§ 228. State Toleration

The relation of state power toward the various religions is determined by the tendency that prevails in this or that state. The chief thing that determines that relation is whether or not there exists in a given state a “state” or “ruling” religion (religio dominans) established by law.

In those states in which such a “state religion” exists, the remaining confessions find themselves in the position of tolerated confessions, and it depends on the state power whether it recognizes for them more or fewer rights, more or less freedom and independence. One cannot theoretically establish, in such a case, the measure of state toleration. Here what is decisive, in the first place, are the political interests of the state, then the numerical strength of the adherents of one or another confession, their historical rights, and so on.

In those states, however, in which there exists no “state religion” established by law, the principle of equality of rights (paritatis) prevails for all confessions that are recognized by law in the state concerned. Where that principle is proclaimed and established by law, from it there flow the following legal bases: 1) Every confession has equal rights before the state, and the adherents of all confessions enjoy complete equality both in private and in political rights. 2) Every confession has complete freedom in the exercise of its worship and in the administration of its own internal confessional affairs. 3) Everyone is free, once he has reached the age of majority, to choose the confession he wishes, and the civil power is bound to protect him in this, should the need arise. 4) The adherents of one confession cannot be compelled to anything that does not concern their own confession; they cannot, therefore, be compelled to contribute anything for the purposes of another confession, nor to refrain from work on days kept holy by a confession to which they do not belong, and so forth. 5) The property of one confession may under no circumstances be applied to the purposes of another confession. 6) No priest of one confession has the right to perform any liturgical rite for persons belonging to another confession. 7) No child may be compelled to attend a school that is not of his own confession; and in schools where there are children of various confessions, the time of instruction must be so arranged that the minority too may freely fulfill its confessional duties. 8) No confessional community may refuse, in its own cemetery, a place of burial for a person who belonged to another confession, when the adherents of that confession happen to have no cemetery of their own. 9) Insofar as some civil law touches upon confessional relations, those confessional relations are to be judged in the sense of the prescriptions of the respective confession. 10) In civil legal relations in which a confession has an influence, those civil legal relations are to be judged with regard to the prescriptions of the confession concerned. 11) Every confession has the right, on average, to as much monetary assistance from the state as the state gives to other confessions. 12) If it should happen that there are no fixed state prescriptions with regard to certain legal relations of a confession, then there must apply to it those prescriptions which have already been issued for another confession. 13) Every confession has the right to be recognized and respected by the adherents of other confessions, and the state is bound to protect an insulted confession. 14) No confession may in any way whatsoever influence the affairs of another confession, and the state has the duty energetically to repel every attempt at such influence and to protect the freedom and independence of every individual confession.[1]

The aforesaid legal bases, and others that flow from them, hold good for those confessions which are recognized by law in the state in question. This recognition depends on the state power, which is guided in this by the principle that the confession in question, which seeks to be recognized as having equal rights with the others, contains within itself, as regards its teaching, worship, constitution, and name, nothing that would conflict with the general laws or that would offend morality.[2] Accordingly, no state recognition, and still less state protection, can be counted upon by any sect which professes something immoral, or something that is opposed to those fundamental truths of the faith on which morality rests.