Editing Age of Apostasy (section)

==Wars of Faith==
Contrary to popular belief, the Age of Apostasy actually started much earlier than the Reign of Blood, and had its roots in M33 with the establishment of the '''Temple of the Saviour Emperor''', which was basically the Vatican 40k-style, and its position amongst the High Lords of Terra allowed it to actually impose taxes on the citizens of the Imperium.

There had been many separate cults of the Emperor, but the Temple either swallowed them all up or obliterated them, to the point that the only cult that challenged them was the '''Confederation of Light''', a more penitent cult that was all about "giving" in the name of the Emprah, rather than building up big cathedrals and palaces. Eventually there was a big war and the Confederation was removed as a major power player.

The Temple of the Saviour Emperor would only grow in strength as they accumulated wealth (via taxation that should rightly have gone into the government funding) and power since they had a religious army to back themselves up, eventually causing the Administratum to wane in power to almost pointlessness - which is funny because no government would ever let someone else take its power or its money. The moment they started taxing, any government would have shut them down (perhaps literally), with any complaint met with "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my soldiers killing you for sedition." This is especially funny when said government can easily argue that it was approved by the Emperor personally while he was still walking around whereas the religious organization merely claims that the Emperor approves of them despite forming long after he was put on the Golden Throne. Hell, the Administratum is even considered a kind of priesthood by the common folk, so technically the Administratum is the "true" Imperial Cult and could easily use that in its arguments to nip rebellion in the bud for when the Administratum sics the Hammer of the Emperor upon the morons trying to steal its money.

There was a period of clever politicking when the Administratum thought they were on the comeback, but then the Ecclesiarchy declared "Screw you guys" and moved the seat of their power to [[Ophelia VII]] in a very expensive undertaking where they built new palaces for themselves and left [[Terra]] to rot. The only reason this would have mattered is because of the taxation thing, otherwise it only would have cost the Ecclesiarchy its own money gained through optional donations (required donations being considered taxation if the money-sniffers have anything to say about it). 300 years later, the Ecclesiarchy figured enough time had passed that they were in no danger of being messed with and returned to Terra, raising taxes ''even further'' to fund the move.

Funnily enough, this particular clusterfuck was based on [[wikipedia:Avignon_Papacy|a real period in history]] where the Holy See was moved from Rome to Avignon and back again during the 1300s due to the French king's influence over the Catholic Church, which had the same general effect on Rome as it did on Terra due to how closely interwoven the Church was with Rome. However, unlike the real-life Church, the Ecclesiarchy grew loooong after the government it co-existed, meaning nothing like this was actually possible, especially letting them have a full-fledged army of their own. But, hey, you gotta suspend your disbelief in 40K. Sometimes so high that it requires blind faith.