the Shepherd’s Throne: When persecuted inherit keys, who will guard doors?

Constantinople, 378 CE. Cassian of Nicomedia is a copyist hiding with fellow Christians when an imperial arrest order nearly takes his freedom. He begins keeping careful records to protect the innocent: who was accused, what was witnessed, what was merely reported, and what remained unknown. Then the empire changes. The faith once driven into cellars receives imperial protection. Churches acquire property. Bishops gain influence. Doctrine becomes law, and the records Cassian created to defend the vulnerable begin connecting belief to bread, employment, burial, family, and legal recognition. As former victims learn the power of official lists, Cassian must confront a terrible possibility: a system built with honest intentions can become an instrument of exclusion-and the people operating it may never recognize themselves as oppressors. Spanning the religious and political transformation of the late fourth-century Roman Empire, The Shepherd's Throne is a historical novel about conscience, institutional power, charity, certainty, and the dangerous moment when spiritual authority acquires the machinery of the state.