[[Image:State Religions.svg|right|thumb|400px|Nations with state
religions:
]]
A
state religion (also called an
official
religion,
established church or
state church) is a
religious body or
creed
officially endorsed by the
state.
Practically, a state without a state religion is called a
secular state. The term
state church
is associated with
Christianity, and is
sometimes used to denote a specific national branch of
Christianity. Closely related to state churches are what
sociologists call
ecclesiae, though the two
are slightly different. State religions are examples of the
official or government-sanctioned
establishment of religion, as
distinct from
theocracy. It is also
possible for a national church to become established without being
under state control. The first national
church was the
Armenian Orthodox Church which was
established in 301 A.D.
Types of state churches
The degree and nature of state backing for denomination or creed
designated as a state religion can vary. It can range from mere
endorsement and financial support, with freedom for other faiths to
practice, to prohibiting any competing religious body from
operating and to persecuting the followers of other sects. In
Europe, competition between Catholic and Protestant denominations
for state sponsorship in the 16th century evolved the principle
cuius regio eius
religio ("states follow the religion of the ruler")
embodied in the text of the
treaty that
marked the
Peace of Augsburg,
1555.
In
England
the monarch imposed Protestantism in 1533, with
himself taking the place of the Pope, while in Scotland
the Church of
Scotland
opposed the religion of the ruler.
In some
cases, a state may have a set of state-sponsored religious
denominations that it funds; such is the case in Alsace-Moselle in France
, following
the pattern in Germany
.
In some
communist states, notably in
North
Korea
and Cuba
, the state
sponsors religious organizations, and activities outside those
state-sponsored religious organizations are met with various
degrees of official disapproval. In these cases, state
religions are widely seen as efforts by the state to prevent
alternate sources of authority.
State church vs state religion
There is also a difference between a "state church" and "state
religion". A "state church" is created by the state, as in the
cases of the
Anglican Church,
created by
Henry VIII or the
Church of Sweden, created by
Gustav Vasa. An example of "state religion" is
Argentina's acceptance of Catholicism as its religion. In the case
of the former, the state has absolute control over the church, but
in the case of the latter, in this example, the
Vatican has control over the church.
Sociology of state churches
Sociologists refer to mainstream non-state religions as
denominations. State religions tend
to admit a larger variety of opinion within them than
denominations. Denominations encountering major differences of
opinion within themselves are likely to split; this option is not
open for most state churches, so they tend to try to integrate
differing opinions within themselves.
Many sociologists now consider the effect of a state church as
analogous to a chartered
monopoly in
religion.
Where state religions exist, it is usually true the majority of
residents are officially considered adherents; however, much of
this support is little more than nominal; many members of the
church rarely attend it. But the population's allegiance towards
the state religion is often strong enough to prevent them from
joining competing religious groups.
A denomination's status as official religion does not always imply
that the jurisdiction prohibits the existence or operation of other
sects or religious bodies. It all depends upon the government and
the level of tolerance the citizens of that country have for other
religions. Some countries with official religions have laws that
guarantee the freedom of worship, full liberty of conscience, and
places of worship for all citizens; and implement those laws more
than other countries that do not have an official or established
state religion.
Disestablishment
Disestablishment is the process of divesting a
church of its status as an organ of the state. Supporters of
retaining an established church call themselves
"antidisestablishmentarianists" —
one of the longest words in the
English language.
England
In late-19th-century England there was a campaign by
Liberals,
dissenters and
nonconformists to disestablish the
Church of England which was viewed, in the
period after civil
Chartist activism, as a
discriminatory organisation placing employment and other access
disabilities on non-members.
The campaigners styled themselves "Liberationists" (the "Liberation
Society" was founded by
Edward Miall in
1853). Though their campaign failed, nearly all
of the legal disabilities of nonconformists were gradually
dismantled. The campaign for disestablishment was revived in the
20th century when Parliament rejected
the
1929 revision of the
Book of Common Prayer, leading to
calls for separation of Church and State to prevent political
interference in matters of worship.
