Church-State Relations in the East-West Interface
Kirkko-valtio -suhteesta id�n ja l�nnen vuorovaikutuspinnalla
Pertti Ahonen
2000-02-26 - 2000-03-15
This is the English version of the text. There is also a Finnish version. The versions are not identical. However, both share a joint Bibliography.
Outlining the Situation
The East-West interface where church-state questions may arise in the first place can be given a geographical delineation. It includes Eastern Europe, part of East-Central Europe, Finland with her "Western" and "Eastern" State Churches, further traditional regions of the Eastern Churches, and, finally, the diaspora of those churches to further parts of the world including the United States and Western Europe.
The topic receives importance from the EU Eastern Enlargement and the type and shape of some of the countries in the two specified "waves" of countries that are likely to join the Union. The topic also receives importance from the geographical position of Greece and Finland as the easternmost Member States, Greece's Orthodox tradition, Finland's tradition of both a Western and an Eastern State Church, and the continuing need of the EU and the Member States to render support to CIS countries. Finally, there is the challenge that the EU meets to help Serbia to become a European country that will no more be an outcast in the European concert of nations.
In the year 2000 about 90 per cent of the citizens in EU Member States are members of Christian Churches. About 60 per cent of the citizens are Catholics, some 20 Protestant, and less than 3 per cent Orthodox.
The Situation in European Law
European Union law has already taken a standpoint as regards Churches in some of its legal norms. There are also certain cases in this field resolved by the European Court of Justice. However, the church-state problematique remains rather marginal in Union law so far. This was at least the case in the mid-1990 (Robbers 1996b).
The rules and practices of the Union do not close Churches or other religious communities outside the sphere of potential recipients of Union support for various types of Community-supported projects. For instance, religious associations are fully legitimate recipients of Community programmes in the field of education. This hints that the European mode of regulation is here juxtaposed with the one in the United States (e.g., Monsma & Soper 1997). There, a long-time constitutional "wall of separation" prohibits any form of state support to any religious community or any assocition affiliated to such a community. From a European perspective this may first sound surprising given the dominance of fundamentalist Christian themes in such occasions as recent American presidential campaigns. However, we are here doing with a situation that a de jure regulation has brought about rather the opposite to the de facto purpose of the original lawmakers. (Lehmann 1998, Lenhammar 1998, Bader 1999.) From the viewpoint of the finalistically oriented European law the American situation looks particularly alien.
There is also the interesting circumstance that the important principle of subsidiarity of European integration derives originally from Canon Law of the Catholic Church. It was spelled out as a contemporary policy principle in a Papal Encyclical. Here, all Christian Churches belong to important ones among the associations of society that have the primary role to act for the benefit of their members and for the citizens in general. Only if this is not enough, should a Member State or the Union take action to fulfill the subsidiary role they possess.
Further Political Science Points of View
The topic of church state -relationships with a special reference to the East-West interface is giving for political science also in other ways. Here, the topic brings the Byzantine tradition to bear. In genuine Byzantine tradition secular life remained a compromise reserved for those who could not do without it. According to that tradition, beneficial effects should flow from the Church to social life in general. On the contrary, effects from secular authority towards the Church should be minimal; secular authority should not intermingle in the matters of the church.
There is the paradox that, first, over the centuries, the Eastern Churches have suffered severely not only in the hands of foreign invaders, which they also indeed have. They have also suffered in the hands of the domestic governments in question including some of the Byzantines ones. The governments have tried to grab the governance of the Churches and subordinate them into state tools. Here, the Eastern counterpart of the subsidiary principle has frequently been slow to materialise or has not materialised at all.
Second, Eastern Churches have not been able to avoid violations of human rights committed by their members. Violations are violations even in situations of centuries of feud and revenge between ethnicities and religious communities. Given the role available for the Union in Europe, this is also a matter of importance.
Finally, there is the question on the national ways to regulate church-state relationships. In Europe there three type fo regimes in this respect are found (e.g., Monsma & Soper 1997). First, there are state churches (e.g., one in Greece, England, Norway and Denmark, and two in Finland). Second, there are contract solutions modelled along the concordats between the Vatican and various countries (most of the Catholic countries in Europe, and also Germany but prevailing between the state and two major Christian denominations). Third, there are solutions of a full separation between the state and the church, with the Netherlands being the foremost European example.
Each of the above regimes has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, the first regime is the strong to ensure democracy and observation of all human rights within Churches, although many see this regime as posing the risk of excessive dependency of Churches from the state. Variants of the regimes also exist, such as the German solution of the Catholic and the Protestant - and also the Jewish - denominations being fully separated from the state, but with important qualifications. In Germany, the state has awarded the right for those denominations to tax their members. There is also a state protection of the receipts with legal measures available towards non-paying members not differently than any non-payers of taxes.