Legal Status Of Churches Research Articles

Freedom of Religion and the Legal Status of Churches: A Case Study from the Serbian Constitutional Court

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.

Human Rights Protection and Traditional Churches in the System of National Cooperation in Hungary

Abstract Hungary adopted its new Fundamental Law and new legislative framework on the legal status of churches, religious denominations and religious communities in 2011, as part of a number of constitutional changes leading to the dismantlement of democracy, rule of law and human rights protection. In relation to the new legislative framework of state-church relations, much assessment so far focused on how the installment of a “pluralist system of state churches” led to an institutional and partly moral establishment, jeopardizing and curtailing the religious freedom of non-established religious denominations. However, it has been less investigated how the “pluralist system of state churches” and related constitutional changes affected a number of human rights (e.g. the right to private and family life or the right to education) and the position of traditional churches, especially, in view of their autonomy. The paper intends to show that the close entanglement of the state and its traditional churches led to the deterioration of the protection of a number of human rights while it also undermined the autonomy of these churches.

Religions and Ethno-Religious Differences in Bosnia and Herzegovina. From Laboratories of Hate to Peaceful Reconciliation

The article, peer reviewed, is due to be published in Twenty Years after Dayton. The Constitutional Transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Proceedings of the Conference) , LUISS University Press, Rome, 2016 SUMMARY : 1. Introduction - 2. The Politicization of Religion and the Nationalization of Confessions - 3. The Place of Religion and Religious Confession - 4. The Constituent (Chosen) People and Religious Power-Sharing Mechanism - 5. The Education System and Religious Education - 6. The Legal Status of Churches and the State-Religions Relationship - 7. Conclusion. ABSTRACT: It would be wrong to understand the Bosnian war (the main source of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s current problems) only in terms of a religious war. Yet, it would also be wrong to adopt the explanation that religion had no role in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s catastrophe. The misfortunes that occurred in the region during the first half of 1990s was in many respects the result of the abuse of the people’s religious identity, relieved through myth and tradition that even today remain important inspirations for the future. In this article the Author analyses the genesis of this situation and, in particular, the radical nationalism of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which since the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia has been strictly related to the processes of politicization of religion. Under this perspective, the main aim of the article is to understand the place and the role of religion and confessions in the Country’s current legal system.

The Hungarian Act CCVI of 2011 on Freedom of Conscience and Religion and on the Legal Status of Churches, Religious Denominations and Religious Associations in Light of the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract In 2011 Hungary replaced and completely reversed its formerly existing ‘liberal’ regulation of the registration of churches and church status by constituting a system built upon a highly dubious procedure and a set of stricter criteria. The aim of this article is to provide—after a brief summary of the process leading to the adoption of the present regulation—an assessment of the controversial, much debated Act CCVI of 2011 on freedom of conscience and religion and on the legal status of churches, religious denominations and religious associations in view of international human rights law standards as set by the ECHR and the jurisprudence of the ECtHR. The actual implementation and impact of the new Act will be demonstrated via the case of the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, a small, formerly registered free protestant church of Methodist denomination, which lost its church status after 30 years of lawful operation and still strives for recognition.

Kontakty Kościoła Ewangelicko-Augsburskiego w PRL z Polskim Kościołem Ewangelicko-Augsburskim na Obczyźnie w latach 1956–1975

Contacts of Polish Protestant-Augsburg Church in People’sRepublic of Poland with Polish Protestant-Augsburg Churchin Exile between 1956 and 1975 (Summary) Among hundreds of thousands Polish refugees remaining in Western Europe after the end of World War II, a dozen of thousands were Polish Protestants Lutheran and Calvinist confession. Th ey were recruited from all former Republic of Poland lands. However, residents of Central Poland and Slask Cieszynski predominated. In 1952 Lutherans associated in Polish Protestant-Augsburg Church in Exile. Bishop Wladyslaw Fierla became its superior. In 1939 he had been the rector of Polish Protestant parish in Orlowa, Slask Cieszynski. Legal status of Church was established by Republic of Poland President Andrzej Zaleski’s ordinance from 15 th December 1952 “About State’s relation to Polish Protestant-Augsburg Church in Exile”. During Stalin’s period, Church did not maintain any relations with motherly Churches in Poland and Zaolzie. Only 1956 and October’s changes in Poland brought breakthrough. Slaski Protestant-Augsburg Church in Czechoslowacja could not lead independent policy and support Polish diaspora in West Europe. Czech Republic authorities were interested in the fastest assimilation of Poles from Zaolzie, what refl ected in policy of the Church. Former Polish Protestant Church from Zaolzie faster and faster assumed binational form. Situation in Poland was diff erent, where since 1945 consequently structures of Protestant-Augsburg Church have been built only in Polish form. In Poland, as well as in London a head of both of Polish Churches were prominent Polish national activists, who came from Slask Cieszynski, bishop Fierla and bishop Karol Kotula. In 1959 the head of Church in Poland became priest Andrzej Wantula, Wladyslaw Fierla’s close friend, who also came from Slask Cieszynski. All these resulted in intensifi cation of mutual relations between both Churches. Th eir apogee was in 1956-1975, that is to say, time of Wantula’s domination in authorities of Protestant-Augsburg Church in Poland. This period is a subject of an article.

The Legal Status of Churches in the Soviet Union

The Legal Status of Churches in the Soviet Union