests were the only people ever executed in the Danubian 
Kingdom for heresy, Danubian historians believe that was likely that the Bishop 
was planning more such trials and executions to consolidate his power. Letters 
written by several Priests from Sumy Ris and preserved in the National Archives 
indicated that the Bishop intended to completely replace the priesthood of Danube 
City, once enough new priests were trained in the recently founded Sumy Ris 
Seminary.

The Ottoman invasion of 1502 abruptly halted the transformation of the Danubian 
Church and the growing importance of Sumy Ris. The section of the Danubian 
Kingdom that was most influenced by the outside world also was the part that was 
overrun by Ottoman troops and had to be evacuated by the Crown. Because the 
invasion threatened to destroy his power, the Bishop of Sumy Ris vehemently 
objected to the King’s plan to abandon the southern provinces. Ignoring the 
Bishop and the southern region’s most important nobles, King Vladik proceeded 
with the evacuation, skirmishing with Turkish scouts and escorting long columns 
of panic-stricken peasants towards escape routes through the densely forested 
mountains. When the King disregarded the Bishop’s demand to halt the 
evacuation and confront the main Ottoman army, the Bishop excommunicated 
him and everyone else fleeing northward.

By the time King Vladik was excommunicated, Ottoman troops already had 
captured most of Lower Danubia and were rapidly closing in on Sumy Ris, which 
was the only southern city still under Danubian control. The King ordered the city 
to evacuate, but the Bishop and his supporters refused. King Vladik did not push 
the issue. If the Bishop and his followers wanted to commit suicide by trying to 
resist the Turks in an indefensible location, so be it. King Vladik pulled his own 
troops out of the city, departing with several hundred local women, children, and 
collared criminals. Those departing knew that everyone remaining in Sumy Ris 
would be dead within a few days. When the Ottomans took the city, they burned 
the Seminary, massacred everyone inside, and hung the Bishop and several nobles 
over the city gate. By pure good fortune the city’s historical church survived 
intact.

The excommunication of the King and the death of the Bishop of Sumy Ris 
abruptly cut the ties between the Danubian Church and the outside world. The 
priests that had been training to take over the Cathedral in Danube City died along 
with everyone else remaining in the southern capitol, and with them died the 
prospect that mainstream Christianity would be imposed in the northern part of 
the Danubian Kingdom. Not one member of Lower Danubia’s new religious 
hierarchy survived to challenge the more traditional Priests still working in 
Danube City. After the invasions of the early 1500’s ended, the Danubians, safely 
hidden behind their protective curtain of forests and mountains, would develop a 
religion in isolation that better suited their circumstances. 

Over the next five centuries the nation slowly reverted to its pre-Christian faith. 
Along with the slow abandonment of Christian theology and practices, the Clergy 
also abandoned items of worship used during the Middle Ages. The process was 
gradual and took place over several centuries. As the collection of statues of 
Saints in the Temple deteriorated they were not replaced, over time crucifixes 
became little more than objects of curiosity, and in 1638 the Clergy sold off the 
Cathedral’s gold to buy a printing press and two looms. Between 1780 and 1942 
the doctrine of the Danubian Church changed very little, but during that time the 
Clergy opened numerous schools to raise the literacy rate and religious composers 
produced most of the nation’s best-known classical and hymnal music. 

By 1970, young Priests wanted the Danubian Church to return to its ancient roots 
and lead a national revival of Danubian society. The Church needed to draw upon 
the rich past of the Danubian Kingdom to understand what the Creator wanted for 
the country’s future. In 1974 the Danubian Church’s new Supreme Council issued 
a major revision of the religion’s official doctrine, which included, among many 
other things, restoring the Temple of the Ancients as the country’s most important 
religious center and reviving the Pagan Festival of the Summer Solstice as an 
important religious holiday. The changes excited many young Danubians because 
the Church became much more nationalistic and more rooted in Danubian, as 
opposed to Christian traditions.

By end of the 20th Century Upper Danubia was less Christian than at any time 
since 850 AD, but remained quite religious. When Kimberly Lee traveled to 
Danube City the country's priests were openly embracing the nation's Pagan past 
and re-incorporating pre-Christian beliefs and customs into the national religion. 
However, in embracing older religious values Danubians became completely 
intolerant of any foreign religions being introduced in their territory. Shortly 
before Kim traveled to Upper Danubia with Tiffany and Susan, the Danubian 
Parliament passed legislation formally outlawing the practice of any religion not 
present in Upper Danubia before 1940. Essentially the law banned every religion 
other then the Danubian Church.

Prime Minister Vladim Dukov, as a Danubian nationalist, left the law in place 
during his government to “protect national institutions and values.” As a result 
five US missionaries who ignored the law were put on trial, collared, and received 
10-year sentences during the Dukov Administration. Two of the missionaries 
were included among Spokeswoman Lee-Dolkivna’s clients, while the other three 
were assigned to her colleague Tatiana and restricted to the Rika Chorna collar-
zone.

