Caesaropapism

Caesaropapism is the idea of blending the social and political power of secular government with religious power, or of making secular authority superior to the spiritual authority of the Church, especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. Although Justus Henning Böhmer (1674–1749) may have originally coined the term caesaropapism (Cäsaropapismus), it was Max Weber (1864–1920) who wrote that "a secular, caesaropapist ruler ... exercises supreme authority in ecclesiastic matters by virtue of his autonomous legitimacy." According to Weber, caesaropapism entails "the complete subordination of priests to secular power." In an extreme form, caesaropapism is where the head of state is also the supreme head of the church (pope or analogous religious leader). 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.