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[German Version] is the support that one authority gives in individual cases to another at the latter’s request to enable it to perform its tasks, for example by granting sight of files, aid resources, etc. Official assistance given by a judicial act is called legal assistance. In Germany, according to article 35/I of the Basic Law, all federal and regional authorities are bound to give mutual legal and official assistance. However, this does not affect the churches unless they are exceptionally p…

[German Version] The term temporalities refers to the “temporal” assets of the church – goods and privileges that differ from “spiritualities” in having no immediate spiritual character. Historically, the separation of temporalities from spiritualities was of particular significance in resolving the Investiture Controversy, when a distinction was made between installing bishops in their spiritual office and endowing them with their secular rights and privileges. In Roman Catholic canon law, the law of church property is still dealt with in CIC/1983 under the heading De bonis e…

[German Version] In the broad sense, pastoral office is simply the ministry of a member of the clergy; in other words, an area of responsibility independent of its incumbent, defined for a particular, limited domain within the larger structure of the church and involving proclamation of God’s Word and administration of the sacraments. Usually this ministry is exercised within a defined body or territory such as a local church (Community) or parish. In recent decades, however, a substantial number …

[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Orthodox Church – III. Protestantism– IV. Anglican Church I. Catholicism In the Roman Catholic Church, archbishop is the title of the metropolitan (c. 435) or of the bishop of an archbishopric that belongs to no church province (e.g. Luxembourg, Vaduz); a titular archbishop is a bishop consecrated or designated to the title of a defunct archbishopric (e.g. high officials in the Roman Curia and in the papal diplomatic corps); occasionally the title is bestowed on a meritorious bishop as a mere honorific. Karl-Theodor Geringer Bibliography W. Aymans…

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Greco-Roman Antiquity – III. Biblical – IV. Law – V. Ethics I. History of Religions It was not until after the Second World War, in the course of which whole peoples had been murdered and critics persecuted, that in 1948 the UN proclaimed asylum to be a human right; not however in terms of the right of every persecuted human being to seek protection from others,…