This study explores the relationship and reciprocal influence between the political authority in Iran, led by the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and the religious authority in Najaf, led by the Grand Ayatollah and marja', Ali al-Sistani. Rather than focusing exclusively on jurisprudential/ideological doctrines, the paper approaches the subject from a perspective that emphasizes the interactive relationship between the structure and the agency. It suggests that the emergence of the Islamic regime in Iran, based on the principle of Willayat Al-Faqih, had a significant impact on reshaping power relations in the Shi'i theological space and the response of Shi'i religious actors. At the same time, the practices adopted by al-Sistani in Iraq after 2003, the context he was responding to, and the emergence of the Marji'yya as an extraconstitutional actor, allowed for the formation of an alternative transitional model, which I term a "neo-traditional authority". The study argues for an alternative to two theses: first, the potential decline of the traditional Marjiʿyya due to the dominance of the Willayat Al-Faqih in Iran, put forward in particular by Mehdi Khalaji, and second, the superiority and continuity of the traditional Marjiʿyya due to its depoliticization, contended by Linda Wallbridge. The paper also maintains that there is an interpretive framework that meets the two theses in the middle, represented by the rise of the neo-traditional Marjiʿyya and the possibility it will emerge as an alternative model in the future.