In the late 20th century, reform of the
House of
Lords
also brought into question the position of the
Lords Spiritual. Another issue
of controversy is the
Act of
Settlement 1701 which determines succession to the
British monarchy, under which the head of
state is also the head of the Church of England.
Scotland
In
Scotland, where the Presbyterian Church of Scotland is the national church, there were similar
debates. Antidisestablishmentarian members of the
Free Church of Scotland delayed merger with the
United Presbyterian
Church of Scotland.
Wales
In Wales, four Church of England dioceses were disestablished in
1920, becoming separated from the Church of England in the process
and subsequently becoming the
Church in
Wales.
Ireland
in Ireland
(then part of the United
Kingdom
and where the majority of the population were
Roman Catholic) the (Anglican)
Church of Ireland was
disestablished in 1869 (effective 1871).
United States of America
The
First
Amendment to the
US Constitution explicitly
forbids the U.S.
federal government from enacting any law respecting a
religious establishment, and thus forbids either designating an
official church for the United States, or interfering with State
and local official churches — which were common when the First
Amendment was enacted. It did not prevent
state governments from establishing
official churches.
Connecticut
continued to do so until it replaced its colonial
Charter with the
Connecticut
Constitution of 1818; Massachusetts retained an establishment
of religion in general until 1833. (The Massachusetts system
required every man to belong to some church, and pay taxes towards
it; while it was formally neutral between denominations, in
practice the indifferent would be counted as belonging to the
majority denomination, and in some cases religious minorities had
trouble being recognized at all.)
The
Fourteenth
Amendment to the
US Constitution, ratified
in 1868, makes no mention of religious establishment, but forbids
the states to "abridge the privileges or immunities" of U.S.
citizens, or to "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law". In the 1947 case of
Everson v. Board of Education, the United
States Supreme Court held that this later provision
incorporates the First
Amendment's Establishment Clause as applying to the States, and
thereby prohibits state and local religious establishments.
The exact
boundaries of this prohibition are still disputed, and are a
frequent source of cases before the US Supreme
Court
— especially as the Court must now balance, on a
state (similar, but not equivalent to province) level, the First
Amendment prohibitions on government establishment of official
religions with the First Amendment prohibitions on government
interference with the free exercise of religion. See
school prayer for such a controversy
in contemporary US politics.
All
current U.S. state constitutions include guarantees of religious
liberty parallel to the First Amendment, but eight (Arkansas
, Maryland
, Massachusetts
, North
Carolina
, Pennsylvania
, South
Carolina
, Tennessee
, and Texas
) also
contain clauses that prohibit atheists from holding public
office.However, these clauses have been held by the
United
States Supreme Court
to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of
Torcaso v.
Watkins, where the court
ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test
incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.
Present state religions
Currently, the following religions are recognized as state
religions in some countries: some form of
Christianity,
Islam and
Buddhism.
Christian countries
The following states recognize some form of
Christianity as their state or official
religion (by denomination):
Roman Catholic
Jurisdictions which recognize
Roman Catholicism as their state or
official religion:
A number
of countries, including Andorra
, Italy
, Paraguay
, Peru
, Poland
, Portugal
, Slovakia
, and Spain
, give a
special recognition to Catholicism in their constitution despite
not making it the state religion.
Eastern Orthodox
Jurisdictions which recognize one of the
Eastern Orthodox Churches as their
state religion:
- Cyprus
- Greece
(Church of Greece)
- Finland
: Finnish
Orthodox Church has a special relationship with the Finnish
state. The internal structure of the church is described in
the Orthodox Church Act. The church has a power to tax its members
and corporations if a majority of shareholders are members. The
church does not consider itself a state church, as the state does
not have the authority to affect its internal workings or
theology.
