Chapter 896, Conflict between state religion
The Saints Chapter is one of the nine founding chapters of the Empire.
This regiment is always closely related to religion. Currently, the most widely circulated text in the Empire, the Words of the Emperor, which is regarded as the Bible by the state religion, was recorded, created, and interpreted by the Gene Father and Son of God of the Saints.
Ten thousand years ago, after the Emperor ascended to heaven, the Saints were loyalists in the civil war that determined the future of the Empire. They have always claimed to be the most staunch believers in the Emperor's will. They worship the Emperor as a god, follow the will of God, and firmly believe that the Empire should be ruled by mortals themselves.
After the civil war, the Legion of Saints also accepted the "Space Marine Codex" written by the Son of God Robert and split up.
After the split, their scale is not as large as the Infinite Legion, but it is also the second largest legion in the empire in terms of the number of sub-legions.
In addition to them, there is also the Punisher Corps, and the number of sub-corps they have split out is almost the same as that of the Saints. The Golden Knights are fourth. The number of sub-corps of these four combined accounts for almost 70% of the entire empire's warbands. The remaining five regiments, combined, account for less than 30%.
The saints, including the sub-groups of saints, have several notable characteristics.
They are fanatical religious elements, and their relationship with the state religion is very close. Very few Space Marines are canonized as "living saints" by the state religion, but almost 80% of the Chapter Masters of the Saints are. The remaining 20% have a bad or even terrible relationship with the state religion. But despite this, they will be canonized posthumously.
The Saints and their successors will always fight for the interests of the State Church; conversely, the State Church will always provide support to the Saints and their successors.
Among all the chapters, the Saints Chapter has the most friendly relations with mortals.
However, their friendship is conditional.
This chapter is very persistent in preaching. It is said that during the Great Crusade era when the Empire was founded, the Saints Chapter was too obsessed with preaching, which led to the expedition progress not meeting expectations, and was reprimanded by the Emperor. After that, they learned from their shame and became braver, realizing that fighting for God was the best way to spread faith, and then they began to strive forward.
Therefore, when facing mortals, it depends on whether the other party is a believer. If they are believers of the state religion and believe in the Emperor, then the saints will be more friendly, and the more pious they are, the friendlier they will be.
But if they are not believers, then the Saints are not just indifferent. They believe that all humans in the empire should be believers of the God-Emperor, and those who do not believe in the God-Emperor are considered heretics.
However, different groups of saints have slightly different attitudes towards this aspect.
Taking the Saints as the base line, they are neutral: they have requirements for the state religion, but they don't care which specific sect they believe in, as long as they don't tamper with, distort, or even abandon the heresy of the Word of the Emperor; if they are latent believers, they don't care, at most they will be indifferent; for the Mechanicus, they show respect, anyway, the God of All Machines you believe in is also the Emperor, so it's not a big problem. For non-believers, they will be persuaded and preached, and if they really don't listen, they will be stubborn enemies and be physically eliminated.
Well... this is the middle level. But fortunately, within the empire, there are very few people who do not believe in the state religion or the God-Emperor. After all, they are indifferent to shallow believers at best. If you really encounter one... just pretend a little, most saints are too lazy to argue with mortals. If they insist on pretending and stubbornly stick their necks out, then just treat them as if they don't want to live.
Based on their standards, some sub-groups are more "enlightened" than the Saints. They have very little contact with the state religion and are more like an ordinary war group, that is, they are particularly pious and like to preach, but they are not crazy and do not interfere with the outside world. The main thing is to be pious.
There are also more crazy ones who pursue missionary work or eliminate heretics every day, and have done many things in the empire that are hated by God and man.
There are various other additional categories, such as those who have a particularly good relationship with the state religion and can almost be regarded as running dogs of the state religion.
There are quite a few sub-groups of saints, and naturally there are all kinds of them.
Regardless of their type, they all have one characteristic in common: religious belief.
Others, whether they are possessed by demons, practicing hard on their own, or have a close relationship with the state religion, are all concrete manifestations based on religion.
This is difficult to avoid even when the Alliance uses the gene seeds of the saints to expand into a new regiment.
It seems that this is something that is imprinted in their genes.
This is the biggest difficulty for the Saints to integrate into the alliance.
Gu Hang originally thought that after signing a series of cooperation agreements, the Saints were already in his pocket.
But in fact, the Saint does not appear in the Chapter interface.
Obviously, simply signing an agreement that the Saints Corps would obey the Alliance's military command was not enough for the system to recognize it.
The independence of the Saints is still very high.
Politically, they have a cooperative relationship with the alliance;
In terms of economy and self-development, they are still the masters of the Mercifat Starfield. They are different from those miserable warbands that were recaptured by the Alliance. The Mercifat Starfield was quickly recaptured by the Saints after the Cataclysm and can still provide stable resources to the warband. Whether they need to replenish soldiers or obtain equipment, they can get it locally, so their demand for the Alliance is not that high.
Their current cooperation with the Alliance is essentially based on interests. Whether it is the interests of the Chapter itself, or the interests of the Empire and the human race as a whole, working closely with the Alliance and joining their expedition is the most valuable thing.
But this does not mean that they become part of the alliance.
This can also be seen from the system. They did not appear in the battle group interface, but instead appeared in the alliance's ally list.
Gu Hang was quite patient about this.
He doesn't have to get the saints now or immediately.
But he has a series of plans and he just needs to move forward slowly.
