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[German Version] Both Roman Catholic and Protestant church law know the deanery as a supra-congregational administrative unit within the diocese and as a mid-level association within the regional church respectively. The dean is a pastor with supervision and leadership responsibilities in the deanery, including pastoral care as the pastor pastorum, ordination (Protestant), visitation, supervision, and administration. The functions of Roman Catholic deans derive from the bishops. Protestan…

[German Version] is a corporation of canons or canonesses. It is sometimes substantively and terminologically synonymous with chapter, which can at other times be distinguished as the administrative organ, and can sometimes be extended also to spiritual territory. “Stift” indicates the maintenance of the canons by means of an endowment (Benefice). Such foundations were originally set up to support public worship, and later also served general cultural and social purposes (such as providing mainten…

[German Version] A chapter is a collegial body with liturgical or administrative functions in the Catholic Church. It may be associated with a cathedral (cathedral chapter) or a collegiate church (collegiate chapter; now rare; see CIC/1983 cc. 503–510) or a deanery (Dean/Deanery) chapter = rural chapter). It is also the administrative body of a religious institute (monastic orders and societies of apostolic life; see CIC/1983 cc. 631–633, 734). See also cathedral chapter, canons, orders Catholic, (each with bibl.). The term has a similar use in…

[German Version] In the legal sense, this is the exclusion of an office/ministry (VII) from combination with another office or profession. The intention of incompatibility is to ensure an exercise of office that is appropriate to the task. The leading ideas to be emphasized include: the separation of powers in state law and the protection of the preaching task of the pastoral office in church law. Michael Germann Bibliography H.H. Klein, “Status des Abgeordneten,” in: J. Isensee & P. Kirchhof, eds., Handbuch des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vol. III, 32005, §51, 26–30 H…

[German Version] Generally speaking, particular law is the law governing a portion of a legal community. The concept presupposes a legal community that is inclusive (universal) but subdivided. In the history of secular law, it is commonly used for the local law in force in different territories against the background of the common law deriving from Roman law. In canon law (I, 3), it can refer to the law of particular churches (dioceses) against the background of the law of the worldwide Catholic C…

[German Version] As juridical persons, ecclesiastical corporations (Protestant regional churches, Catholic dioceses, local churches, etc.) are recognized by law as having legal rights and duties. In the context of the churches' own law this goes without saying (Legal capacity under church law). Germany's Basic Law, art. 140, with Weimar Constitution (WRV) art. 137, IV, recognizes the legal capacity of “religious bodies” “according to the general provisos of civil law”; WRV art. 137, V recognizes t…

[German Version] (Nov 8/20, 1838, near Kostroma, Russia – Jul 23/Aug 5, 1910, St. Petersburg). Gorchakov was a Russian Orthodox ecclesiastical law professor. He studied Protestant theology at Tübingen, Heidelberg, and Strasbourg, then law and ecclesiastical law at St. Petersburg, where he was ordained priest in 1865. In 1868 he became a lecturer, in 1871 he received his doctorate in law, in 1873 he became professor of ecclesiastical law, and in 1881 he received his doctorate in theology. He follow…

[German Version] A rural chapter or deanery chapter is a collegiate body comprising all the clergy of a deanery (Dean) in the Catholic Church (Chapter). Its canonical structure, developed in the 13th century, includes the right to elect or present the dean and certain administrative tasks. Several Protestant church orders initially adopted the institution. In Protestant church law today, the pastors’ assembly is a distant echo of the rural chapter. In Roman Catholic canon law, the rural chapter has preserved its corporate status in many particular churches. Michael Germann Bibliogra…

[German Version] I. In keeping with the vocabulary of civil law, ecclesiastical administrative acts can be described as decisions which an ecclesiastical body takes to regulate a specific case in ecclesiastical law. By definition, such decisions are only treated as administrative acts under civil law to the extent that in the applicable church-state system they have a share in the sovereignty of the state. II. The 1983 Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law gives detailed regulations in c. 35–93 for the presuppositions, forms, and effects of “s…

[German Version] In civil and canon law, publication (or promulgation) denotes the official public announcement of legal acts, especially legal norms. The term promulgation is generally preferred in Catholic canon law. Publication presupposes execution by the responsible body and is required for the law to take effect. The purpose of publication is to make it possible for those affected to know the law’s content; it puts the legal act into effect independently of de facto knowledge. The media in which norms are published are official journals and gazettes, for example the Bundesgesetz…

[German Version] Legal rights and duties apply primarily to individuals (“natural persons”; Person: III). In abbreviation, the law also grants organized entities the capacity to be addressed by rights and duties (legal capacity). If legal capacity is granted in relation to all other legally competent subjects, the law creates a juridical person. Lacking a natural capacity for acting, juridical persons “act” through their institutions. State law creates juridical persons under civil law (such as re…