Oriental Orthodox
Jurisdictions which recognize one of the
Oriental Orthodox Churches as their
state religion:
Lutheran
Jurisdictions which recognize a
Lutheran
church as their state religion:
- Denmark
(Church of
Denmark)
- Iceland
(Church of
Iceland)
- Norway
(Church of Norway)
- Finland: Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Finland has a special relationship with the Finnish
state, its internal structure being described in a special law, the
Church Act. The Church Act can be amended only by a decision
of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and subsequent
ratification by the parliament. The Church Act is protected by the
Finnish constitution, and the state can not change the Church Act
without changing the constitution. The church has a power to tax
its members and all corporations unless a majority of shareholders
are members of the Finnish
Orthodox Church. The state collects these taxes for the church,
for a fee. On the other hand, the church is required to give a
burial place for everyone in its graveyards. The Finnish president
also decides the themes for the intercession days. The church does
not consider itself a state church, as the Finnish state does not
have the power to influence its internal workings or its theology,
although it has a veto in those changes of the internal structure
which require changing the Church Act. Neither does the Finnish
state accord any precedence to Lutherans or the Lutheran faith in
its own acts.
Anglican
Jurisdictions that recognise an
Anglican
church as their state religion:
Reformed
Jurisdictions which recognize a
Reformed church as their state
religion:
Old Catholic
Jurisdictions which recognize an
Old
Catholic church as their state religion:
Islamic countries
Although the
separation
of church and state was first theorized by
Averroes, most Muslim-majority countries recognize
Islam as the state religion, but most of them do not place Sharia
Law as the constitution itself .
Sunni Islam
Shi'a Islam
- Iran
(as
state-sanctioned religion)
Buddhism as state religion
Governments which recognize
Buddhism,
either a specific form of, or the whole, as their official
religion:
1. Buddhism is the spiritual heritage of Bhutan, which promotes the
principles and values of peace, non-violence, compassion and
tolerance.
2. The Druk Gyalpo is the protector of all religions in
Bhutan.
3. It shall be the responsibility of religious institutions and
personalities to promote the spiritual heritage of the country
while also ensuring that religion remains separate from politics in
Bhutan. Religious institutions and personalities shall remain above
politics.
4. The Druk Gyalpo shall, on the recommendation of the Five Lopons,
appoint a learned and respected monk ordained in accordance with
the Druk-lu, blessed with the nine qualities of a spiritual master
and accomplished in ked-dzog, as the Je Khenpo.5. His Holiness the
Je Khenpo shall, on the recommendation of the Dratshang Lhentshog,
appoint monks blessed with the nine qualities of a spiritual master
and accomplished in ked-dzog as the Five Lopons.
6. The members of the Dratshang Lhentshog shall comprise:
(a) The Je Khenpo as Chairman;
(b) The Five Lopons of the Zhung Dratshang; and
(c) The Secretary of the Dratshang Lhentshog who is a civil
servant.
7. The Zhung Dratshang and Rabdeys shall continue to receive
adequate funds and other facilities from the State.
Additional notes
- Israel
is defined
in several of its laws as a "Jewish and democratic state"
(medina yehudit ve-demokratit). However, the term
"Jewish" is a polyseme
that can relate equally to the Jewish people or religion (see:
Who is a Jew?). The debate about the
meaning of the term Jewish and its legal and social applications is
one of the most profound issues with which Israeli society deals.
At present, there is no specific law or official statement
establishing the Jewish religion as the state's religion.
However, the State of Israel supports religious institutions,
particularly Orthodox Jewish ones,
and recognizes the "religious communities" as carried over from
those recognized under the British Mandate. These are: Jewish and
Christian (Eastern Orthodox, Latin [Catholic], Gregorian-Armenian,
Armenian-Catholic, Syrian [Catholic], Chaldean [Uniate], Greek
Catholic Melkite, Maronite, and Syrian Orthodox). The fact that the
Muslim population was not defined as a religious community is a
vestige of the Ottoman period during which Islam was the dominant
religion and does not affect the rights of the Muslim community to
practice their faith. At the end of the period covered by this
report, several of these denominations were pending official
government recognition; however, the Government has allowed
adherents of not officially recognized groups freedom to practice.
