Church & State is the third novel in Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim's Cerebus comic book series.

In High Society, Cerebus rose to power, with the help of Astoria, in the city-state of Iest, eventually becoming prime minister.

Her questioning is cut off with the sudden, dramatic appearance of whom the Countess calls "Uncle Artemis"—the Roach, this time in the garb of the Wolveroach, a parody of the Marvel Comics character Wolverine, who announces the beginning of a three-part miniseries on the origin of the Wolveroach (also a parody of 1980s superhero comics trends).

Cerebus agrees to become Prime Minister again and do Weisshaupt's bidding in order to be granted (eventually) a divorce from Sophia.

[6] The marriage is stormy, especially between Cerebus and Mrs. Henrot-Gutch—a "vicious, old, fat, ugly woman"[7] who is Sophia's mother and Henrot's ex-wife.

But Jaka reveals that she is now married and expecting a child; more importantly, she no longer loves Cerebus due to him not returning to her following the events of "High Society".

Cerebus struggles to return to Iest, before the rival pope can melt all of his ill-gotten gold into a giant throne.

The four men are engaged in attacks on locals, as part of the "Sacred Wars"; from Elrod, Cerebus learned of Weisshaupt's plans for "The Ascension"; a religious ritual that happens once a century where whoever holds a magic golden orb, is taken to the moon on a pillar of skulls, to meet Tarim.

Cerebus attempts to get the four to join him in fighting the giant but fails to, as they are too concerned with "protecting" local villages on the far end of Iest from Cirinist raiding parties (though in truth, the four have taken a town hostage as their base of operations).

Though the Roach escapes, before he goes he reveals that Astoria is the one who murdered the previous Pope in order to arrange Cerebus's appointment to the position.

Put into the dungeon, Astoria reveals that she manipulated Cerebus to counter Weisshaupt 's own schemes to carry out the Ascension.

Cerebus, clutching the golden sphere, is holding on desperately while being watched by everybody, from the Cirinist Abbes far away with a viewing device, to those living in the Upper and Lower Cities of Iest.

[14] This is followed up with an accurate description of the space race that happened in the real world, and concludes in an undisclosed future with the destruction of the sun at the push of a button.

Sim decided they would do a double issue between Church & State and Jaka's Story, as they would only have to do one front and back cover, and one letters page.

He explores the area, coming across a note from Boobah and the fly-ridden, rotting corpse of Bran Mak Muffin.

He leaves the hotel, and while making his way down the mountain comes across a tavern whose single patron is griping about the conditions under Cirinist rule.

The July/August issue was released in August, 1988, and provided what Sim agrees is an epilogue to the Church & State story.

Sim says he had talked to his printer about including it in later printings of Church & State Volume II, but the binding would have been too strained if an extra 40 pages were added to what is already the thickest of the Cerebus "phonebooks".

Due to the success of the stories, Sim asked him to take over the duty of drawing backgrounds and laying down screentone for Cerebus starting with issue #66.

[19] For the first several issues together, Gerhard experimented with different techniques and textures, trying to find out what style would both mesh well with Sim's, and reproduce correctly when printed.

Heidi MacDonald ran a review that called the ending "too darn cosmic"—a comment Sim found "moronic[...]in a medium where the blowing up of the universe and getting superpowers from radioactivity are the norm rather than the exception.