This article offers a short study of the conjugation of freedom of religion, freedom of association and the legal status of religions and churches. Human rights are elaborated as defined in international human rights law, accentuated by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. A compliance case that came before the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia provides a national jurisprudential example useful for the analysis of relations between human rights and the legal status of a church. Analysis of the law is both horizontal and vertical: a description of norms is intertwined with a discussion of principles of identity and equality. The article explores whether the principles of human rights and freedoms and the norms regulating the legal status of a church are consistent with each other; whether these principles are independent and how their mutual relationship influences the application and interpretation of the law; and whether the norms prescribed by international law or in national jurisprudence can be applied independently of canon law, or whether application of the law has to take into account specific religious jurisdictions and relations between churches which are rooted in their autonomous canon law.