In 1961, legislation gave Muslim Shari'a courts exclusive
jurisdiction in matters of personal status. Three additional
religious communities have subsequently been recognized by Israeli
law – the Druze (prior under Islamic
jurisdiction), the Evangelical Episcopal Church, and the Bahá'í.[37495] These groups have their own religious courts
as official state courts for personal status matters (see millet system). The structure and
goals of the Chief Rabbinate
of Israel are governed by Israeli law, but the law does not say
explicitly that it is a state Rabbinate. Non-recognition of other
streams of Judaism is the cause of some controversy. As of 2007,
there is no civil marriage in Israel, although there is recognition
of marriages performed abroad.
- Nepal
was once
the world's only Hindu state, but has ceased to be so following a
declaration by the Parliament in 2006.
- Many countries indirectly fund the activities of different
religious denominations by granting tax-exempt status to churches
and religious institutions which qualify as charitable organizations. However,
these religions are not established as state religions.
Ancient state religions
Egypt and Sumer
The
concept of state religions was known as long ago as the empires of
Egypt
and Sumer, when every city
state or people had its own god or gods. Many of the early
Sumerian rulers were priests of their patron city god.
Some of the earliest
semi-mythological kings may have passed into the pantheon, like
Dumuzid, and some later kings came to be
viewed as divine soon after their reigns, like Sargon the Great of Akkad
.
One of
the first rulers to be proclaimed a god during his actual reign was
Gudea of Lagash
, followed
by some later kings of Ur
, such as
Shulgi. Often, the state religion was
integral to the power base of the reigning government, such as in
Egypt, where Pharaohs were often thought of as embodiments of the
god Horus.
Persian empire
Zoroastrianism was the state religion
of the
Sassanid dynasty which
lasted until 651, when Persia was conquered by the forces of Islam.
However, it persisted as the state religion of the independent
state of
Hyrcania until the 15th
century.
The tiny kingdom of
Adiabene in northern
Mesopotamia converted to Judaism around 34 AD.
Greek city-states
Many of the Greek city-states also had a 'god' or 'goddess'
associated with that city. This would not be the 'only god' of the
city, but the one that received special honors.
In ancient Greece the
city of Athens
had
Athena, Sparta
had
Artemis, Delos
had
Apollo and Artemis, and Olympia
had Zeus.
Roman Religion and Christianity
In Rome, the office of
Pontifex
Maximus came to be reserved for the emperor, who was often
declared a 'god' posthumously, or sometimes during his reign.
Failure to worship the emperor as a god was at times punishable by
death, as the Roman government sought to link emperor worship with
loyalty to the Empire. Many Christians and Jews were subject to
persecution, torture and death in the Roman Empire, because it was
against their beliefs to worship the emperor.
In 311, Emperor
Galerius, on his deathbed,
declared a religious indulgence to Christians throughout the Roman
Empire, focusing on the ending of anti-Christian persecution.
Constantine I and
Licinius, the two
Augusti, by the
Edict of Milan of 313, enacted a law allowing
religious freedom to everyone within the Roman Empire. Furthermore,
the Edict of Milan cited that Christians may openly practice their
religion unmolested and unrestricted, and provided that properties
taken from Christians be returned to them unconditionally. Although
the Edict of Milan allowed religious freedom throughout the empire,
it did not abolish nor disestablish the Roman state cult (Roman
polytheistic paganism). The Edict of Milan was written in such a
way as to implore the blessings of the deity.
Constantine called up the
First
Council of Nicaea in 325, although he was not a baptised
Christian until years later.
Despite enjoying considerable popular
support, Christianity was still not the official state religion in
Rome, although it was in some neighboring states such as Armenia
and Aksum.
