That's a nice sentiment, but based on what feyeleanor has been saying, people have been trying to do exactly that for years without success.
The problem with "you have to handle that sort of thing IG" is that the type of people who are willing to bend the rules like this tend to be the type of people who are also willing to min/max and, well, bend the rules in other ways, just to get ahead.
And when a realm that's already more powerful than the others around it takes a measure like this to "protect" itself from foreign religions, you have a recipe for a middle finger to the notion of RP and in-game common sense that just gets to sit there and show how useless those ideas are when they are left to the players to enforce for everything short of a blatant violation of the IR or Social Contract.
Although personally, I think it falls squarely under the "fair play" clause of the Social Contract, like many similar "well, nothing says I can't do it, so screw you" issues.
As far as Fair Play goes, here is what I think: This is an example of a mechanic being used in a way other than that intended by the designers. Unfortunately, the reason that's the case is because there isn't sufficient RP to paper over the actual reason for the religion's existence. What bothers me about calling this a Fair Play issue is that the sole element separating this example from any other moribund state religion in the game is that those who control it haven't put in the effort to develop a veneer of RP, not even a rudimentary one, which isn't a mechanical issue at all. So what's not fair about it? That these players are getting away with being lazy? That they're clearly cynical and uninterested in meaningful RP? That they're not using religion as intended? IMO this is not an issue of fairness, it is a culture problem.
