The Healing Church, founded by Laurence the First Vicar, was the most important institution in Yharnam and, indeed, in all of Bloodborne's lore. Its doctrine was based on the cult of the Ancient Blood and its extraordinary properties: an intoxicating substance with healing powers capable of significantly improving the physical qualities of those who were infected with it, the so-called Blood Communion.
The powers of the Old Blood drew pilgrims from all over the world to Yharnam. And the rites of Communion pervaded the city's culture in Bloodborne. As a result of this, the Healing Church gained widespread support among the city's residents, eventually becoming the city's governing body. Unfortunately, however, the infusion of Blood had an unintended consequence: the transformation into ferocious beasts and creatures devoid of all sense.
The Origins of the Healing Church
The Healing Church arose from a rib of the Byrgenwerth Academy, a place of study founded by Master Willem. At Byrgenwerth, theology and science collided, with the Truths of the Cosmos serving as the primary focus of research.
In this sense, Rector Willem was not content with speculation but instead invested heavily in archeology and exploration. The research methods led the Byrgenwerth scholars to delve into ancient labyrinths beneath the old city of Yharnam. Pthumeru's underground labyrinths: an ancient fallen civilization that expanded underground.
During the exploration of the Pthumerian labyrinths, the Academy made its first significant discovery. In fact, it appears that during their expansion, this ancient civilization came into contact with the so-called Great Ones, Cosmic deities who guarded absolute truths. Byrgenwerth's research revealed the cooperative relationship between the Pthumerians and the Great Ones: a symbiotic coexistence that resulted in an exchange. On the one hand, the Pthumerians defended and worshiped the Great Ones. The inhabitants of Pthumeru, on the other hand, received the Communion of Blood and knowledge of arcane techniques.
It was the first proof of the Healing Blood's extraordinary qualities, upon which the Healing Church's entire doctrine will be based. Master Willem, on the other hand, detected a threat. The fluid was divine in origin and possessed great power, but it caused a cellular mutation in the organism, resulting in the release of the scourge of bestiality. Pthumeru's demise was brought about by the disease. A true pandemic caused civilization to decline and forced it to seal itself within the same labyrinths, hiding from the outside world. Their fate would have been to stand guard over the sleeping Great Ones, protecting their dramatic secret.
Willem was afraid that the city of Yharnam would disintegrate as a result of Pthumeru's testimony and death, so he decided to abandon his research on the Old Blood. Laurence, a Byrgenwerth student at the time, disagreed and left the Academy to establish the Healing Church, which is based in the Grand Cathedral of Yharnam.
Willem's methods were not completely abandoned by the fledgling organization, which continued to explore the ancient underground labyrinths. Years later, they discovered and apprehended Ebrietas, the Daughter of the Cosmos, a Great Lesser One. Ebrietas was imprisoned and transferred beneath the Grand Cathedral in order to exploit the Blood's powers.
Hunter's Workshop
While exploring the ancient labyrinths, the scholars of Byrgenwerth and the Healing Church found themselves facing ferocious and violent creatures, so much so that it was necessary to create a real armed wing to defend them. Furthermore, an order was needed that could forcibly stem any hint of bestial mutation in citizens subjected to Communion. The Old Abandoned Workshop was then founded by Laurence: a place where men and women were trained who would have shown an innate resistance to the beastly call deriving from infusions. The first of them was Gehrman.
The Nuns of the Healing Church
The Nuns of the Healing Church were true saints who were chosen as incubators of Holy Blood due to their purity of soul: subjected to continuous infusions with the goal of cultivating it and making it available to the Healing Church's insatiable members. As previously stated, the Ancient Blood was highly addictive. This required a steady supply for scholars and Healing Church members. The fluid infused into the Nuns' bodies allowed it to be disposed of continuously, albeit in a more diluted and less potent form.
Their existence appears to imply that there were some people who were immune to bestiality and could cultivate Blood within their own bodies without suffering the consequences. This, however, was a very uncommon feature. In fact, the saints of the Healing Church were few and far between.
