Cathedralism
Cathedralism (High Secote: ⰔⰕⰑⰎⰟⰘⰋⰕⰟ, Stolŭxitŭ), in Vaestdom, refers to the principle that the Sacred Prophecy (often referred to as 'the Throne That Ends'), i.e. the Universal Prophet of Vaestism, ultimately exercises full sovereign power over all Vesnites. By extension it is used to refer to various political positions marked by their ideal of a universal empire or a more closely politically united Vaestdom, or else by their emphasis on the overriding political and hieratic authority of the Prophetic office.
Background
Prophetic hierarchy
Cathedralism in its symbolic form is deeply rooted in Vaestism's orthodox self-understanding. Although the vast majority of Vesnites are members of one or another Banner, the Standard-Bearers of these Banners are subordinate in turn to the Universal Prophet, meaning that a (sometimes complex) hierarchy of obeisance connects whoever sits in the Prophetic seat with every single individual believer via a series of 'mediants' (the so-called right of First Prostration). The Prysostaia, the Prophet's seat, enjoys the special status of 'reserved' land, meaning it stands above and beyond the territory of the various Empires. Likewise, the only institutions capable of legally exerting interordinate authority per se are those under the Prophet's formal control, be it the Consortium of Measures or the Panarchate. Particularly activist Prophets have made energetic interventions throughout Vaestdom, sometimes of a kind that Messenian religious figures could only dream of: Tarmo (r. 1872-1890) imposed the Vaestic Day and meridian on the entire continent in 1887, while Yorsephor (r. 1897-1906) seized notional control of the entire network of Vaestic missionary activity worldwide with the stroke of a pen. The canonical self-description of the political order of Vaestdom casts the Prophet as a more or less omnipotent figure who has the states of Vaestdom at his beck and call.
Prophetic office
The apparently limitless power of the Prophet, however, has never been all it seems – its attractiveness to certain orientalist scholars notwithstanding. For one thing, in the post-Neritsovid period it was only really in the latter half of the 19th century, under the Tharamannic system, that Prophetic activism became common. Moreover, even such activist Prophets as Tarmo and Yorsephor preferred working by consensus when possible, and the majority of Prophetic interventions were always largely hierological or technical rather than political. Even at the height of the Tharamannic system, many of the specifically articulated powers of the Prophet listed uncontroversially in textbooks, such as the right to make Scholarly appointments, were always officially 'devolved' to Mediant bodies. And while some Prysostaic institutions are indeed a closely integrated part of the School's bureaucracy, most of these postdate the Desecration of the Prophecy, and 'Prysostaic' status is in any case often a convenient legal fiction allowing entities to act outside the exclusive jurisdiction of one or another state (for example the Hand Banks or the demediatisation of the Seranian colonies). And ultimately the Standard-Bearers' powers of election allowed the more or less indefinite lapse of the office in the 20th century, the so-called Desecration of the Prophecy.
Development
Universal state
Nonetheless, the formal and ideological position of the Prophet at the head of the Vaestic order has meant that the office has regularly been the focus of those who advocate greater political unity of Vaestdom. 'Cathedralist' feeling in this sense has a long pedigree. The Marshalate state claimed jurisdiction over all Vesnites, and the conquests of Great Neritsia were justified on the same grounds, drawing on well-established Chotarian traditions deeply rooted in Outer Joriscian thought. Although the de facto political unity of Vaestdom was shattered by the Great Imperial Restoration (1701), the doctrinal importance of universalism was such that almost eight decades later in 1778 the establishment of a second imperial title by the Neo-Chotarianists nearly caused a schism, despite the prophetic and imperial offices having been separated definitively by the Majestic Peace of 1754.
Although the idea of separate emperors and separate political orders was normalised by the work of the Lacrean Neocratist Prophets Yambor Molodai (r. 1783-1797) and his successor Hanzar (r. 1797-1816), subsequent Universal Prophets made a concerted effort to strengthen the office vis-à-vis the Standard-Bearers by riding a rising wave of popular universalist feeling among many of the Scholarchates of the continent. This trajectory culminated in the proactive prophecy of Mezveim, whose successor Kavylat would eventually be pressured to issue the Grand Debates Utterance to secure the empires' control over prophetic candidacy. But soon there was a revolutionary attempt by Cathedralist scholars to restore political unity by force of arms, the Great Peninsular War (1839-1845). And although this attempt failed, it allowed Zohyr I to reap the fruit of his predecessors' efforts: at the Treaty of Tharamann that ended the war much of the defunct machinery of Neritsovid government was reconstituted within the Prysostaia, putting the Prophet at the moral heart of the interordinate system.
Game for the throne
The breakdown of the Tharamannic system in the last two decades of the century only reinforced this trend, as the Prophetic office was increasingly invested with popular hopes and dreams of a less fractious and more prosperous Vaestdom. The burden of these hopes and dreams, however, was ultimately too much for the Prophecy to bear. The last three Prophets oversaw a precipitous decline in the popular prestige of the office. Tarmo proved politically ineffectual, Yorsephor was polarising and contemptuous towards the Standard-Bearers, and Zohyr II (r. 1912-1926) became embroiled in the very court politics he was supposed to stand above without even achieving anything of substance. Moreover, the bitter events of the Thrall made those who were too insistent on the need for a single ruler of Vaestdom the objects of some suspicion.
Although the political settlement of the post-Long War Terophatic Ascendancy was broadly Cathedralist in the sense that it expanded and strengthened the central institutions of Vaestdom at the expense of the Standard-Bearers, it was a Cathedralism without a Universal Prophet – the ambitions of Terophite hardliners like Kvezous Nredasi and Hishora shelNzous for Vsevolod I notwithstanding – centred on the newly created institution of the Panarchate. Although lip service was paid to the notion of electing a new Prophet, no Debates were convened, and in the post-war political climate there seemed to be little appetite for more serious efforts in this direction. And while in some ways Vaestdom was more closely politically integrated than at any time in the past, it seemed clear that it was now to be a voluntary union in which power was exercised collectively by the Standard-Bearers rather than one in which the Prophet speaks and the Standard-Bearers obey.
Contemporary developments
By the 1980s, however, the generation for whom the embarrassments of Zohyr II's reign were a living memory had largely passed away, and the Constellation Crisis had led to the collapse of the Terophatic Ascendancy. The general reinvigoration of Vaestic intellectual life that followed gave rise to a renewed interest in electing a Prophet after what had by that time been the longest interval in history, and in 1984 and 1986 Interrex Patamsis Marazas oversaw Debates at the Prysostaia. Although in the event no Prophet was elected, these developments did galvanise feeling on the empty Prophetic Seat, leading the growing Sage Precepts movement to take on a more militant intellectual form in the 1990s. While the Sage Precepts is a loose grouping and not all those associated with it pin their hopes on an interventionist or 'unifying' Prophet (or indeed have much to say about the Prophet's political role in general), there is is a strong Cathedralist strand running through its thought, and in its academic form the mere election of a Prophet is, at minimum, one of its central demands. The most recent attempts to elect a Prophet include the Congress of Kozrat in 2018 and the Congress of Shalovar in 2022.