AL Church



"Sachiko Centers"

- explaining the way she sees the Pope of the AL Church.

About


The AL Church is the largest and most prominent religion in The Continent. It worships the Goddess ALICE, infact the full name for the religion is actually "The ALICE Church", but it's mostly refered to as "AL Church". The official title of the Pope is "Muralaloux", who speaks for ALICE and spreads her message to humanity. The church forbids any kind of self-indulgence, such as having sexual intercourse or drinking alcohol.

The AL Church is accepted as the standard religion of the Continent, the doctrine is taught in schools and ceremonies such as weddings or funerals are performed by AL priests. It tends to profess that you should love your neighbour and that following its doctrine leads to the path of happyness, salvation and a peaceful afterlife. This is actually false, since every soul returns to Ludo-Rathowm upon death (unless it's stolen by a Devil or from a ritual performed by the Tenshi Sect).

The Church is funded through donations from every nation and has no primary form of money generation, but since it's the most worshipped religion in the continent, that's hardly a problem. The influence of the religion is prevalent in all the countries of the main continent, and waging war to them would result in the masses from all over the world rising to fight for their beliefs.

The AL Church Headquarters are on the island of Kawanakajima in the religious city known as Kaiz, where the Pope and Bishops comfortably live. They also have their own military of Temple Knights dedicated to hunt mostly Devils and Necro-mages, since death magic is considered a taboo art that should never be practiced. Even a light-hearted priestess like Sel Catchgolf is very serious with this matter. The Temple Knights are considered one of the most formidable armies on the Continent due to how massively supported it is. It is not affiliated to any kingdom in particular but spread all over the Continent and no nation wishes to go against them in any way due to the massive amount of backlash it would receive from its many scattered supporters.

There is a special room dug into the basement of the AL Church Headquarters, it goes very far down, but once you reach the bottom you are able to communicate with Goddess ALICE herself. Only selected people, typically only the Pope, are allowed here. The Goddess ALICE tells the Pope when a new Demon King makes appearance, which allows the information to be relayed to the rest of the world.

The AL Church is also responsible for the year abbreviations in the calendar such as LP.

Organizational Structure

 * 1) Goddess ALICE: The ultimate Goddess of the AL Church. No-one aside from the Pope actually meets her.
 * 2) Pope: The highest position of the Church, considered the representative of God.
 * 3) Bishop: Four executives that hold more power than everyone else. They are all candidates for becoming the next Pope.
 * 4) Cardinal: Responsible for the management of a region.
 * 5) Reverend: Responsible for an individual church.
 * 6) Priest: Typical practitioners seen in churches.
 * 7) Apprentice: New-comers that just entered in a church and are learning.

Trivia

 * The goddess ALICE is clearly a reference to the character Alice that represents the company responsible behind the Rance series.
 * Although they are not aware, the Tenshi Sect completely opposses the AL Church since they stray away from the Reincarnation Cycle and give their souls to the Devil King Rathowm.
 * The most important religions in the continent, the AL Church and the Tenshi Sect, are both complete lies since the AL church teaches about salvation and love even though, Ludo-Rathowm himself manages the religion through the godess ALICE and wants to fill the world with chaos and despair to make it more "entertaining". The Tenshi Sect is about the true path of salvation when in reality it's just the Devil King wishing to stole souls from Ludo-Rathowm.
 * The AL Church could be seen as the representants of the Gods and the Tenshi Sect of the Devils.
 * The AL Church is based on Christianity (specifically Catholicism), with it being run by a Pope and worshiping a god who is said to be kind and give salvation in the after-life.