§ 4. Church Law in the General System of Law

Since the Church is an autonomous institution, independent of anything earthly, her law too must be equally autonomous in the general system of law. Man’s activity develops outwardly either with regard to man’s own personality, or according to his position as a member of the state, and from this arise the corresponding legal relations of man, which comprise two separate spheres of law: private law (ἰδιωτικὸν δίκαιον, jus privatum) and public law (δημόσιον δίκαιον, jus publicum). But not all sides of man’s being are exhausted by these. By his nature man strives toward eternity, strives toward union with God.[1] Neither private law nor public law, nor any human law whatsoever, can satisfy this natural striving of his. Satisfaction of it he finds in fellowship with other people who are likewise moved by it, in community with all those who feel the need to rise up from the earthly to the heavenly and to unite themselves with God. A community with such ends has always existed in the world and always will exist, for such is the nature of man. In ancient times religion was identified with national and political interests, and all the various religions that then existed were either national or state religions, confined to one or another people, to one or another state. Accordingly, the law that concerned this or that religion could not be different from, or independent of, the very national or state law of that region where the given religion was professed. Jus sacrum among the ancient Romans was a part of jus publicum; and among the Jews too it was jus publicum. Christianity produced a radical transformation in this regard. It is bound to no particular people, still less to any particular state. The Christian faith is intended for all and for everyone without distinction of nationality and of state constitution, and as such it cannot in its basis be subordinated to any law that is conditioned by the national character of the given people, or by the political constitution of this or that state. Those who profess the Christian faith[2] are bound among themselves into one community which, according to the essence of Christianity, cannot be dependent on any national or state characteristic whatsoever, and must, as such, be autonomous. Since this is so, and it cannot be otherwise, so too the Christian Church, which represents that religious community on earth, cannot be in dependence either on national or on state characteristics, but must be autonomous, and must have her own peculiar law, church law.

Church law, as such, rests upon its own positive, self-originating sources, which proceed not from any earthly power, but from the power of Him who came down from heaven to found His kingdom on earth, to found the Church. “All power (πᾶσα ἐξουσία) is given unto me,” says Christ to His disciples, “in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:18-20). This power He handed over to His disciples, the apostles, who exercised it in His name. “Give me also this power (ἐξουσίαν ταύτην),” said Simon to the apostles, seeing that they themselves disposed of it (Acts 8:19). From the apostles this same power passed to the Church, and she has exercised it in all ages just as freely and independently as the Founder of the Church exercised it. By the force of this one, and no other, power, the constitution of the Church has been established according to that design which is prescribed in the Gospel; the necessary offices in her have been instituted, her administration ordered, the manner of life within her determined—in a word, there have been issued all those laws that concern the institution of the Church, and that comprise church law. This self-originating character of the sources of church law, and consequently of that law itself, is most plainly demonstrated to us by its history. From it we see that this same law existed and developed independently through the first three centuries of Christianity, when the state not only did not assist the Church, but did not even recognize the legal existence of the Church. When the state subsequently entered into union with the Church, church law not only lost nothing of its self-originating character, but, continuing to develop further on its already established foundations, it exerted its influence upon state and civil law, and helped to transform both the one and the other, as well as the whole social life of that world.[3]

From what has been set forth it is seen that just as there exist different legal relations in which man may find himself—either as a person in himself, or as a member of the state, or as a member of the Church—which legal relations are, in their particularity, essentially different among themselves, so too there must exist three separate spheres of these legal relations, and law itself must accordingly be divided into private law, public law, and church law; and thus the position of church law in the general system of law is just as autonomous as private law is autonomous in itself, and public law likewise.[4]