WI: Institution like the Catholic Church for polytheistic religions?

[HumptyDumpty]

Has there been something comparable to the Catholic Church, with its centralism, for polytheistic religions? Perhaps something like this would have given polytheism the centralization necessary for polytheistic religions to survive?

 

[Viking25]

Has there been something comparable to the Catholic Church, with its centralism, for polytheistic religions? Perhaps something like this would have given polytheism the centralization necessary for polytheistic religions to survive?

Hinduism has the opposite of it and is still going strong. Though I do recall something about Vladimir of Kyiv trying to create a more centralised Priesthood for Slavic Paganism.

 

[Lalli]

Hadn't Julian the Apostate some such ideas?

And perhaps Ancient Egyptian polytheims could evolve such thing. It had already some centralised thing and pharaoh played important role on the Egyptian religion.