Church sovereignty
The church authority is the sum of sovereign rights over religious and philosophical communities ( iura circa sacra ). A distinction is made between the church's right to self-determination and the church's power , i.e. the internal church's power to govern ( iura in sacra ).
In a sovereign state, it has church sovereignty. The intensity of their exercise is influenced by the degree of religious freedom and religious self-determination that the respective state guarantees.
history
Enforcement of state church sovereignty
Since the investiture dispute , the question of the relationship between state and church power arose in the German Reich. The intensity with which state church sovereignty was exercised varied greatly in different times and regions. Above all in Catholic areas where the sovereigns could not exercise internal church rights, absolutism led to a strong expansion of the iura circa sacra (cf. for example Josephinism ). Protestant princes, however, were also bishops "their" national church and united in your state as within the Church of God ( country Magnificent church government ).
In the 19th century there was increased state influence with secularization , beginning with the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, which increased during the Kulturkampf under Bismarck. Insofar as the sovereign princes were also bishops of their church, this function was increasingly separated from their state function and it was not uncommon for different authorities to be established for the separate exercise of spiritual and secular rights (e.g. consistory on the one hand and ministry of culture on the other).
The Weimar Constitution finally granted the churches the right to self-government, although this was limited for corporated communities with reference to the correlate theory . In the "total state" of National Socialism , the state church sovereignty was then again extremely expanded ( Gleichschaltung , church struggle ).
The theory of coordination as a countermovement
Going back to the Pope Leo XIII. founded Societas perfexta doctrine ( Immortale Dei ), the idea of an equal order of state and church (coordination doctrine ) developed in jurisprudence, according to which the state should have no sovereignty over the church and their relationships take place at the level of international law .
The doctrine that churches are endowed with “their own original sovereign functions” was still alive in the years after the Second World War and in 1961 led to the much-quoted statement by the Federal Court of Justice ,
- The Basic Law is based on the fundamental equality of state and church as independent powers. In principle, the churches are no longer subject to state sovereignty [and in the church's own sphere], state and church sovereignty are on an equal footing.
This was particularly important for legal protection in the church sector. The view, which has been heavily criticized in the literature, is now considered to have been overcome.
Governing Law
According to current German state church law , church sovereignty lies with the state; Art. 137 para. 3 sentence 1 WRV guarantees the church's self-determination only “within the limits of the law applicable to all”. In view of the separation of state and church , however, this is not a matter of legal or technical supervision . Rather, the religious and ideological communities are subject to state authority like any other social grouping (cf. for example trade inspection ). The exception is the supervision of the exercise of state power, for example when collecting church taxes .
Regarding legal protection against church action, it is controversial in jurisprudence and literature how religious freedom and the church's right to self-determination are to be protected against interference by state courts. While the Federal Court of Justice considers complaints to be unfounded in such cases , the Federal Constitutional Court already assumes inadmissibility for sensitive areas .
Classification
Traditionally, church sovereignty is divided into the state rights, some of which no longer exist under current law:
- jus reformandi : right to admit religious communities (today: freedom of association; subjective right to recognition as a public religious society ),
- jus advocatiae : right to protect the church,
- jus inspectionis : right to inspect the church.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peters , VVDStRL 11, 177 (187).
- ↑ BGHZ 34, 372 (374).
- ↑ BGH NJW 2000, 1555 (1556) - Jewish community, BGHZ 154, 306 (308 ff.) - Salvation Army; also BVerwGE 116, 86 (88).
- ↑ expressly again BVerfG of 9 December 2008 - 2 BvR 717/08 -, para. 6; also BVerwGE 117, 145 (146).
