History Main / HighPriest

** Weirdly, the consuls of UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic. Even though they were elected politicians--with one-year terms at that--consuls were ''ex officio'' augurs (interpreters of the activities of birds, a major form of divination in Rome) and had authority to set the dates of holidays. They frequently did this to their own political advantage. A fascinating--and darkly comic--example of these powers in practice came in 59 BCE when UsefulNotes/GaiusJuliusCaesar (the famous one) was consul with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. Bibulus--who disagreed with Caesar on practically every point and had nursed a personal grudge against him for at least five years by the time they became consuls[[note]]Caesar and Bibulus had served together as aediles in 65 BCE, and Caesar had consistently outshined Bibulus in the main function of the aedileship, organizing festivals and games. Bibulus particularly seems to have thought that Caesar got more credit than he deserved for games that both he and Bibulus had taken part in organizing thanks to Caesar's charisma and PR machine—apparently refusing to recognize that Caesar had fronted most of the money for the games through loans he had personally taken out. (If you’re wondering why anyone would loan Caesar money to organize games, (1) Caesar was one hell of a talker and (2) a successful games set Caesar up to be elected a praetor when he became eligible (at the elections in 64 BCE, for the term to start 1 January 63 BCE), which wasn’t especially remunerative in itself but did make him eligible to be appointed a propraetor afterwards, putting him in a position to seize large amounts of war booty in the likely event of war or rebellion in his province.[[/note]]--kept trying to use his authority as an augur and proclaimer of holidays to interfere with Caesar's populist political agenda. Caesar, however, had a trump card...

* [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Habaruku/Habalk]] in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' is the High Priest of the Church of Eva. [[spoiler: [[OffscreenTeleportation He also masquerades as the village priest in the tiny town of Gate.]]]]

** In ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'', the main antagonist is High Priest Dios. Although the previous examples of Discworld high priests aren't evil, according to Pyramids, high priests have a general tendency to be evil. "There is no such thing as a good GrandVizier. A predilection to cackle and plot must be part of the job spec. High Priests are much the same way. No sooner than they get the funny hat they start giving orders about feeding babies to the sacred crocodiles and throwing virgins into volcanoes."

* ''Literature/APracticalGuideToEvil'': After [[GodOfDarkness Sve Noc]] completes their apotheosis and becomes a true god, they create a leadership position in their previously leaderless faith, held by [[spoiler:Catherine herself]]. As "First Under the Night," she has immense authority over the drow and becomes the most powerful [[CastingAShadow Night-wielder]] of them all, but is also charged with turning the mass of warring gangs the drow have devolved into back into a functional nation, and keeping Sve Noc themselves from becoming DrunkWithPower. "First Under the Night" doesn't just mean first in the heirarchy; [[spoiler:Catherine]]'s god expects her to be out in front, finding the stumbling blocks of their new way of life.

* ''Literature/APracticalGuideToEvil'': After [[GodOfDarkness Sve Noc]] completes their apotheosis and becomes a true god, they create a leadership position in their previously leaderless faith: [[spoiler:Catherine herself]]. As "First Under the Night," she has immense authority over the drow and becomes the most powerful [[CastingAShadow Night-wielder]] of them all, but is also charged with turning the mass of warring gangs the drow have devolved into back into a functional nation, and keeping Sve Noc themselves from becoming DrunkWithPower. "First Under the Night" doesn't just mean first in the heirarchy; [[spoiler:Catherine]]'s god expects her to be out in front, finding the stumbling blocks of their new way of life.

* ''Series/Foundation2021'': Luminism, one of the largest religions in the Galactic Empire, is led by a figure called the Proxima. A major subplot in the back half of Season 1 is [[TheEmperor Brother Day]] trying to influence the election of a new Proxima, as one of the leading candidates holds a firm [[FantasticRacism anti-cloning]] interpretation of the faith's teachings, which would undermine the genetic dynasty's rule.

