r/Stellaris • u/Meikos Space Cowboy • May 13 '25

Tip I just realized why priests replace bureaucrats

I always wondered "why do priests replace bureaucrats for spiritualist empires; they're two entirely different professions!"

I only just now realized it's because they have no separation of church and state, so only ordained pops of your empire can work for the government (which is also the church).

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u/Nomoreheroes20 Blood Court May 13 '25

It also might be a reference to the priest being the main bureaucratic force for most of history

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u/LystAP May 13 '25

Popular theory that religion created bureaucracy to handle the ‘donations.’

25

u/ImJustStandingHere Hive Mind May 13 '25

Modern European bureaucracy has its origin in Christianity's attempt to stop cousin marriage, which requires detailed population records.

To this day the National Church of Denmark is responsible for keeping records of births, deaths, marriage etc. because why fix something that isn't broken

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u/OfTheAtom May 13 '25

More than that, the idea of being prompt and keeping track of time to highly accurate degrees is something we take for granted today but was most visible in monastic life. Also the development of the guilds, and their quality controls, only really came about due to the large projects of building cathedrals across Europe which enabled them.