Religious clergy functioned to police members’ identity and donations within trade networks.

Evidence

The ability of this system to circulate information from one end of the Julfan network to another was thus just as crucial for merchants as it was for the clergy, one of whose functions was to maintain the integrity of the commercial network by ensuring that its members stayed firm in their ethno-religious identity and, therefore, continued making generous donations to the church. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 200

Categorization

• XREF: The church here serves as a solidarity-maintenance institution within a diaspora — comparable to how public ritual (fumi-e trampling in the reader’s frame) can be used to test and enforce identity commitment.
• SEED: Could shape an essay on religious institutions as commercial infrastructure rather than purely spiritual bodies.