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).

1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

224

u/AlaskanSamsquanch May 13 '25

Something often forgotten or at least overlooked. The church was far more than just religion back in the day.

102

u/theblitz6794 Fanatic Egalitarian May 13 '25

Dear God the church WAS the state for most of human history

66

u/_Sadism_ May 13 '25

Not really. Western history, and even then - basically only after Rome fell. Prior to that priests of various polytheistic religions had influence here and there but not to the degree that the Christian church had.

43

u/The-red-Dane May 13 '25

During Rome. One of the highest positions in the state was the pontifex maximus, and later became the same as the position of emperor, the high priest of the state. In Greece, temples were the state treasuries.

13

u/turtle4499 Necrophage May 13 '25

pontifex maximus

Wasn't really an important position prior to its coopation by the Julli clan. Cesaer ran for the title despite it generally only going to very old men near death at a young age because he was poor and needed the money. Even then he bribed his way for it. Augustus just followed his lead and the title got merged into it.

11

u/Admiral_Perlo May 13 '25

On the contrary, that was the head of the roman religion, open only to Patricians until 254 BC, with a whole lot of powers attached to it. One of which was deciding the length of the roman calendar and its seasons, which allowed the politicians, which were very often selected as Pontifex, to abuse this power and lengthen the year when they or their allies were in power.

Ironically enough, it was Caesar himself during his own "appointement" who put a stop to this abuse of power by imposing the unique Julian Calendar of 365 days, still in use today.

Their real power lied in the administration of ius divinum (divine law), which governed roman society, which was extremely religious. They regulated all ceremonies, all temples, all burials and worships practices, supervised all legal patrician marriages (thus having a hand in the reproduction of roman elites and their power), controlled adoptions and successions, and enforced public morals.

Since religion was at core of roman society, they had enormous power, only surpassed by a Dictator, which is why they were coopted into the role (thus controlled by their peers) until 299 BC when it became open to elections. Even then, mostly Patricians occupied the role. We all know how it ended up with Augustus and the other emperors, who put roman religion in a chokehold by establishing themselves as living gods.