If they're going to include religious companies like the Affligem Brewery, created by Monks, then religious organizations as a whole are fair game. And the Catholic Church, or some form of Orthodox Church, precedes pretty much everything else.
I'd argue that a religion itself doesn't qualify though, it has to be a religious organization that had some level of central control, distinct from the government of nation-states (though potentially intertwined) and had assets & holdings independent of the nations they operated within.
Under that definition, I'm not quite sure when the earliest christian organization would have qualified. I know it became the official Roman religion around 380 A.D., but was it centrally organized then (or was that the advent of its central organization?) Or did that happen earlier/later?
I'd argue that a religion itself doesn't qualify though, it has to be a religious organization that had some level of central control, distinct from the government of nation-states (though potentially intertwined) and had assets & holdings independent of the nations they operated within.
Under that definition, I'm not quite sure when the earliest christian organization would have qualified. I know it became the official Roman religion around 380 A.D., but was it centrally organized then (or was that the advent of its central organization?) Or did that happen earlier/later?