Holy State Church

*Stadtverisch: Heiliger Staatskirche*

* *Sternenkaiser* and *High Consuasor* Leonel Kästner according to revitalized succession

### Tax status

Nullified; considered a part of the government of the Menschlicher Sternenstaat

### Other names

Veran Catholic Church

The **Holy State Church** (Stadtverisch: *Heiliger Staatskirche*), also known as the **Veran Catholic Church**, is the largest Christian church within the Nauticus Sector of the Gamma Quadrant and concurrently within the Menschlicher Sternenstaat with the position of Veran Catholicism as its state religion with around four hundred and eighty billion persons baptized into the faith as of 790 SA. Being founded by the last *Unvater* of the Veran Star Confederation and the first *Sternenkaiser*of the Sternenstaat*,* Leonel Kästner, the Holy State Church is fundamentally bonded with the operations and machinations of the Staat government. Formally headed by ruling *Sternenkaiser* through the position of *High Consuasor**,* most affairs of the church are *de-facto* managed by the church moderator, known as the Church Pontifex. Currently, Martinus I reigns as Church Pontifex as overseer of the Heiliger Pavillon der Dreifaltigkeit organization and from the location of the same name.

Most religious and structural doctrines of the Holy State Church carry over from elements found in the Roman Catholic Church, including the upholding of the Nicene Creed and the proclamation of the Four Marks of the Church. However, its existence is thanks to the finality of the Veran Schism that occurred upon the creation of the Menschlicher Sternenstaat and the Proclamation of the Modern Sedevacantism, denouncing the Earth-bound Roman Catholic Church for its many accumulated heresies and doctrinal mutations. Integrating itself with the machinery of the Staat's political system, the Holy State Church has been bestowed the responsibility of maintaining religious, moral, and cultural integrity within the nation, in addition to serving as a large fount for educational enterprises and volunteer opportunities through its many monastic orders and subordinated religious organizations.

In the modern day, the Holy State Church is seen by many foreign nations as being nothing more than a religiously themed extension of the bureaucracy of the Sternenstaat government, with its presence outside of the Staat's borders incarnating as a severe national security threat. However, to the Staat, the Church has shown its worth in generating a zealous pool of military and paramilitary recruits and in pacifying xenoi populations — with Banzars in particular being one of the most religiously affiliated alien races currently under the rule of the Sternenstaat through the subordinate Holy Church of the Banzar Congregation.

## Etymology

The term *"Holy State Church*" was first invoked by Kästner in a similar vein to that of the origin of the name of the Menschlicher Sternenstaat. However, the absorption of the early church into the political machinery of the state divorced many from officially labeling the church as being "Veran Catholic", as various other planets were also being absorbed with their own congregational microcosms.

*Work in progress.*