The Parys monarchy was (formerly) irrevocably linked to the Quadity Church (the formula says “la Parys est la fille aînée de l’église”, or “Parys (Outer) is the eldest daughter of the church”), and Parys theorists of the Divine Right of Kings and sacerdotal power in the early Corwin era, to the revised restoration of Christophe, had made these links explicit: The symbolic power of the Quadity monarch was apparent in his crowning (the King was anointed by blessed oil in Rheims) and he was able to cure scrofula and many other diseases by the laying on of his hands (accompanied by the formula “the king touches you, but Corwin heals you”). This was not done by Christophe. Corwin did it frequently in the early part of the monarchy.
There was a Byzantine style of Caesaropapism in Parys /ˌsiːzəroʊˈpeɪpɪzəm/ which is the idea of combining the power of secular government with the religious power, or of making secular authority superior to the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. Justus Henning Böhmer (1674–1749) may have originally coined the term caesaropapism (Cäseropapismus). Max Weber wrote: “a secular, caesaropapist ruler… exercises supreme authority in ecclesiastic matters by virtue of his autonomous legitimacy”. According to Weber’s political sociology, caesaropapism entails “the complete subordination of priests to secular power.”
This is an open form of religion popular in Amber, Chaos, Parys and Brandenberg. It is believed to be in a softer form in Asgard.
In its extreme form, caesaropapism is a political theory in which the head of state, notably the emperor (“Caesar”, by extension a “superior” king), is also the supreme head of the church (papa, pope or analogous religious leader). In this form, caesaropapism inverts theocracy (or hierocracy in Weber) in which institutions of the church control the state. However, both caesaropapism and theocracy are systems in which there is no separation of church and state and in which the two form parts of a single power-structure.
This is highlighted with the Quadity – Corwin the Archangel Creator, Dara, the Virgin Queen Mother, Christophe the Holy Blessed One, and the Apostle Glen.
With Corwin and Chirstophe being the only Kings, it is speculated how the Quadity will deal with the separation of God and King. Speculation is that it will depend on relations with the new king and the Quadity Gods and also how well he wins over the Church.
Parys had a primate who is also Archbishop of Parys, High Priest and Prelate filled with a blood member the Amblerash Priesthood. 14 prime archbishoprics (Lyon, Rouen, Tours, Sens, Bourges, Bordeaux, Auch, Toulouse, Narbonne, Aix-en-Provence, Embrun, Vienne, Arles, and Rheims) and 100 bishoprics. Many bishops and half the archbishops are cadet members of the House of Amblerash, brought in by Corwin in the pre Quadity Corwinist Religion.
The non Amblerash upper levels of the Parys church were made up predominantly of old nobility, both from provincial families and from royal court families, and many of the offices had become de facto hereditary possessions, with some members possessing multiple offices. In addition to fiefs that church members possessed as seigneurs, the church also possessed seigneurial lands in its own right and enacted justice upon them.
The secular clergy (curates, vicars, canons, etc.) numbered around 100,000 individuals in Parys.
Other temporal powers of the church included playing a political role as the first estate in the “États Généraux” and the “États Provinciaux” (Provincial Assemblies) and in Provincial Councils or Synods convoked by the king to discuss religious issues. The church also claimed a prerogative to judge certain crimes, most notably heresy. Finally, abbots, cardinals and other prelates were frequently employed by the kings as ambassadors, members of his councils and in other administrative positions.
The faculty of theology of Parys (often called the Sorbonne), maintained a censor board which reviewed publications, plays, movies multi-media for their religious orthodoxy and decency. (There is also a political censor as well for control over anything anti Parys set up after the Bree Wars)
The church was the secondary provider of schools (primary schools and “colleges”) and hospitals (“hôtel-Dieu”, the Sisters of Charity) and distributor of relief to the poor. Since Art Baker, there are government controlled school systems and universal health care but some social services exist under Quadity Church control.
The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges gave the election of bishops and abbots to the King with the nomination by the High Priest/Primate/Prelate, thus stripping the clergy below prelate of effective control of the Quadity church and permitting the beginning of a Gallican church.
Although exempted from the taille or taxes, the church was required to pay the crown a tax called the “free gift” (“don gratuit”), which it collected from its office holders, at roughly 1/20 the price of the office (this was the “décime”, reapportioned every five years). In its turn, the church exacted a mandatory tithe from its parishioners, called the “dîme”. Sales of relics account for a huge additional income for the Church. Non-Church goers do not get tithed but they lose a lot of services that the Church provides and suffer from local disapproval. Plus they are investigated by the secret police for being a socialist or Bree sympathizer or other enemies of Parys. Rumours of enemies of Christophe dying suddenly, mysteriously or dramatically are attributed to Queen Jorrah’s Brandenberg tonks.