Alonsus Secundus

 

Alonsus II (Common: Alonsus Secundus; born Johannes Waldebert Moorwhelp) is the Archbishop of the Church of the Holy Light as elected by the Council of Bishops on May 10 2803 A.D., in which capacity he is Bishop of Stormwind and Sovereign Ordinary of the College of Canons. Alonsus is regarded as an accomplished missionary, philosopher, and commander.

This page is a work in progress and will be worked on in no particular order.

Priesthood
Following his extended stay in Northrend, then Priest Johannes returned to Northshire Abbey in hopes of returning to his practice of the priesthood and duties as Caretaker under the direction of the Order of Northshire, a reclusive group of clerics who kept the esoteric traditions of the Clerics of Northshire safeguarded from change in the wider Church of the Holy Light.

Under Benedictus
Johannes was a most unlikely candidate for success. Of venerable age, balding, and frail, he had no craving for the episcopal office. He often complained in the early months of his episcopacy that he was "so stricken by sorrow that he could scarcely speak."

Though Johannes regarded his episcopacy as a punishment, he immediately threw himself into the struggle for order in the midst of disunity. He began his administration of the troubled Diocese of Stormwind with an act of penance on behalf of his predecessor for his heresy: a pilgrimage to the Tomb of Uther the Lightbringer, in which he was joined by many of the clerics of the Kingdom of Stormwind. To no apparent, immediate avail, the move left Stormwind free to fester in heresy and schism while Johannes made his pilgrim way through the deconstructed Lordaeron. But the priesthood would be unified by this penitential act in a way that he did not predict.

In his writings to the scattered of Stormwind, he urged that "spiritual mothers and fathers could not be so absorbed in external cares as to forget the inner life of the soul, nor neglect external things in the care for one's inner life. One who is compelled by necessity of his position to speak of the highest things must also exemplify the highest things."

The words were autobiographical. Nothing seemed too great, nothing too little for his personal care. His labors are more astonishing when one considers that he was in poor health and often confined to bed. "For a long time," he wrote to an unnamed friend, "I have been unable to rise from my bed. I am tormented by the pains of illness: a kind of tongue-like flame that seems to pervade my whole body as the plague: to live is pain. I am daily dying, but never die."

During Johannes's time as Bishop of Stormwind, the Diocese of Stormwind held an extensive patrimony following the Archiepiscopal Hegemony. Unglamorous, though extensive and productive, the holdings rested on the mainland around Stormwind City. These lands cumulatively made the Church of the Holy Light one of the wealthier land owners in the Eastern Kingdoms. Quite naturally, then, during the Elemental Invasion and other national emergencies, officials of the patrimony stepped in to collect land taxes and feed the population. The head of this tax and welfare system was Johannes.

And there he was in the threadbare robes of a humble brother, sending the priests to work the fields and eating alongside the pauper. "Priests, the bridge-keepers of the divine and the mortal, must mingle compassionate with the necessities of the lowly. The more kindly compassion descends to the lowest, the more vigorously it recurs to the highest," he penned in an urgent letter to the priests.To eschew the traditional robes of his office was to eschew pride, Johannes thought.

Johannes, however, was provoked and irritated by the pretention of his numerous high-born rivals. He strained every nerve to stomp on the fingers of any high-handed sinner that would attempt to bring profane motive to the Church of the Holy Light. His efforts were often waylayed by rivals of his that would not accept his censure. One notable instance would be referred to post-humously as the Bauvlet Crisis. Lord Terick Bauvlet, Stormwind marshal and Lord of the Black Morass, imprisoned and tortured many priests in the Stormwind Stockades after a long, failed struggle to force Johannes's hand in consecrating bishops that would openly preach total war with the New Horde.

Time in prison could not blunt Johannes's vengeance against all who would not repent of high-handed blasphemy. After a Silvermoon-orchestrated slaughter of pilgrims at the Tomb of Uther the Lightbringer, Johannes marshalled a crusade against the Blood Knights. He preached in the streets, "[S]o Our Lord Uther the Lightbringer did stay to die at the hands of his apprentice for love of his King, so too shall we go to die in defense of he that defended, overthrowing this evil and consuming ourselves in the bargain to do it."

Reception
After the abdication of Caspius, the Council of Bishops entered into the third conclave since the Third War. After the third vote and the third hour, Johannes Moorwhelp was elected unanimously and chose the name Alonsus Secundus in homage to the patron saint of Stormwind City, Alonsus Faol. His unprecedented, swift election was very well received by the wider public; however, a minority of the elite within the Church of the Holy Light are not pleased by Alonsus' election. Since Alonsus' election, he has dedicated himself to the revival of the Silver Hand, the reform of Council of Bishops legal code, and the unification of the Church of the Holy Light.

Congregation of the Silver Hand
In this capacity, Alonsus has sent Bishop Lilith Sahl to appraise the situation with the Congregation of the Silver Hand and its competence in current form to undergo restoration as a Congregation of the Council of Bishops. After hearing the Lady Melysa intended to defect from the Council of Bishops with her following despite Sahl's visitation, Alonsus made pilgrimage to Tyr's Hand in Lordaeron to meet with Melysa and avert another congregational schism. The aversion was successful, and the Congregation the Silver Hand is being rejuvenated.

Decrees
In his first decree, entitled Decreta: The Light has been pleased, Alonsus established a guard against forgery, exhorted believers to be faithful, and announced his intention to keep current advisors and work with them with very serious reform, especially to the Silver Hand and the Council of Bishops.

In his second decree, entitled Decreta: The Crowning Dawn, Alonsus heralded a new time for the Church of the Holy Light. Published on the night of 16 March, 2802 A.D., His Holiness urges all disaffected from the Church to turn their attention again to the Church in especial; lifts all previous out-standing excommunications; announces investigation of all loss of priestly faculty; clarifies the offices of the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Vicar, and Lord Chancellor; founds the Congregation of the Treasury, the Congregation of the Chancery, and the Congregation for Sacred Texts; and makes several minor changes in the leadership of Congregations.