Roman Religion (
Neoplatonic Hellenism) was restored for a
time by
Julian the Apostate from
361 to 363. Julian does not appear to have reinstated the
persecutions of the earlier
Roman
emperors.
Catholic Christianity, as opposed to
Arianism and other heretical and schismatic groups, was declared to
be the state religion of the
Roman
Empire on February 27, 380 by the decree
De Fide
Catolica of Emperor
Theodosius
I.
Han Dynasty Confucianism
In China, the
Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220
AD) advocated
Confucianism as the
de facto state religion, establishing tests based on
Confucian texts as an entrance requirement into government service.
The Han emperors appreciated the societal order which is a central
concept of Confucianism.
Neo-confucianism returned as the
de
facto state religion sometime in the 10th century. Note
however, there is a debate over whether Confucianism (including
Neo-confucianism) is a religion or purely a philosophical
system.
Modern era
Empire of Japan
From the
Meiji era to the first part of
the
Showa era,
Koshitsu Shinto was established in Japan
as the national religion. According to this, the
emperor of Japan was an
arahitogami, an incarnate divinity and the
offspring of goddess
Amaterasu. As the
emperor was, according to the constitution, "head of the empire"
and "supreme commander of the Army and the Navy", every Japanese
citizen had to obey his will and show absolute loyalty.
States without any state religion
These states do not profess any state religion, and are generally
secular or
laic. Countries which officially decline
to establish any religion include:
Established churches and former state churches
- The Journal of Ecclesiastical History – Page 268 by Cambridge
University Press, Gale Group, C.W. Dugmore
- Argentina Constitution: Section 2, Constitutional Law.
- The Constitution of Costa Rica, TITLE VI: RELIGION, CostaRicaLaw.com.
- Constitution of the Principality of
Liechtenstein: Article 37(2), digital
Liechtenstein.
- Malta - Constitution, Constitutional Law, Section 2 [State Religion].
- CONSTITUTION DE LA PRINCIPAUTE (French): Art.
9., Principaute De Monaco: Ministère d'Etat.
- THE CONSTITUTION OF GREECE : SECTION II
RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE, Hellenic Resources network.
- Finland - Constitution, Section 76 The Church Act,
http://servat.unibe.ch/icl/fi00000_.html.
- Denmark - Constitution: Section 4 [State
Church], Constitutional Law.
- Constitution of the Republic of Iceland: Article 62,
Government of
Iceland.
- Norway - Constitution: Article 2 [Religion, State
Religion], Constitutional Law.
- Shariah in Somalia – Arab News
- : "Article 1 [State] Tunisia is a free State, independent and
sovereign; its religion is the Islam, its language is Arabic, and
its form is the Republic"
- (Article 43)
- (Article IV, Section 3e)
- Constitution of the Republic of Hungary
- The right of thought, the freedom of conscience and
religion –Hungary.hu
- Draft Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo
- The Constitution of Lebanon specifies that the
President is elected by the Chamber of Deputies, in which equal
representation between Christians and Muslims is constitutionally
required, and specifies that the President designates the Prime
Minister in consultation with the President of the Chamber of
Deputies.
- Article 25 of the constitution states: "1. Churches and other
religious organizations shall have equal rights. 2. Public
authorities in the Republic of Poland shall be impartial in matters
of personal conviction"
- Under the 1967 Constitution, Roman Catholicism was the state
religion (Article 6: "The Roman Catholic Apostolic religion is the
state religion, without prejudice to religious freedom, which is
guaranteed in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.
Official relations of the republic with the Holy See shall be
governed by concordats or other bilateral agreements." The 1992
Constitution, which replaced the 1967 one, establishes Paraguay as
a secular state, as mentioned in section (1) of Article 24:
"Freedom of religion, worship, and ideology is recognized without
any restrictions other than those established in this Constitution
and the law. The State has no official religion."
