Kiss of the Betrayer

The Kiss of the Betrayer was a Holy Church movement among followers of the Horde. The church was comprised entirely of the traditional races of the Horde, including faithful Forsaken, dissatisfied Blood Elves, and converts from among the Tauren, Orcs, and Trolls.

Beginnings
The Kiss of the Betrayer was founded by the Forsaken scoundrel known as Ishbaneer Schatten. He was a dissatisfied and restless man who had returned to his old faith from life, and wished to find any fellow Light followers that might have kept their faith through the tragedies of the last several years. When he found them, his next move was to unite them and provide a place of refuge and worship for others in a Horde where the Light was not cared about at best, or hated to the point of persecution at worst. Because he knew that Lady Sylvanas Windrunner would harshly crack down on any signs of organized Light worship, Ishbaneer chose a cover name and identity for the organization, naming it the Kiss of the Betrayer and disguising it as an assassin's guild of sorts. He told new recruits that the name reflected their paradox: they sought only to help and improve themselves and the world around them, but were called traitor by those they wanted to aid. Betraying with a kiss, he called it.

Growth
The Kiss grew quickly. Many followers came to answer Ishbaneer's call, and he soon had a retinue of followers. Light followers and new converts from the True Horde races joined, eventually forming the underground church that existed for some time. The church once had revolution on their minds, but a favor from the Dark Lady's couriers resulted in the Kiss receiving freedom to worship in Lordaeron, so long as it was done in the privacy of home, and that there was no proseltyzing. They quickly abandoned the cover identity and began to openly serve the Light, spreading its word and love to the Horde, fighting the forces of evil where they can, and defending those in need. Ishbaneer lead as an unofficial pastor, relying heavily on the tight-knit family-like atmosphere in the church to make up for the lack of structure and organization seen in the Holy Church that they emulated.

Relationship with the Church of the Holy Light
After having saved now then-Bishop Mellar from the grasp of a cult, the Kiss enjoyed total spiritual communion with the Church of the Alliance. The Kiss attended liturgies that were held in the north. They received from the Bishop the Codex of Scripture, translated it into the vernacular Orcish, and began to celebrate their own liturgies amongst themselves, blessed and ordained holistically by Alliance church officials at the time.

Decline
Though the reason for the movement's decline is quite ambiguous, it began to fade from municipal record in Undercity following the Battle of Undercity. Most assume that the church began to become too public and that a group of Lightslayers from the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow destroyed their sacred texts and killed the clerics and parishioners. Others still maintain that the decimated church exists, tucked away in hiding after a great deal of persecution.

Legacy
Though the movement is no longer active, the church of the Horde left huge impressions. The idea of a church among the Horde existing in communion with the Church of the Holy Light remains something that will continue to be grasped at. Still, other clerics among the Alliance see the destruction of the autocephalous group as an indication that the political climate in Undercity is so saturated by the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow that it is completely obstructive to authentic Light worship. This faction argues that the time for a magnanimous response from the church is over and that a movement to undermine the Forsaken authorities of Lordaeron is not only a patriotic matter, but one for the preservation of right religion.

There are other movements of the Light in the Horde, though none seem to successfully relate their movements to the orthodox church. Among these movements are the recent foundation of the anti-church of the Horde, comprising by law Quel'thalas and All-Lordaeron. Though the Church has declined to release any public notice of assent or dissent, it is clear that the antipapa of the Undercity Nexus does not accept the Kiss of the Betrayer as a valid precedent for Light worship amongst the Horde.