All of your Equestria, maybe. As far as I know, mine's the only one that had the Proxy Element program... or the Celestial and Lunar Temples, for that matter.

Which is... where I guess we need to start. Back in my Equestria, alicorns? They're literally gods. Priests pray to them for providence, their powers over the sun, the moon, love, friendship... those are things that normal ponies can't control. Not to that degree, and sure as heck not alone. Even in the days before the Sisters, back before Discord ruled, it took an entire country of unicorns to even get the sun and moon moving, and that was on its routine schedule. They couldn't call for an emergency sundown like Celestia could, for example.

So... the princesses were held on a bit higher of a pedestal than they are here.