The ''Presently Guided Temple'' (also called the ''Present Temple'', or simply as the ''Solar Temple'' by believers) is a denomination of the Solar Temple, the predominant form of [[PM/God|monotheistic worship]]. It split with various [[PM/Old Temple|Old Temple]] patriarchies in the period 1617-1620 due to the controversy surrounding the Illumination of its then-patriarch, [[PM/Patriarch Vesten|Vesten]]; an additional wave of schism broke out in 1728 when the patriarch [[PM/Patriarch Desite|Desite]] also claimed illumination. As it is currently constituted, the Present Temple consists of all patriarchies who support the Patriarch of Pustie, and his or her claim to spiritual leadership of the entire Solar Temple.

The Supreme Patriarch (or Matriarch, as the case may be) is the paramount spiritual leader of the Present Temple, and temporal absolute monarch of the [[PM/Aelian States|Aelian States]]. 

The Present Temple has more of a focus on the eschatological currents of the religion than the other denominations. Although the Solar Temple has always had an eschatology, the end of the world has always been seen as very remote. Conversely, the recent teachings of the Patriarchs from Vesten onward have emphasized eschatological imminency. (Including the last Patriarch ''not'' to claim Illumination, Vesten's successor [[PM/Patriarch Teulane|Teulane]].) The Temple is actively attempting to bring about the conversion of the world - not just of the heathen, but people practising "wayward" religion generally. This has lead to [[PM/Solar Campaigns|various religious wars of conquest]] in recent years.


Since the end of Vesten's patriarchy, it is also notably less tolerant of heterodoxy in its expanding temporal dominion.