** Weirdly, the consuls of UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic. Even though they were elected politicians--with one-year terms at that--consuls were ''ex officio'' augurs (interpreters of the activities of birds, a major form of divination in Rome) and had authority to set the dates of holidays. They frequently did this to their own political advantage. A fascinating--and darkly comic--example of these powers in practice came in 59 BCE when UsefulNotes/GaiusJuliusCaesar (the famous one) was consul with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. Bibulus--who disagreed with Caesar on practically every point and had nursed a personal grudge against him for at least five years by the time they became consuls[[note]]Caesar and Bibulus had served together as aediles in 64 BCE, and Caesar had consistently outshined Bibulus in the main function of the aedileship, organizing festivals and games. Bibulus particularly seems to have thought that Caesar got more credit than he deserved for games that both he and Bibulus had taken part in organizing thanks to Caesar's charisma and PR machine—apparently refusing to recognize that Caesar had fronted most of the money for the games through loans he had personally taken out. (If you’re wondering why anyone would loan Caesar money to organize games, (1) Caesar was one hell of a talker and (2) a successful games set Caesar up to be elected a praetor, which wasn’t especially remunerative in itself but did make him eligible to be appointed a propraetor afterwards, putting him in a position to seize large amounts of war booty in the likely event of war or rebellion in his province.[[/note]]--kept trying to use his authority as an augur and proclaimer of holidays to interfere with Caesar's populist political agenda. Caesar, however, had a trump card...

* Christianity in ''Literature/TheTraitorSonCycle'' has two high priests - the Patriarch of Rhum and the Patriarch of Liviapolis, with most of the world subscribing to one or another's variety of faith. They are, respectively, a villain and an ally of the heroes.
* ''Literature/TheToughGuideToFantasyland'': Jones describes and [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the two types of high priests you are likely to meet in a typical cliched fantasy story. High ''priests'', whether fat and ugly or thin and unpleasant, will always be evil and corrupt. High ''priestesses'', who will always be either stern, serious and thin or good-looking and cheerfully helpful, will always be good.
* In the ''Literature/KaneSeries'' novel ''Bloodstone'' there is Gerwein, high priestess of the female-only Temple of the moon goddess Shenan. Barely thirty and very beautiful, she's also haughty, cold, and a very talented politician. And she has access to a great library, not to mention some powerful artifact. Oh, and the Temple brings up orphans to become virgin sacrifices, just in case (even though human sacrifice is officially forbidden).

A character (or several) that leads the religious group that this character would belong to. These characters can be either [[GoodShepherd good]] or [[SinisterMinister evil]], depending on whether the religion in question is a SaintlyChurch or ReligionOfEvil, respectively. It can be a bit more iffy in a CorruptChurch, since the character may be a CluelessBoss who does not know of its corruption, or may be working to root it out. The High Priest usually resides in a Vatican-style HolyCity, especially if the church worships an [[CrystalDragonJesus Abrahamic-analogue God]].

* ''FanFic/QueenOfShadows'': Sanshobo, as General of the [[ChurchMilitant Kamikiri tribe]], is this for the Shadowkhan and their worship of the Queen as a divine [[GodEmperor Goddess-Empress]]. He's TheFundamentalist, but played mostly for laughs.

* ''Fanfic/TheMLPLoops'': Played for laughs. Chrysalis (HiveQueen of a species of {{Emotion Eater}}s) politely asks her friend Cadance (local LoveGoddess) if she can start a religion for her and be the high priestess. After all, changelings need love to survive and Cadance is all about love. Cadance is a little weirded out, but agrees, and everything seems to go smoothly. In later loops Chrysalis occasionally [[OhMyGods swears by Cadance's name]].

* ''Fanfic/{{Maat}}'': Seen in Chapter 2, Ma'at has one, and is called Nebka. She's helps guide Dani as she's TrappedInThePast.

* ''Film/TheBeastmaster'': Maax was high priest of Aruk, but began leading their religion into human sacrifices. The king was outraged, and banished him for it, but he later returned with allies to seize power.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado'': Tzekel-Kan, part of the BigBadEnsemble. He's an AxCrazy {{Sadist}} who's overly eager to carry out HumanSacrifice in the gods' names, and is constantly butting heads with Chief Tannabok over their differing opinions on how to please the gods. Luckily for Tannabok, the protagonists pretending to be gods take his side over Tzekel-Kan.

** The horribly beweaponed [[ChurchMilitant Divine Legions]] also mutated after the Brutha reforms, to a residual organisation devoted to spreading the Word through formation brass bands and community hymn singing, armed with weapons no more formidable than tambourines and aggressively shaken collection boxes.