[German Version] The right of appeal, in current juristic terminology, denotes the possibility made available by law of obtaining judicial review of a court decision. In a broader sense, the right of appeal includes all ¶ procedural rights to the review of official decisions (including non-judicial ones; legal redress). The history of law and jurisprudence recognizes a multiplicity of rights of appeal. The model of an orderly right of appeal based on factual and judicial scrutiny goes back to the appellation of Roman and canon law…

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Historical Development – III. Content and Function I. Terminology Church-state agreements (Ger. Kirchenverträge) are agreements between the state and a Protestant church. Along with agreements between the state and the Catholic Church (Concordats) and other religious bodies they constitute one source of modern law governing church and state. II. Historical Development These agreements have been possible in Germany ever since the Weimar Constitution of 1919 released the Protestant regional churches from …

[German Version] is the – especially judicial – assertion of subjective rights, i.e. of individual, legally guaranteed claims to the realization of an interest. Legal protection is an essential feature of the rule of law. The legal protection of the claims established by civil law has always been a central aspect of judiciary. Legal protection against governmental actions only became a practicable legal construction from the second half of the19th century with the dogmatic conception of public leg…

[German Version] viewed the relationship between church and state as an equal partnership between two sovereign powers (Violence: IV). It is rooted in corresponding teachings on the relationship between empire and papacy, and was invoked by Roman Catholic doctrine in the 19th century as an argument against the modern state's claim to sovereignty (in its configuration as secular supremacy). After 1945, if only temporarily, it once again attained a h…

[German Version] The legal capacity under church law is the ability to be addressed as a subject of rights and duties by the norms of church law. It neither presupposes nor necessarily follows from legal capacity under state law (Legal capacity of the church). The intrinsic criterion for the legal capacity under church law is involvement in the mission and promise of the church. It manifests itself in baptism (Matt 28:19–20: “Go” – “I am with you”). People thus acquire the legal capacity under chu…

[German Version] I. History and Practical Theology – II. Law I. History and Practical Theology Confirmation, understood here in a narrower sense as a rite in Protestant churches, has been interpreted and shaped differently. Today, it is common in almost all Protestant churches, even in families that are rather distanced from the church. The problems of confirmation already appeared in the Reformation period when confirmation began to develop as an independent rite in Protestant ch…

[German Version] I. Law – II. Social Ethics I. Law A culture state is a state that takes responsibility not only for the security and freedom of its citizens, but also their cultural concerns (Culture), nota bene, for ¶ the sake of its own cultural conditions. Legally, the culture state expresses itself in part in determinations of the objectives of state (clearly in art. 3 I 1 of the 1946 Bavarian Constitution: “Bavaria is a legal, cultural and social state”), otherwise in the establishment of the state educat…

[German Version] (Jurisdiction/Power of Jurisdiction) I. Catholic Church – II. Protestant Churches. I. Catholic Church The Codex Iuris Canonici (1983) ( CIC 1983) lays out the procedures of ecclesiastical trials in Book VII. The new code had a twofold purpose: to simplify the structures and procedures of the tribunals and to expedite trials. 1. By virtue of its own – i.e. divine – and exclusive authority, the church claims jurisdiction in litigation concerning spiritual and related matters – worship, ¶ doctrine, ecclesiastical assets and offices, violation of ecclesiastic…

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Canon Law I. Church History Censorship is the partial or total suppression of written or printed works based on prior or subsequent ecclesiastical or governmental examination. The NT already rejects false teaching (Tit 3:9f.), and the development of the NT canon presupposes a process of censorship. In the Early Church and the Middle Ages, heresy was condemned by synods and bishops, but actual censorship of books was practiced only in is…

[German Version] I. Catholic Church Voting rights give the opportunity to vote or be elected in an election, or under various circumstances to make a decision on one’s own responsibility (Church elections). Active elective rights can be based on membership in the church ( CIC/1983 cc. 96, 208; cf. c. 536: pastoral council; c. 537: finance committee) or on special legal entitlements such as membership in the college of cardinals (c. 349; Cardinal), the college of consultors (cc. 413 §2, 421 §1, 424) or cathedral chapter (c. 502 §3), the co…

[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Protestantism I. Catholicism Unlike private devotions, the official liturgy is performed in the name of the church by persons lawfully deputed (clergy and laity) and in a form approved by ecclesiastical authority (cf. CIC/1983 c. 834 §2; CCEO c. 668 §1). Therefore liturgy requires legal standards, which are the responsibility of the Apostolic See, the diocesan bishops, and the Bishops' conferences (c. 838). This is also the context of punitive and disciplinary measures. The CIC contains canons governing the celebration of the Eucharis…

