Tolerance Act
The Tolerance Act (English Toleration Act , Act of Toleration ) was an Act of the British Parliament from 24. May 1689 . It granted the nonconformists ( dissenters ) (members of parishes who had separated from the Anglican official church for reasons of faith ) limited religious freedom (with the exception of the English Unitarians ).
history
The absolutist pretensions of Charles I and his efforts in England and Scotland to make the Catholic Church again as the state religion, led in 1649 to the Civil War . After the restoration of the monarchy and the Anglican Church (1660), Charles II passed a law aimed at re-Catholicizing the country. However, the vast majority of the English wanted to remain Anglican.
Against Charles's will, Parliament passed the so-called Test Act in 1673 , which stipulated that only members of the Anglican Church were allowed to hold public offices. This led to the formal exclusion of members of all other religions, including Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants ( dissenters ), from these offices and from membership in parliament. Officials and officers had to take the so-called Supreme Oath, which said that the king's sovereignty over the church and the state was recognized, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was rejected and that the Anglicans were ready to receive communion.
Through the Glorious Revolution, the Parliament overthrew James II and transferred the royal dignity to the Protestants William of Orange and his wife Maria II , Jacob's daughter. Parliament passed the Toleration Act and published it on May 24, 1689.
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The act of tolerance allowed the nonconformists to practice their religion freely, including their own church buildings, preachers and teachers, provided that they swore an oath of loyalty . The act of tolerance applied to Quakers , Baptists (originated from the Puritan movement under the influence of the Dutch Anabaptist movement ), Congregationalists (also originated from the Puritan movement, a branch of the Evangelical Reformed church family, named after their parish version of Congregationalism ), Methodists (also an evangelical free church , emerged from the Anglican Church).
The nonconformists were no longer punished for their religious beliefs, but were not allowed to hold political offices. The law forbade the public practice of religion for Catholics and Unitarians (an anti-Trinitarian-liberal church, today also designates a panentheistic humanistic religion, which historically emerged from the rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity ). The law was very well received by the population, with only about six bishops and 400 other clergy refusing to take the Supreme Oath. These then finally formed their own religious community, the non-jurors (oath refusers).
Under certain conditions, the oath could be taken after a period of up to 30 days so that one could continue to hold office. However, two witnesses were necessary for this, who had to convince six other attendees as representatives of the Anglican Church of the credibility of the religious convictions in the interests of the state church. Failure to do so would result in arrest and torture.
British Catholics were allowed to practice their religion in public in 1791. The British Unitarians were put on an equal footing with other Protestant nonconformists or dissenters with the Unitarian Relief Act of 1813, in which the statements relating to the Trinity in the Act of Tolerance of 1689 were amended. In 1829, all legal restrictions were lifted for Catholics. The Dissenters had received legal equality with Anglicans a year earlier. Despite the temporary discrimination against dissenters and Catholics, acts of tolerance and test acts were important steps in the development of the modern idea of tolerance.
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Heussi : Compendium of Church History. 11th edition. Tübingen 1957, pp. 378-384.
- ^ Heinrich Bornkamm : Tolerance. In the history of Christianity. In: Religion Past and Present . 3rd edition, Volume VI, Column 944.
Web links
- Toleration Act, 1689 (Engl.)