Loccumer contract
The contract concluded between the state of Lower Saxony and the Protestant regional churches in Lower Saxony on March 19, 1955 is referred to as the Loccumer Treaty . The designation refers to the place of signature, the Loccum monastery . The Loccumer contract was modified in 1965 by a supplementary contract. It belongs to the genus of state church treaties .
Content of the contract
The Loccumer Treaty is a comprehensive contract between the state and Protestant churches. In this respect, it differs from contracts that only regulate a certain subject (such as institutional pastoral care , state benefits, etc.). The content of the regulations comprehensively affects the common affairs of the state and the churches, such as religious instruction, theological faculties, institutional pastoral care, political clauses , changes to parishes , church taxes , state benefits, etc. Public, diaconal action and the church's right to self-determination) and affirmed on a contractual level.
In a supplementary agreement from 1965, educational and cultural issues were clarified following the regulations of the Lower Saxony Concordat of 1965.
Individual provisions of the contract
Public assignment of the churches - "Loccumer formula"
In the preamble to the contract, the contracting parties declare agreement on the Church's public relations mandate and its independence. The concept of the church's public claim was coined by Rudolf Smend after the Second World War and filled in in accordance with the coordination doctrine of the time. In terms of content, this so-called Loccumer formula was intended to give the church an ethical, political guardian role and a right of resistance against the state. According to the coordination doctrine that prevailed until the end of the 1960s, the state should recognize that the view of the churches should have weight in political decisions in the interests of the common good. Another outflow of the doctrine of coordination was the independence of the churches expressed in the Loccumer formula , i. H. these were legal entities not dependent on a state guarantee. Rather, they existed independently of the state and were not completely subject to its regulatory power; they were more on an equal footing with him than as legally subject.
The Loccumer formula has been criticized and reassessed in its reach after overcoming the coordination theory. Nonetheless, it was still used, for example in the church treaties of the new federal states in the 1990s and in the Brandenburg constitution. The public relations mandate is no longer seen as a political watchdog of the churches, but as an outgrowth of freedom of expression and freedom of belief. According to this concept, the churches should be able to participate freely in social life. The Loccumer formula processes in the East German church treaties the experiences from the GDR , where church activity was exposed to various restrictions and discrimination. It has changed from a description of a mission for the common good to a guarantee of freedom by the churches.
Political Clause
The church treaties of the Weimar period provided for state rights to information when church leaders were appointed. Before filling certain ecclesiastical offices (e.g. bishop), the church undertook to ask the state government whether there were general political concerns about the candidates for the position. Even during the Weimar period, the corresponding regulations were not linked to the state's right of veto due to the regulation in Art. 137 WRV (religious communities confer their offices without the involvement of the state). The state could expressly only raise political objections, but not party political or ecclesiastical ones. The Loccumer Treaty maintains this tradition and regulates the church's duty to inquire in Article 7. The regulation is understood to mean that the state government can assert reservations for reasons of state policy if the candidate takes a fundamental opposition to the state. According to Article 7, Paragraph 1, Sentence 2, this prior information and reinsurance obligation does not apply in cases where an office is filled by the Synod through election. Since every church leadership office is now assigned by the synod, the political clause no longer has any practical significance.
Triennium
The so-called triennium traditionally defines the prerequisites for a call to a spiritual office in the church. Articles 8 and 9 of the Loccumer Contract determine the requirements for employment:
- German nationality
- University entrance qualification
- At least three years of theological studies at a German state or equivalent Austrian / Swiss university
The requirement of German citizenship goes back to the state church times when pastors were state officials. This requirement is probably unlawful under the application of the Basic Law and the prohibition of discrimination under European law. Due to the unrestricted, consensual dispensation options in Article 8 (2), the requirement of German citizenship is practically no longer significant.
The last criterion is used to ensure the capacity of the theological faculties. A guarantee of existence should only apply to these as long as the churches also have their future ministers trained here.
The regulations on the necessary previous education are also intended to ensure consistency with state service law by ensuring that the pastoral office is roughly equivalent to the higher service in public administration (cf., for example, Section 13 BBG with its requirements).
