Priests
The priests employed by the Church serve a variety of functions, it’s pretty much a catchall term for any male in church employ, likewise with the term nuns for women. The previously mentioned Hunters are one of the smallest branches. Obviously, there are priests that serve as actual priests, as in they hold mass, take confessions, etc. This purpose is fairly straight forward so I’m not wasting time typing about it.
Other branches serve as soldiers and guards for the Emperor, the Pope and other important people. The Emperor is also assigned a personal guard who is trained from a young age to live only to serve. He usually has a room connected to the Emperor’s suite and spends all his time being an unseen protective force (basically his job is stalking the Emperor). Technically, this guard isn’t supposed to talk but most of them do.
(On an unrelated note, the current Emperor’s bodyguard, Jeremy Larsen, has had a thing for him (her) since they were children. (This odd he/she thing is because the Emperor is legally male but biologically female, Ephesian politics are confusing that way). He takes his silence very seriously and tends to communicate via notes that he drops from wherever he’s hiding. Francis finds him silly and paints his nails and braids his hair in his (her) free time. He (she) also tends to use Jeremy as an unwilling listener for boy (girl) talk and will often complain to him about everything from cramps to his (her) lack of pretti clothes. When they were 10 and 11 respectively, Francis gave Jeremy her favorite scarf. He hasn’t stopped wearing it since except to wash it. Generally, he uses this scarf as a sort of mask, wrapping it around his face and neck, and wearing it up over his nose. Obviously, Jeremy has been crushing fairly hard for the last 10 years or so and will probably murder the first guy to touch Francis. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he fathered Francis’ children eventually. Beatrice, Francis’ fiancé, would probably laugh her stupid head off and find this generally hilarious. Actually, if that were the case, Francis would probably be the only female Emperor to survive giving birth to a male son because Jeremy would be damned if he’d let someone kill his Francis and srsly I need to stop shipping two of my characters and contemplating their future babies this can’t be healthy)
Moving on from that unhealthy fangirlish ramble, on occasion Hunters are asked to help the guards (usually near the full moon). And for the week of the full moon there is usually a squad of Hunters guarding the Emperor. Killing wolves is their specialty, after all.
God, this ramble was originally supposed to be about exorcists but then I got sidetracked. Right. Ephesians are pretty heavily into the whole “demon/devil possessions” and they take exorcisms pretty seriously. There’s an entire branch of the Church dedicated to getting rid of demons and saving the souls of the innocent. There have been many attempts to try and exorcise bitten werewolves but most of them end in the slow, painful death of the victim. This is generally because exorcist techniques involve applications of blessed water and a good deal of silver. Note: a lot of exorcisms with NORMAL people end in their deaths due to the stress of the procedure. Some exorcisms can last over a week and usually exhaust the exorcist and the afflicted as both fast for the duration.
The general procedure is that the afflicted is first handcuffed to a bed, either in their own house or in a convenient church, and then an exorcist is brought in for a fee (this varies based off the length of the procedure and the experience of the exorcist). The exorcist will pray and douse the individual with holy water (this tends to give wolves cold/flu like symptoms and can lead to illness in normal people if this goes on too long). In extreme circumstances, the exorcist will re-baptize the individual in holy water. Religious symbols, cast in silver and blessed by cardinals or the pope, will be pressed against the individual's skin. The extreme version of this involves the symbols being heated and then used to brand their flesh (this is typically frowned upon). Gabriel, Michael and Raphael are usually invoked during exorcisms. The procedure is considered to have succeeded when the individual confesses to being possessed by the devil and casts him out of their body and soul. With wolves, this usually involves the individual swallowing silver dust to prove their separation from the demon possessing them. This is extremely painful and generally kills them because it eats away at the lining of their stomach and leads to slow death from infection.
Exorcists are regarded both with fear and respect by the common folk, largely because they are the ones that decide if someone is possessed. They are a necessary evil that exists because men are weak and cannot keep darkness from their hearts. Individual exorcists vary from stuck up asses to zealots to nice guys. Hope for the latter if you get “possessed” they’re much less likely to make you eat poisonous things for the lulz/religionz.
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