Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 193 Prohibition of Preaching
The expansion of the Blood Oath Order in Rostov was limited.

For unknown reasons, the Governor's Office suddenly issued a new decree, strictly restricting the missionary activities of state religion branches such as the Blood Oath Order.

The decree stipulates that they can no longer preach on the streets and can only carry out religious activities in existing religious places. Existing religious places such as altars must also be subject to review by the Governor's Office to ensure that they "have no heretical tendencies."

Not only that, even the Blood Oath Order's daily medical treatment of the lower-class civilians was classified as a religious activity and was banned.

This series of policies seriously affected the operation of the Blood Oath Order.

Although believers can still go to the altar for help and medical services, and can continue to donate blood, the sect's influence has been greatly reduced after losing the right to preach and preach in the streets.

They were unable to gain new believers through publicity, which was undoubtedly a huge blow to a sect that relied on the growth of believers.

The leaders of the Blood Oath Order felt angry and helpless about this.

They tried to put pressure on the Governor's Office through the top leaders of the state religion, but with little success.

The Governor's Office took an extremely tough stance, even sending combat nuns to inspect each altar and demanding detailed missionary records and medical data.

Any behavior that does not conform to the regulations will be regarded as "heretical tendencies" and will be severely punished.

Not only that, the state religion itself has an ambiguous attitude towards this matter. After all, the missionary work of the state religion has not been affected or restricted.

As long as it is the orthodox state religion, the Governor-General's Office does not impose any restrictions on its activities.

Naturally, the people of Rostov knew what to choose.

Although believers remained loyal, the loss of street evangelism led to a sharp drop in the number of new converts.

Many civilians who were originally interested would not become believers of the Blood Oath Order because they could not access the propaganda.

After all, the Blood Oath Order is just a branch sect of the state religion. Most of the people who put aside the orthodox faith of the state religion and come to the Blood Oath Order are lower-class civilians who need medical help.

These civilians did not know much. Under the preaching of the state religion, they only knew to believe in the Emperor. The Blood Oath Order was able to spread its faith by providing medical services to the lower-class civilians, thus winning the hearts of these civilians.

But once this kind of diagnosis and treatment is banned, and the connection between the order and civilians is severed, most civilians will only come to the order when they have medical needs and need to seek help from the order. After that, how many civilians will be willing to continue to believe in the Blood Oath Order?

This is just like the hospitals in the 3K era. If the doctors in the hospital organized medical teams to provide free medical treatment in the neighborhood every now and then, and all they asked was that you donate blood for free when you are healthy and say a few good words about the hospital, I believe most people would be willing to do so.

But under normal circumstances, the hospital is just there, and you only go to the hospital when you are sick.

Even if medical treatment in the hospital is free, it would be difficult for you to think highly of the hospital.

So naturally, under the restrictions of the ban, the influence of the Blood Oath Order gradually shrank, and even in some neighborhoods, the altar had become deserted.

Although this series of policies did not directly ban the Blood Oath Order, it actually severely restricted their operations.

However, facing the high-pressure policies of the Governor's Office, they were powerless and could only endure it silently. After all, the Blood Oath Order was still a branch of the State Religion, and they could not openly oppose the Planetary Governor who represented the authority of the Empire.
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Paul's work and life were also greatly affected during this period.

The Blood Oath Order was banned from preaching by the Governor's Office, and the altar where Paul worked was naturally affected.

The believers who used to come in an endless stream every day suddenly became sparse, and many people simply gave up coming to the altar to seek medical services.

After all, for most ordinary lower-class civilians, the medical services provided by the Blood Oath Order are certainly of great help to them, but they are far inferior to faith.

The lower-class civilians of the empire basically have nothing, and the only thing they have is their devout faith in the Emperor.

At a time when the Blood Oath Order was banned from preaching by the Governor's Office, these lower-class civilians would not remember the kindness of the Blood Oath Order when they provided them with free medical care. Instead, they instinctively wanted to distance themselves from the Blood Oath Order and emphasize that they were devout believers of the Emperor.

This is often the cause of some truly absurd situations: the poorer the place, the more devout its faith in the Emperor, and the more devout the believers, the more they will dedicate everything to the Empire, so the Governor-General will exploit them even more. A Governor-General who pays full tithes and maintains a devout faith is the Imperial model! A Model Governor-General!

Of course, Paul didn't know much about this and didn't really understand it.

He only knew that he had less work to do during this period, the altar was not as busy as before, and he had less to do.

This also gave him time to investigate and find out more information about the Blood Oath Order.

He began to use his free time to quietly observe the movements inside and outside the altar, and pay attention to the conversations between the believers and nuns who came for help.

Although he was still an ordinary laborer on the surface, secretly, he was diligently performing his duties as a spy for the Governor's Office.

Paul discovered that although the nuns of the Blood Oath Order were dissatisfied with the new policy of the Governor's Office, they did not openly resist, but continued to carry out religious activities as usual in permitted religious places such as altars.

Although this had little effect and not many believers participated, they still carried out the process as usual, as if they regarded it as a test from the God-Emperor.

The nuns still provide medical services to believers who come for help, but they no longer actively promote the doctrine as before, and the requirement for believers to donate blood has also been reduced a lot.

Paul also noticed that some nuns and priests were privately discussing how to deal with the scrutiny of the Governor's Office, and some suggested seeking help and support from the headquarters of the State Church in the star region.

But overall, there is no heresy, nor anything that is eye-catching or suspicious.

However, Paul still did not let his subjective thoughts affect his judgment. He simply recorded all the information truthfully and passed it to the Governor's Office.

This information was summarized on the desk of Chen Xi in the Governor's Office, but even he could not figure out what the problem was.

Everything seemed normal. Even when he used administrative orders to ban the Blood Oath Order from preaching in an attempt to alert them, nothing wrong could be found.

This made Chen Xi wonder if he had made a wrong judgment somewhere.

But whether it was Khadgar's psychic divination or his own intuitive judgment, they both felt that there was something wrong with the Blood Oath Order. This made Chen Xi decide to continue investigating. What if he really found something?

(End of this chapter)