The Choir
It is the most important and respected body in the Healing Church. They had the task of communicating with the Great Ones of the labyrinths in order to transcend humanity's existential plan. In fact, they possessed a Higher Knowledge (insight) provided by constant contact with Ebrietas, the Daughter of the Cosmos, a divinity discovered in ancient labyrinths and brought to Yharnam, in the Grand Cathedral. The Choir members gained their knowledge from their contact with Ebrietas. Above all, the Great Ones ensured the Church and the city of Yharnam a constant and continuous flow of Healing Blood.
Members of the Choir were also hunters and labyrinth explorers. However, unlike their peers, they were able to wield powers and artifacts derived from the Great Ones. Caryll, an ancient hunter who transcribed the indecipherable sounds of Great Ones into specific runes that the Hunters could use to improve their combat and knowledge skills, was one of the most important members of the Choir.
The Night of the Hunt
When the plague of beasts took over and the streets of Yharnam were overrun with wild beasts, the Healing Church prohibited the Night of the Hunt. During this event, citizens who had not been affected by the disease were forced to barricade themselves in their homes in order to protect themselves.
The city's alleys, in fact, were transformed into a battlefield between the diseased beasts and their hunters, who were tasked with cleaning the streets of the disease by slaughtering everything they encountered. As we all know, the plague spread uncontrollably in Yharnam, making the hunting nights ever longer and more exhausting. As a result, a violent, murderous frenzy was unleashed in many citizens who were drunk on Blood, forcing them to participate in the hunt as both prey and improvised hunters.
Old Yharnam
However, the Hunters were employed long before the Night of the Hunt was instituted. In fact, the Ashen Blood disease spread throughout the city's historic core. The causes, which appear to be unknown, can be traced back to the experiments of the Healing Church, which the inhabitants of the city used to conduct the first experiments on the field of the Ancient Blood. It is widely assumed, in fact, that it was the Church itself that made citizens sick and that when standard medicines proved insufficient, they had the opportunity to intervene with a massive administration of Healing Blood.
Although this therapy stopped the epidemic, it turned the entire population into ferocious beasts. Outside of the ancient labyrinths, this was the first occasion when the Hunters were called upon. Their expedition, on the other hand, was a flop. The only tragic option was to burn down the entire city and seal the entrances. However, the cure was insufficient to halt the plague, which was on its way to engulfing the whole city of Yharnam shortly after.
The Healing Church Workshop
The carnage inflicted by Old Yharnam was not effortless. The conviction that an order was required to control the advancing beast epidemic better found its way into the Healing Church. The old Gehrman workshop was closed to construct a new, more modern, and prepared gymnasium: the Healing Church Workshop.
Ludwig became the head of the new workshop, a highly trained cleric who was highly regarded by Laurence himself. This new workshop differed from the others because it used more advanced methods. The new hunters, in fact, were not only skilled fighters but also doctors.
The hunters were divided into three classes: Black Hunters, whose sole purpose was to rid the streets of Yharnam of beasts; White Hunters, clerics who used the hunt to study and conduct experiments on healing Blood; and Hunters of Hunters, mighty warriors tasked with fighting the hunters who had become corrupted by Blood and had fallen into bestiality.
The School of Mensis
The Healing Church's final ramification is the School of Mensis, which is led by Micolash, an old Byrgenwerth scholar. The school's mission was to make contact with other Great Ones in order to gain access to the extraordinary truths of the Cosmos that they guarded. A ritual was performed using a Third Umbilical Cord: a powerful cosmic relic descended from the Great Ones and capable of evoking them.
The ritual's execution and the school's research were both carried out using unconventional methods. For this reason, the Healing Church relegated Micolash's activities to the hidden village of Yahar'gul to keep the methods out of the sight of the inhabitants of Yharnam and to maintain population consensus.
The ritual's consequences were disastrous. Micolash and his followers went insane and were imprisoned in the Nightmare of Mergo, the Great One summoned. However, the implications for the city of Yharnam were also dire. Indeed, it appears that the ritual increased the power of the Ancient Blood, hastening the transformation of the inhabitants who had practiced the infusion into beasts.
Bloodborne is now available on PS4.