- Article VI of the North Carolina state
constitition
- Struggle For Statehood Edward Leo Lyman,
Utah History Encyclopedia
Former state churches in British North America
Protestant colonies
Catholic colonies
- When
New France was transferred to Great
Britain
in 1763, the Roman Catholic Church remained under
toleration, but Huguenots were allowed
entrance where they had formerly been banned from settlement by
Parisian authorities.
- The Colony of Maryland was
founded by a charter granted in 1632 to George Calvert, secretary
of state to Charles I, and his son Cecil, both recent converts to
Roman Catholicism. Under their leadership many English Catholic
gentry families settled in Maryland. However, the colonial
government was officially neutral in religious affairs, granting
toleration to all Christian groups and enjoining them to avoid
actions which antagonized the others. On several occasions
low-church dissenters led insurrections which temporarily overthrew
the Calvert rule. In 1689, when William and Mary came to the
English throne, they acceded to demands to revoke the original
royal charter. In 1701 the Church of England was proclaimed, and in
the course of the eighteenth century Maryland Catholics were first
barred from public office, then disenfranchised, although not all
of the laws passed against them (notably laws restricting property
rights and imposing penalties for sending children to be educated
in foreign Catholic institutions) were enforced, and some Catholics
even continued to hold public office.
- Spanish
Florida was ceded to Great Britain in 1763, the British divided Florida into two
colonies. Both East and West Florida continued a policy of
toleration for the Catholic Residents.
Colonies with no established church
Tabular Summary
In several colonies, the establishment ceased to exist in practice
at the
Revolution, about 1776;
this is the date of permanent legal abolition.
in 1789 the Georgia Constitution was amended as follows:"Article
IV. Section 10. No person within this state shall, upon any
pretense, be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping
God in any manner agreeable to his own conscience, nor be compelled
to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and
judgment; nor shall he ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any
other rate, for the building or repairing any place of worship, or
for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what
he believes to be right, or hath voluntarily engaged. To do. No one
religious society shall ever be established in this state, in
preference to another; nor shall any person be denied the enjoyment
of any civil right merely on account of his religious
principles."
From 1780 Massachusetts had a system which required every man to
belong to a church, and permitted each church to tax its members,
but forbade any law requiring that it be of any particular
denomination. This was objected to, as in practice establishing the
Congregational Church, the majority denomination, and was abolished
in 1833.
Until 1877 the New Hampshire Constitution required members of the
State legislature to be of the Protestant religion.
The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican
church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants
to hold public office. From 1835-1876 it allowed only Christians
(including Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8
of the current NC Constitution forbids only atheists from holding
public office.
Such clauses were held by the United
States Supreme Court to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court ruled unanimously
that such clauses constituted a religious test incompatible with
First and
Fourteenth
Amendment protections.
Religious tolerance for Catholics with an established Church of
England was policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West
Florida while under British rule.
In
1783 Peace of
Paris, which ended the
American Revolutionary War, the
British ceded both East and West Florida back to Spain (see
Spanish Florida).
Tithes for the support of the Anglican Church in Virginia were
suspended in 1776, and never restored. 1786 is the date of the
Virginia Statute
of Religious Freedom, which prohibited any coercion to support
any religious body.
State of Deseret
The
State of Deseret was a provisional
state of the United States
, proposed in 1849 by Mormon
settlers in Salt
Lake City
. The provisional state existed for
slightly over two years, but attempts to gain recognition by the
United States government floundered for various reasons. The
Utah Territory which was then founded
was under Mormon control, and repeated attempts to gain statehood
met resistance, in part due to concerns over the principle of
separation of church and state conflicting with the practice of
members of
The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of placing their highest
value on "following counsel" in virtually all matters relating to
their church-centered lives.
The state of Utah
was
eventually admitted to the union on January 4, 1896, after the
various issues had been resolved.
