Bishop Latakon

Patriarch Latakon was the Patriarch of Highveldt during the mid-400s A.U. He was the architect of the Soft-Schism of the Kirvan Church and the chief theological and diplomatic advisor of Theoboda the Prophet. In later life, he formed part of the Triumvirate headed by Empress Irboba I, acting as the Empress's "left hand" in continuous rivalry for the Empress's favor with the more flamboyant Patriarch Mataxes.
== History ==
Latakon was a protegee of Patriarch Jan the Baptist and a bishop of the Church of Kirva. In , he was elected as the Patriarch of Highveldt after the former Patriarch Ibektos's resignation and exile. Following the death of Patriarch Jan, Patriarch Latakon was instrumental in smoothing the accession of Empress Theoboda to the Patriarchate of Bishant. Latakon was named Minister of Foreign Affairs and became Theoboda's point-man for relations with the international Kirvan leadership.
With Theoboda otherwise concerned by the demands of being a living self-fulling prophecy, the affairs of government fell increasingly to her inner circle: the Crown Princess Irboda, Patriarch Latakon of Highveldt, and Patriarch Mataxes of Korinth.[1] Both Patriarchs owed their stations to the violent usurpation of their predecessors, and directed by Irboda, they worked to shore up the legitimacy of the new Shantine political order and redefined the Shantine Church in Theoboda’s image. This “Triumvirate” oversaw the formalization of the cult of personality surrounding Theoboda, producing a theological doctrine to legitimize Leandra as a central figure of Shantine Kirvanism. The Triumvirate also developed a formal educational system, drawing on the centralization of the Church to create and impose a universal curriculum that swept away the many regional variations delivered by local clergy and nobility. As part of the integration of the Church into the State, members of the nobility were required to formally take clerical vows and to abide by canon law. These measures effectively brought the nobility under church authority and ensured that the Empress could rule with absolute power (and thus the Triumvirate, on her behalf). All Shantine subjects were residents of the crownlands, churchlands governed by central decree of the Council of Patriarchs (which deferred to the Patriarchate of Bishant), noble demesnes answerable directly to the church, or colonial grants managed by the Bishant Trade Company under directors serving at the pleasure of the crown: the Triumvirate (with Irboda soon claiming the title of Patriarch of Ahlam and placing her young daughter Leandra in the Patriarchate of Brumaire) coordinated law across these once disparate and specialized categories. In effect, the unifying decrees of the Council of Patriarchs became the unchecked law of the land.
----[1] Saint Kane having martyred himself to destroy the Alusian Imperial Palace during the Crusade and the military reformer Lord Ontario having met an untimely death at the hands of Alusian nationalist, shortly after the Tripartite Peace.
Category:Non-Player Characters