* In ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' [[SmugSnake Lord Prelan Tevidian]] is High Priest of the CorruptChurch, one of the chief lieutenants of [[GodEmperor the Lord Ruler]] and [[spoiler: the father of heroine Vin]]. There is a faction in his church, led by [[WasOnceAMan the Steel Inquisitors]], that want to get rid of him and put the head Inquisitor, Kar, in his place [[spoiler: and they succeed, offing Tevidian brutally before he has a chance to really do anything on-page, though Kar himself is then killed before he can enjoy his new position]].

* In the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, Karse is always ruled by the High Priest and Son of the Sun, the most recent being Solaris, the first female to ascend the position after the god Vkandis decided to do a little rearranging of the heirarchy with a BoltOfDivineRetribution.

* In the ''Literature/KaneSeries'' novel ''Bloodstone'' there is Gerwein, high priestess of the female-only Temple of the moon goddess Shenan. Barely thirty and very beautiful, she's also haughty, cold and a very talented politician. And she has access to a great library, not to mention some powerful artifact. Oh, and the Temple brings up orphans to become virgin sacrifices, just in case (even though human sacrifice is officially forbidden).

* ''Literature/BazilBroketail'': A number of minor characters are high priests or priestesses, along with a couple bishops, abbesses etc. Lessis herself is high-ranking in the clergy of the Great Mother, though she isn't described this way. The others head up the clergy of a particular god, religious order and or location though, fitting this.
* ''Literature/TheBurningKingdoms'': Hemanth is the High Priest of Parijatdvipa and mentor to Emperor Chandra, who had encourage him in his religious fanaticism, which includes {{human sacrifice}}s.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Aeron Greyjoy seems to be the top Priest of the Drowned God faith. In the books, the Drowned Men who serve as priests in their religion actually don't have any ruling hierarchy — theoretically all of the priests are equal and any priest can ordain another man as a priest if he is worthy. They don't have an equivalent to the High Septon in the Faith of the Seven. ''In practice'', of course, Drowned Priests who have been serving the longest and successfully revived the most initiates in drowning ceremonies are respected much more than others, and often in every generation or so there will be one Drowned Priest that all of the others look up to for guidance. Aeron is universally respected by the others — on the level of an Old Testament style prophet — and thus he is their ''unofficial'' leader, first among equals, etc. It also probably doesn't hurt that he's a scion of the Iron Islands' ruling House of Greyjoy.

** Then there's Jesus himself, who is both king of all creation, and intercedes between humans and God the Father in the manner of the high priest (including performing a [[HeroicSacrifice rather famous sacrifice.]]) It was prophesied (in the Old Testament Psalm 110) that the Messiah would be "a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek". The Literature/BookOfHebrews goes into some detail on what this means.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Anima Beyond Fantasy}}'', the Holy Sacred Emperor (now Empress) is also the head of the Holy Church of Abel, even if some of its members haven't recognized her as that and have instead named a Summum Archbishop. However, (s)he leads it rather spiritually and the Church itself is governed by said Summum Archbishop.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'', the Apostle is said to be able to speak to the Goddess Ashera, making her both Ashera's high priestess and the Empress of Begnion. [[spoiler:The offices were accidentally separated when the current Apostle was nearly killed along (Micaiah) with her predecessor (her grandmother) and the Apostle's younger sister (Sanaki) was installed as a puppet empress. Micaiah herself would later reign over ''another'' land while Sanaki, who managed to get ''actual'' power with the help of the cast, stayed in the Begnion throne.]]

* Prelate Lucius is the chief cleric in the Otheran army in ''VideoGame/QueenAtArms''. He's a kind man who tends to the wounded soldier, and is a potential {{love interest}} for the {{player character}}.

* Batari from ''VideoGame/FarCryPrimal'' is the High Priestess of the Izila sun goddess, Suxli, and the tribe's ''de facto'' leader. Born under a solar eclipse, Batari was regarded by her people to be blessed by Suxli. Sadly, this caused her to grow up with [[AGodAmI a god complex]], and she refuses to allow any opposition to her superiority. And Batari's people are practicioners of HumanSacrifice...

* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': Cresce is ruled by the Council of Four made up of a queen, a high general, a high priestess and a chancellor whose job it is to represent the nobles. The High priestess is an elder twin, kept in the traditions of the Grefendur religion.
* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' [[ShowWithinAShow Heterodyne shows]] often have a High Preistess as a StockCharacter who serves as Barry's GirlOfTheWeek.