The core starting point is the religion where the two sides have the biggest difference in values.
There are also people who believe in the state religion in the alliance, but it is suppressed more severely.
Or, rather than using the word "suppression", it would be better to use the word "transformation".
This system is called "Protestantism" within the alliance.
The "Word of the Emperor" is still followed, but the main emphasis is on the many positive moral qualities of guiding people to do good, calling for unity, and dedication. It weakens some of the ritualistic and extreme parts of religion. It disintegrates the organization of religious groups, controls religion only within the scope of religion, thought, and community services, and weakens its influence on society.
Are these heretics?
But it is not heretical, and even follows the originalism of the Holy Scriptures, excluding various other religious scriptures and interpretations of the Holy Scriptures written by many so-called saints or theologians.
The core conflict between the many factions of the state religion is the right to interpret the scriptures. Mastering the right to interpret the scriptures means further mastering influence, thereby gaining greater divine power and then secular power.
What the Alliance did was to cut off the right to interpret the scriptures. The right to interpret the scriptures only belongs to the official Alliance and the Protestant Church. The official Alliance and the Protestant Church only recognize the "Word of the Emperor".
To be honest, the state religion forces are generally dissatisfied with this - this is a threat to their political lives!
However, it is difficult to say publicly.
What political life do religious groups need?
This is a lesson left over from the days of apostasy, and the imperial law has direct provisions for this. Many of the current state religion's actions, strictly speaking, are skirting the line.
This reason cannot be used to publicly say that the only way to find fault with Protestantism is to say that Protestantism is heresy. In essence, it is still a return to the struggle for the right to interpret the Bible, and then to the struggle for influence, divine authority, and secular power.
This is also the style of play that the national religion is best at.
But in the alliance's controlled area, this strategy is ineffective.
It is difficult to fight against the Protestant interpretation rights, so they insist on the Holy Scriptures, and there are a large number of Protestant pastors and priests trained from the Alliance's seminary to help refute it. The Alliance's seminary was also exchanged by Gu Hang with his gift points. It is quite similar to Zhongsi College in nature, and the level of the pastors trained there is not bad.
What's more, Gu Hang has earned a lot of grace points to enlighten and upgrade religious talents.
If you can't even gain a big advantage in debate, forget about competing in other areas.
The official laws of the alliance favored Protestantism; the alliance's military force was sufficient to suppress riots; the alliance's administrative means strengthened control over the grassroots, making it easier for Protestant missionaries to spread the gospel but less convenient for traditional state religions.
As a result, religious issues within the alliance are controllable.
And this set of things, under Gu Hang's instructions, was soon applied to the Mersifat star field.
After the war in the Seven Star Corridor was generally stabilized, the Western Expeditionary Force assembled three advance fleets and entered Mersiphat.
Under the framework of the agreement signed with the Saints, the Alliance quickly took control of a large degree of administrative power in the Mercifat star field.
Soon after, when the Alliance's army, together with the Saints' Regiments, many Saints' Sub-Groups, and the Crusades, began their journey outside the Mercifat Star Region, the Alliance also began its economic, political, and religious construction of the Mercifat Star Region.
There is no problem with economic development. It is going smoothly.
As for investment, we welcome it.
But the economic system of the alliance is different from the original one of Mercifat.
The style of the Saints shows what the situation is like in the Mercifat Star Region - the hundreds of worlds here are, in a sense, religious worlds. Their characteristics are the unity of politics and religion, and theocracy guiding the government.
And these have to be changed.
In order to adapt to economic investment, political construction must naturally keep up.
At this point, many contradictions have already emerged.
But in fact, it is still acceptable, at least when both parties are still in the honeymoon period, it is easier to coordinate.
But when the Protestant Alliance began to join in through economic and political reforms, the contradictions began to become acute.
Raymond Weiss, who was fighting on the front lines, heard many of the conflicts.
To be honest, he had mixed feelings when he received the news.
On the one hand, he didn't want to disrupt the cooperation between the Saints and the league.
After he left his hometown, he realized that the entire empire was in danger. His previous disappointment with Holy Terra was completely correct. Through this, he also realized more deeply that he must follow the footsteps of the alliance and follow the instructions of High Lord Gu Hang, which is the right way to save the empire.
But at the same time, what the Alliance Protestant Church did in Merseyfat did make him feel uncomfortable.
With his conflicted mentality, all he could do was to continue to act as a paperhanger and try hard to coordinate the relationship between the two sides - the main method was to appease the people on his side.
The political lives of the bishops and priests who rule over the many worlds in the Mesiphat star field are slowly dying.
Unable to get support from Raymond Weiss, some people began to take risks.
A large-scale rebellion broke out in Mesiphat - of course, according to the rebels, they were waging a "holy war", expelling heretics and restoring the sanctity of the Mesiphat star region.
Of course, the rebellion was eventually suppressed.
But the impact of this incident is very far-reaching.
Among those who participated in the rebellion, many were Raymond Weiss's own people.
Many different voices began to emerge within the regiment.
Raymond Weiss finally couldn't continue working as a paperhanger.
The contradictions are already so obvious before us that it is impossible to continue to ignore them.
He must have a talk with Gu Hang.
And this conversation was exactly what Gu Hang was looking forward to.
From the emergence of religious conflicts, to their intensification, to rebellion, to Raymond Weiss's change in mentality, these are all what Gu Hang hoped to see.
How can we bring about real change without bringing these things to the surface?
(End of this chapter)
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