Theological faculties
In the area of Lower Saxony, Article 3 guarantees the continued existence of the theological faculties. The appointment of university lecturers provides for an opinion procedure on the part of the regional churches, whereby according to the text of the contract, the regional churches cannot participate in the decision, but can only give an assessment. Due to the denomination of research and teaching in the theological faculty and the religious and ideological neutrality of the state, the churches are nonetheless entitled to codecision, i. H. Without their consent, no university professor can be appointed to train future pastors.
The Loccumer contract also lacks a subsequent right of objection for university lecturers. A corresponding authority, as is traditionally to be found in the Catholic Concordats, is nevertheless granted to the Protestant churches for constitutional reasons. The religious and ideological neutrality and confessional orientation require that only university professors who are based on the confession and teaching of the Evangelical Church participate in the training of prospective pastors. Use case is the Göttingen theologian Gerd Lüdemann , who renounced Christianity, was no longer included in the theological training and is no longer part of the theological faculty.
meaning
The Loccumer Treaty was the first comprehensive contract between the state and a religious community after the Second World War and under the application of the Basic Law. After the first high phase in the Weimar period with the conclusion of the Prussian , Bavarian and Baden church treaties, the Loccum Treaty demonstrated the usefulness and necessity of the contractual means, also under the application of the Basic Law. Even under the new framework of the Basic Law, there was thus a need for contractual regulation.
The Loccum Treaty served as a model and role model for the state church treaties that were concluded in the following period. It formed the starting point of the second phase of the state church treaties, which came to an end with the conclusion of the Hessian church treaty in 1965. These state church treaties were based on the formulations and regulations of the Loccumer Treaty. In this respect, the Loccum Treaty was formative for the state church treaties up to the beginning of the third phase of the state church treaties , starting with the Wittenberg treaty from 1993.
In contrast to the Weimar period, the Loccumer Treaty was an evangelical church treaty that served as a model. Only then did negotiations with the Catholic Church (which were extremely difficult in Lower Saxony) for the purpose of concluding a concordat at state level. On the one hand, the possibility of a contract - unlike in the Weimar Republic - was undisputed with the Protestant regional churches. On the other hand, there was no nationwide regulation of the relationship between the state and regional churches on the Protestant side comparable to the Reich Concordat. The Catholic side did not want to promote any contractual practice devaluing the Reich Concordat and was accordingly negative about a new conclusion. Only with the concordat ruling of the BVerfG did this attitude change, in that the limited effectiveness of the Reich Concordat at the federal level was established.
Compared to the church treaties from the Weimar period, the regulations of the Loccum Treaty are already less pronounced in the state church and pay more attention to church independence. The Loccum Treaty, and with it in general the means of the contract between the state and religious communities, was regarded as an expression of the coordination theory of the time until the 1990s. With the overcoming of the doctrine of coordination, the means of the contract also seemed to be out of date. However, with the contracts concluded between the religious communities and the new federal states following reunification, this assessment is outdated. With the entry into force of the Baden-Württemberg church treaty in 2008, there are contractual regulations between the state and the Protestant church at the state level throughout Germany.
Individual evidence
- ^ Weber: The Wittenberg Treaty - A Loccum for the New Federal States? In: NVwZ 1994, pp. 759, 765.
- ^ Claudio Fuchs: The state church law of the new federal states. P. 126.
- ^ Weber: The Wittenberg Treaty - A Loccum for the New Federal States? In: NVwZ 1 1994, pp. 759, 765.
- ↑ Martin Heckel: The theological faculties in the secular constitutional state. S. ##.
- ↑ von Campenhausen, Erich Ruppel : Church Contract Law, NVwZ 1997, p. 260.
literature
- Ulrich Scheuner : The state church law scope of the Lower Saxony church treaty of Loccum monastery. ZevKR 6 (1957/58) p. 1 ff.
- Rudolf Smend : The Lower Saxony Church Treaty and today's German State Church Law. In: JZ 1956, p. 50 ff.