** Part of the reason for the similarity between the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs and the Roman Catholic Pope is because before the two branches of Christianity split, the Pope was considered one of the Patriarchs. In fact the Pope still counts Patriarch of Rome as one of his titles. For its part, the Orthodox hierarchy, while disagreeing with the Pope's claim of primacy, still accords him the title of Patriarch of Rome and respects him as leader of the Latin Church, whose rites they accept as valid despite the disagreement on organization.

* Constitutional Monarchs bear some interesting analogies to this, being in charge of ritual-of-state while their ministers actually do the business of ruling. They are not always religious in concept though they might have some religious duties. But the mystical air about them gives room for comparison. One or two monarchs actually were closer to being High Priests then rulers, like the Emperor during the Japanese shogunate period, or the Archon-Basilus in Ancient Athens.

* In pre-Christian Scandinavia, one of the suites expected of a leader - be it king, jarl or simple chieftain - was to lead the sacrifices to the gods and arrange religious feasts. This meant some problems for the kings who converted to Christianity, as they would have to take part in the sacrifices unless the people thought they did not do their job. In one famous instant, a Christian Swedish king briefly lost the kingship to a pagan rival because he would perform sacrifices.

** Weirdly, the consuls of UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic. Even though they were elected politicians--with one-year terms at that--consuls were ''ex officio'' augurs (interpreters of the activities of birds, a major form of divination in Rome) and had authority to set the dates of holidays. They frequently did this to their own political advantage. A fascinating--and darkly comic--example of these powers in practice came in 59 BCE, when UsefulNotes/GaiusJuliusCaesar (the famous one) was consul with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. Bibulus--who disagreed with Caesar on practically every point and had nursed a personal grudge against him for at least five years by the time they became consuls[[note]]Caesar and Bibulus had served together as aediles in 64 BCE, and Caesar had consistently outshined Bibulus in the main function of the aedileship, organizing festivals and games. Bibulus particularly seems to have thought that Caesar got more credit than he deserved for games that both he and Bibulus had taken part in organizing thanks to Caesar's charisma and PR machine—apparently refusing to recognize that Caesar had fronted most of the money for the games through loans he had personally taken out. (If you’re wondering why anyone would loan Caesar money to organize games, (1) Caesar was one hell of a talker and (2) a successful games set Caesar up to be elected a praetor, which wasn’t especially remunerative in itself but did make him eligible to be appointed a propraetor afterwards, putting him in a position to seize large amounts of war booty in the likely event of war or rebellion in his province.[[/note]]--kept trying to use his authority as an augur and proclaimer of holidays to interfere with Caesar's populist political agenda. Caesar, however, had a trump card...
** That trump card being that besides being consul, Caesar was ''also'' the Pontifex Maximus, i.e. the chief priest of Rome. Several years earlier, he had been elected to this lifetime post, which was the closest thing the Roman religion of the time had to a high priest.[[note]]Technically he was outranked by the ''rex sacrorum'', or "King of Sacrifices", but (1) the ''rex sacrorum'' had so many interminable ritual duties to please the gods he functionally had no time to actually deal with day-to-day religious administration and (2) guess who picked the ''rex sacrorum''? You get three guesses, and two don't count. (That's right, it was the Pontifex Maximus.)[[/note]] On top of this, Caesar had been raised for the priesthood and had been ''Flamen Dialis'' (chief priest of the cult of Jupiter)[[note]]Ceremonially and spiritually very important, but actually kind of an albatross for an ambitious Roman, as ''de facto'' a ''Flamen'' could not have a political career. It was ultimately to Caesar's benefit that he was stripped of his priesthood.[[/note]] for two years (admittedly he was only about 18 at the time, but he seems to have done the job correctly). Thus at every turn Caesar [[MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours used this superior religious knowledge to overturn Bibulus's readings of the birds and proclamations of holidays]]. Since Caesar was both popular and (thanks to his long history of religious office) seen as having superior knowledge of the ways of the gods, Bibulus' attempts to thwart Caesar with religion were completely ineffectual. Bibulus was also massively humiliated by being so unpopular that his end of term speech got vetoed by a Tribune of the Plebs. That wasn't a good year for him.