[German Version] I. General Church History – II. Europe – III. Latin America I. General Church History Laicism (from Gk λαος/ laós, “people”; Laity) originated in 19th-century France ( laïcisme) as an aggressively anticlerical concept; originally it proposed absolute separation of the state, secular culture, and the church (esp. the Catholic Church; Church and state), opposing all public influence on the part of the church. Its intellectual roots were in the Enlightenment and especially the French Revolution – although it r…

[German Version] I. German Law Along with artistic freedom, Basic Law art. 5 § 3 guarantees freedom of “scholarship, research, and teaching.” The association of freedom of teaching with scholarship and research shows that the guarantee of the Basic Law applies only to scholarly teaching, i.e. teaching that presents the findings of one’s own research (and examines critically the findings of others). Freedom of teaching thus relates (albeit not exclusively) to teaching in public and private universitie…

[German Version] I. History As it developed in the Early Church and the Middle Ages, the term synod (from Gk σύνοδος/ sýnodos, “assembly, being together on the way”) cannot be separated from the term council. Only in 19th- and 20th-century Protestantism is a separate treatment warranted; in that context – with roots going back to the 16th century – the synod represents a new constitutional phenomenon (Church polity: IV, 2; V, 1.c). Its antecedents include medieval diocesan synods (as extensions of the provincial syn…

[German Version] I. New Testament Social structures that entrusted older individuals with functions on behalf of the community were widespread in the ancient Mediterranean world. In the memory of Israel, they were particularly important in the early history of the people (Num 11– 1 Sam 30:26ff.; 2 Sam 2:4; 12:17; Elders in the Old Testament). Their entrustment with local and regional judicial functions continued (reflected in Deut 19:12; cf. 11QT XLII 13f.) albeit often in diminished form. In the Ne…

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Church Law I. Church History Within the church's general duty to confront heresies, there has been, since the time of the Early Church, a particular responsibility to counteract heresies held by those that hold church offices. Until the late Middle Ages, this task was fulfilled by synodal or episcopal, and ultimately, papal decree – in the West, after a p…

[German Version] I. Bible – II. History – III. Law – IV. Church Administration – V. Ethics I. Bible 1. In Israel and Judah . From the 10th into the 8th century bce, only a rudimentary administration can be assumed in Israel and Judah in comparison to Egypt and Mesopotamia. State income was basically produced by the royal demesne, which at the time of Hezekiah supplied provisions for fortresses (royal seal). The royal demesne was under the control of a major-domo or steward ( 'šr ʿl hbyt; 1 Kgs 4:6, passim; epigraphic evidence in ReRö II, 113f.; in a private household: Gen 43:16, passim). The desi…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Church History – VI. Ethics – VII. Law I. Religious Studies As a solemn affirmation of a statement, an oath takes its religious quality from the underlying belief in the power of words to effect a blessing or curse (Blessing and curse). Therefore the early phenomenology of religion classed oaths with invective, curses, etc. as words of consecration: those who swear oaths identify themselves with their words and are “consecrated…

[German Version] I. Law 1. Catholicism. Within the total structure of the church, the teaching office is the court of final authority for preserving, transmitting and interpreting the faith. The teaching office stands under the Word of God (Vatican II, DV 10: magisterium non supra verbum Dei, sed eidem ministrat), and perceives its task as constantly involved in interaction with the other ecclesiastical witnesses ( loci theologici) to the Word of God. Consonance with all other courts and organs of the church is shown in the church’s reception (II) of decisions…

[German Version] I. Catholic Church – II. Orthodox Church – III. Protestantism – IV. Canon Law I. Catholic Church The term consecration is used to render various liturgical and canon law terms: ordinatio, dedicatio, consecratio, benedictio. This demonstrates that the content of the notion of consecration extends broadly. Common is the conviction of faith that an object of earthly reality is connected in a particular way with God and the saving work in Christ. This connection is related to the theology of …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Tolerance and intolerance must be defined in terms of their relationship to respect, coexistence, indifference, acceptance, and prejudice. In the public context, they ¶ correspond to the presence or absence of freedom of religion. They originate in the claim to exclusive religious truth or else collide with it. Tolerance requires insight into the human ability to err and into the limits of human cognition with regard to faith, whereas intolerance rejects this insight. Following Gerlitz,…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Church History – IV. Dogmatics – V. Liturgy – VI. Practical Theology – VII. Law and Legal History – VIII. Judaism I. Old Testament The search, mainly from a Protestant perspective, for antecedents of ordination in the Old Testament does not seem very promising, since no direct equivalent to Christian ordination as public commissioning of office-bearers by the community is to be found in the Hebrew Bible. Relevant research is mainly limited to the OT Jewish background of…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Early Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Church History – VI. Systematic Theology – VII. Practical Theology – VIII. Law – IX. Missiology I. Religious Studies Over the course of history, the word office has been used for a wide variety of functions. In every case, however, what is peculiar to the term is that it refers to an activity independent of the unique personal characteristics of the officeholder. In the context of religious studies, what first comes to mind is the office…