The Hierocracy
The Hierocracy is the era when the Vorin church grabs for power and tries to conquer the world some five centuries ago, its priests insisting the conquest serves everyone's good.
The ardent Kadash tells Adolin that the deeper fault of that age lies in hoarded knowledge. Priests keep doctrine to themselves, few believers may study theology, and people learn to follow the clergy rather than the Almighty or the Heralds. The priests also claim visions and prophecies, though the Heralds condemned such things, and after their fall the Sunmaker searches their letters and finds those prophecies invented to keep the people in line. Its downfall in the War of Loss splits Vorinism into the devotaries.
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