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[German Version] (Aug 31, 1798, Cadolzburg – Jan 8, 1846, Berlin), Protestant jurisprudent. Puchta studied law at Erlangen, receiving his degree in 1820; after gaining his habilitation in Roman law in 1823, he became an associate professor. In 1825 he was appointed full professor at Munich; in 1835 he moved to Marburg and in 1837 to Leipzig. In 1842, when F.C. v. Savigny was appointed high chancellor, Puchta succeeded to his chair at Berlin, then the most prominent in Germany. In 1842 he was also …

[German Version] Following episcopalism (I) and territorialism, collegialism was the latest of the three 17th- and 18th century theories on the origin and legitimation of vesting ecclesiastical authority of prince in the Protestant territories of the German Empire. The early collegialists (C.M. Pfaff, L. v. Mosheim) were concerned to limit the comprehensive claim to the prince's authority over religious matters as an aspect of public order asserted …

[German Version] (Jan 7, 1811, Nuremberg – Jan 24, 1893, Nuremberg), Lutheran legal historian and canonist. He was appointed associate professor at Erlangen in 1840 and full professor in 1845. Besides Roman law and matrimonial law, his major interest was canon law (IV, 2.b), whose institutions he explained in the spirit of the historical school of law. In confessional disputes, he emphatically took the side of Lutheranism, while at the same time supporting greater independence of the church from the state. Christoph Link Bibliography C.A. Stumpf, Kirchenrecht als Bekenntnisrecht.…

[German Version] (Aug 21, 1860, Vienna – Sep 10, 1932, Prague), Catholic professor of canon law. After his habilitation in law in Vienna (1889), he was appointed associate professor (1891) and full professor (1894) in Chernivtsi. In 1896 he was appointed to a professorship in the faculty of law at Innsbruck. Wahrmund, who had been noted for his studies on legal history, became really famous in the “Wahrmund affair.” He aggressively asserted the incompatibility of the “Catholic worldview” with mode…

[German Version] (May 8, 1832, Gedern – Dec 30, 1895, Darmstadt), Protestant theologian and authority on ecclesiastical law. After studying at Gießen and seminary training, he served initially as a private tutor and Gymnasium teacher. In 1863 he was appointed professor of catechetics and ecclesiastical law at the seminary in Friedberg; in 1882 he was appointed chief consistorial councilor in Darmstadt and superintendent for Rheinhessen. Köhler considered ecclesiastical law a necessary function of …

[German Version] 1. Johannes (Nov 24, 1889, Kammerstein, Middle Franconia – Dec 15, 1965, Tübingen), Protestant teacher of constitutional and church law. After service in the church in Munich and later in Berlin, he became a private lecturer in 1923, and supernumerary professor in Berlin in 1926; in 1928, he was a full professor of public law and church law in Bonn, and in Munich from 1934 (with an interruption), until his retirement in 1957. After his initial labors in the history of church law as …

[German Version] I. Practical Theology – II. Law I. Practical Theology Basing themselves on the Christian conception of the human being, church schools attempt to dispense and configurate school education in such a way that the power of the gospel as well as the significance of Christian faith and its understanding of life can become experienceable in the pedagogical interaction of a shared conduct of life. Their legitimation is thus both theological and pedagogical. In their …

[German Version] I. Practical Theology The term school prayers refers primarily to prayers at the beginning or end of the school day or during breaks, along with prayers during religious education classes. In German public schools today – unlike the period of the denominational primary schools (into the 1960s) and also unlike in England, for example – such prayers are a marginal phenomenon. Scattered attempts to reintroduced school prayers like that of the Bavarian government in 1987 (Kaufmann, 32–38) e…

[German Version] I. Law In contrast with its imprecise meaning in general usage, which also includes social disparities, in law the term “privilege” has a more clearly defined meaning, which became increasingly precise in the course of history. It denotes a special right granted to an individual or majority group by sovereign act of a responsible authority. As a legal term it has its origin in Roman law; in the Middle Ages it was developed essentially by the church, but used also by the emperor. In…

[German Version] I. Law 1. “Broadcasting” has a wider, meaning in law than in everyday language. State broadcasting agreements typically define broadcasting as “the organization and distribution of presentations of any kind in word, sound, and image by the use of electrical oscillations . . .” (Ger. State Broadcasting Agreement, §2, para. 1 [June 7, 2002 ed.]). This covers not only radio and television (including Pay-TV), but also sound and moving picture services, screen texts etc. (the inclusion of…

[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] 1. Julius (May 10, 1857, Lengerich, Westphalia – Jun 7, 1930, Münster), together with F. Spitta, a leader of the “Older Liturgical Movement.” After studying theology at Bonn, Halle, and Göttingen, he succeeded Spitta as assistant preacher in Bonn. He received his license to teach in 1884 and was appointed pastor in Seelscheid. In 1891 he was appointed professor in the seminary at Friedberg and in 1893 professor of practical theology at Straßburg (Strasbourg). In 1914 he became the f…

[German Version] I. History Ever since classical antiquity, the theory of resistance and the right of resistance have been linked inseparably to the understanding of sovereignty and its limits in both civil society and the church. 1. In the Germanic tribal kingdom of Western, Central, and Northern Europe, three overlapping legal concepts legitimated a right of resistance: (1) the conviction that the ruler is not above the law but subject to the law (grounded in the tradition of the administration of justice by the community of all …

[German Version] I. Catholic – II. Orthodox – III. Protestantism – IV. Judaism I. Catholic Excommunication must be defined as a privative term from communicatio and κοινωνíα/ koinōnía (cf. 1 Cor 10:16: sharing and participating in the body and blood of Jesus ¶ Christ; cf. 2 Cor 13:13: communion in the Holy Spirit). The word excommunication does not occur in the New Testament. The competence of the church to excommunicate is traced back to Matt 16:18f.…

[German Version] I. History Religious education (RE) in schools, in modern usage of the term (for RE in a broader sense see Christian doctrine classes, Confirmation classes), is the result of the general differentiation process that led to the promotion of religious learning beyond the contexts of family and worship. The schools of the European cultural sphere arose largely in the area of the church (School and church, Church schools, Monastery schools); for a long time, schooling was essentially based on religious texts. Since each country established its own particular forms…

[German Version] I. Philosophy Natural law is the essence of the legal norms that claim to be binding on all human beings, independent of positive laws and conventions. The term goes back to the distinction between nature( phýsis) and law ( nómos; Law/Natural law), put forward by the Sophists of the 5th century bce in order to challenge the traditional positive laws. According to Antiphon, the precepts of such laws are arbitrary, whereas the precepts of nature, which articulate individual benefit, are necessary (DK, frgm. B 44). Plato presents a v…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The term substitution, originating in the language of law, is used primarily in Christian theology, but it is well suited for use in religious studies as well, even though so far there has been no detailed systematic treatment of it. In the most general sense, we speak of substitution when the true subject affected or acting (God, an individual like the king, or a collective) is represented by another ¶ entity (a person or group, an animal, or an object) as a substitute involved (actively or passively) in the action, acting for the…

[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics – III. Philisophy – V. History – VI. Mission I. Dogmatics Freedom of religion, as generally understood, combines freedom of belief, of conscience, and creed, as well as freedom to practice one's religion (cf. German Basic Law, art. 4, §§1, 2), in one fundamental right. Dogmatics needs to clarify the relationship between religious certainty and freedom. A statement consonant with Reformation belief would run as follows: If Christian certainty, as certainty about the …