The Devils

In The Devils, the Church is not simply a religious institution—it is also a symbol of authoritarian control, moral hypocrisy, ideological manipulation, and The Fallibility of Religious Institutions. Although the Church in The Devils is fictional, it often mirrors the influence of the Catholic Church in real European history, a subject on which Abercrombie is critical. The Church in the novel commands armies, controls trade routes, and wages ideological warfare. Its power is both mystical and bureaucratic, and it functions as the narrative’s most persistent authority in terms of structural power. Cardinal Zizka, head of the Earthly Curia, represents the bureaucratic core of the Church’s political machinery. Zizka is an expert manipulator and a creature of realpolitik rather than faith. Her every decision is made in the name of expediency, not morality. When she attempts to orchestrate the crowning of Emperor Michael and later accepts Alex because she is the only surviving candidate, she admits the crown is a tool of Church control.

Despite its facade of piety and virtue, the Church in The Devils is riven with hypocrisy and moral decay. One of the novel’s recurring motifs is the gap between the Church’s teachings and its actual conduct.