Patriarch

From Scandia

In the Valanian Theocracy, the Patriarch was the head of government, and the constitutional head of the Valanian Church.

History

The office of Patriarch was set up by the Emperor Valen V in 135, as head of the Church. Although originally based in Valans, when the Empire collapsed the Patriarchy was moved to Thesia, where it continued to direct the Valanian Church. The Church had largely survived the Empire's fall, and many prelatures and bishoprics were scattered across Valanan.

This state of affairs continued until the Church Council of 792, and the Great Schism. The vast majority of Church representatives chose to follow the doctrine of Gaius Pontifex (see Catholicism), enough to make the doctrine official Church policy. Outraged by this, the Patriarch and many other Thesian representatives stormed out of the meeting, and subsequently set up the Orthodox Church of the Frescian Empire. To this day, the Orthodox Church continues the early Cruisian tradition of the Valanian Empire. Meanwhile, Gaius Pontifex swiftly proclaimed the Patriarch an exile from the Church and had himself installed as Patriarch of the Church. He set about trying to reunify Valanan and, after a long war against many of the petty states that controlled it, managed to conquer all of Valanan with the exception of the Kassatic Empire, which was so strong that Pontifex did not dare attack it.

Pontifex then ordered his new empire as a theocracy, largely based on the model of the old Valanian Empire.

The last ruling Patriarch was Decius Curtius, who was so unpopular that when rebels hanged him from the window of the Basilica, the watching troops merely cheered and joined in the rebellion. After a year, the position was reestablished as a purely religious one, and filled by Quintus Maxentius.