See also
References
- The Journal of Ecclesiastical History – Page 268 by Cambridge
University Press, Gale Group, C.W. Dugmore
- Argentina Constitution: Section 2, Constitutional Law.
- The Constitution of Costa Rica, TITLE VI: RELIGION, CostaRicaLaw.com.
- Constitution of the Principality of
Liechtenstein: Article 37(2), digital
Liechtenstein.
- Malta - Constitution, Constitutional Law, Section 2 [State Religion].
- CONSTITUTION DE LA PRINCIPAUTE (French): Art.
9., Principaute De Monaco: Ministère d'Etat.
- THE CONSTITUTION OF GREECE : SECTION II
RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE, Hellenic Resources network.
- Finland - Constitution, Section 76 The Church Act,
http://servat.unibe.ch/icl/fi00000_.html.
- Denmark - Constitution: Section 4 [State
Church], Constitutional Law.
- Constitution of the Republic of Iceland: Article 62,
Government of
Iceland.
- Norway - Constitution: Article 2 [Religion, State
Religion], Constitutional Law.
- Shariah in Somalia – Arab News
- : "Article 1 [State] Tunisia is a free State, independent and
sovereign; its religion is the Islam, its language is Arabic, and
its form is the Republic"
- (Article 43)
- (Article IV, Section 3e)
- Constitution of the Republic of Hungary
- The right of thought, the freedom of conscience and
religion –Hungary.hu
- Draft Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo
- The Constitution of Lebanon specifies that the
President is elected by the Chamber of Deputies, in which equal
representation between Christians and Muslims is constitutionally
required, and specifies that the President designates the Prime
Minister in consultation with the President of the Chamber of
Deputies.
- Article 25 of the constitution states: "1. Churches and other
religious organizations shall have equal rights. 2. Public
authorities in the Republic of Poland shall be impartial in matters
of personal conviction"
- Under the 1967 Constitution, Roman Catholicism was the state
religion (Article 6: "The Roman Catholic Apostolic religion is the
state religion, without prejudice to religious freedom, which is
guaranteed in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.
Official relations of the republic with the Holy See shall be
governed by concordats or other bilateral agreements." The 1992
Constitution, which replaced the 1967 one, establishes Paraguay as
a secular state, as mentioned in section (1) of Article 24:
"Freedom of religion, worship, and ideology is recognized without
any restrictions other than those established in this Constitution
and the law. The State has no official religion."
- Article VI of the North Carolina state
constitition
- Struggle For Statehood Edward Leo Lyman,
Utah History Encyclopedia
External links
(Islamic state)
(Uses Islamic jurisprudence in private law , and in
Aceh special territory
as a basic law. Officially also recognize
Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and
Confucianism as religion, but they have
much less influence in government and law) .
(Islamic state)
(Islamic state)
(Islamic kingdom)
(the newly established coalition government
announced in March 2009 that it would implement shari'a as the nation's official judicial
system.)
(Islamic
state)
(Drukpa Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism) Article 3, Spiritual
Heritage
(Theravada
Buddhism)
, a republic within the Russian
Federation
(Tibetan Buddhism -
sole Buddhist entity in Europe)
(Theravada
Buddhism - The constitution accords Buddhism the "foremost
place," but Buddhism is not recognized as the state
religion.
(Theravada
Buddhism)
is constituted as a secular state with religious freedom guarantees. In
one region of the country is the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao, which composed of all the country's predominantly
Muslim provinces, the Regional
Assembly is empowered to legislate on matters covered by the
Shari'ah. Such legislation, however, applies only to Muslim.
Laist
State since 1988.
(Taiwan)
(Shinto
until end of WWII)
(although by custom the president is a Maronite
Catholic, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the
parliament a Shi'a Muslim.)
(federally secular, but allowing for the
institutionalization of Islam and sharia in
the predominantly-Muslim northern states)
(Lutheran (Church of Sweden) until December 31,
1999.)
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