Caesaropapism is the idea of combining the power of
secular government with the religious power, or making it superior to the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. The term (
Cäseropapismus) may first have been coined by
Justus Henning Böhmer, and was later defined by
Max Weber as "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."