The identity of the longest word in English depends on the definition of a word and of length.
Words may be derived naturally from the language's roots or formed by coinage and construction. Additionally, comparisons are complicated because place names may be considered words, technical terms
may be arbitrarily long, and the addition of suffixes and prefixes may
extend the length of words to create grammatically correct but unused or
novel words. Different dictionaries include and omit different words.
The length of a word may also be understood in multiple ways. Most commonly, length is based on orthography (conventional spelling rules) and counting the number of written letters. Alternate, but less common, approaches include phonology (the spoken language) and the number of phonemes (sounds).
Longest word in Shakespeare's works; longest word in the English language featuring alternating consonants and vowels
Latin
Major dictionaries
The longest word in any of the major English languagedictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters), a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis. The word was deliberately coined to be the longest word in English, and has since been used in a close approximation of its originally intended meaning, lending at least some degree of validity to its claim.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary does not contain antidisestablishmentarianism
(28 letters), as the editors found no widespread, sustained usage of
the word in its original meaning. The longest word in that dictionary is
electroencephalographically (27 letters).
The longest non-technical word in major dictionaries is floccinaucinihilipilification
at 29 letters. Consisting of a series of Latin words meaning "nothing"
and defined as "the act of estimating something as worthless"; its usage
has been recorded as far back as 1741.
Ross Eckler
has noted that most of the longest English words are not likely to
occur in general text, meaning non-technical present-day text seen by
casual readers, in which the author did not specifically intend to use
an unusually long word. According to Eckler, the longest words likely to
be encountered in general text are deinstitutionalization and counterrevolutionaries, with 22 letters each.
A computer study of over a million samples of normal English
prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an
everyday basis is uncharacteristically, at 20 letters.
Henry Carey's farce Chrononhotonthologos (1743) holds the opening line: "Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?"
Thomas Love Peacock put these creations into the mouth of the phrenologist Mr. Cranium in his 1816 book Headlong Hall: osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous (44 characters) and osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (51 characters).
James Joyce made up nine 100-letter words plus one 101-letter word in his novel Finnegans Wake,
the most famous of which is
Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk.
Appearing on the first page, it allegedly represents the symbolic
thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve. As it appears nowhere else except in reference to this passage, it is generally not accepted as a real word. Sylvia Plath made mention of it in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, when the protagonist was reading Finnegans Wake.
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", the 34-letter title of a song from the movie Mary Poppins, does appear in several dictionaries, but only as a proper noun
defined in reference to the song title. The attributed meaning is "a
word that you say when you don't know what to say." The idea and
invention of the word is credited to songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman.
Agglutinative constructions
The English language permits the legitimate extension of existing
words to serve new purposes by the addition of prefixes and suffixes.
This is sometimes referred to as agglutinative construction. This process can create arbitrarily long words: for example, the prefixes pseudo (false, spurious) and anti
(against, opposed to) can be added as many times as desired. More
familiarly, the addition of numerous "great"s to a relative, such as
"great-great-great-great-grandparent", can produce words of arbitrary
length. In musical notation, an 8192nd note may be called a semihemidemisemihemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver.
A number of scientific naming schemes can be used to generate arbitrarily long words.
The IUPAC nomenclature for organic chemical compounds is open-ended, giving rise to the 189,819-letter chemical name Methionylthreonylthreonyl . . . isoleucine for the protein also known as titin,
which is involved in striated muscle formation. In nature, DNA
molecules can be much bigger than protein molecules and therefore
potentially be referred to with much longer chemical names. For example,
the wheat chromosome 3B contains almost 1 billion base pairs, so the sequence of one of its strands, if written out in full like Adenilyladenilylguanilylcystidylthymidyl . . . , would be about 8billion letters long. The longest published word, Acetylseryltyrosylseryliso . . . serine, referring to the coat protein of a certain strain of tobacco mosaic virus (P03575), is 1,185 letters long, and appeared in the American Chemical Society's Chemical Abstracts Service in 1964 and 1966.
In 1965, the Chemical Abstracts Service overhauled its naming system
and started discouraging excessively long names. In 2011, a dictionary
broke this record with a 1909-letter word describing the trpA protein (P0A877).
John Horton Conway and Landon Curt Noll developed an open-ended system for naming powers of 10, in which one sexmilliaquingentsexagintillion, coming from the Latin name for 6560, is the name for 103(6560+1) = 1019683. Under the long number scale, it would be 106(6560) = 1039360.
Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic, at 52 letters, describing the spa waters at Bath, England, is attributed to Dr. Edward Strother (1675–1737). The word is composed of the following elements:
The longest officially recognized place name in an English-speaking country is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (85 letters), which is a hill in New Zealand. The name is in the Māori language.
A widely recognized version of the name is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
(85 letters), which appears on the signpost at the location (see the
photo on this page). In Māori, the digraphs ng and wh are each treated as single letters.
The 58-letter name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the name of a town on Anglesey, an island of Wales. In terms of the traditional Welsh alphabet, the name is only 51 letters long, as certain digraphs in Welsh are considered as single letters, for instance ll, ng and ch.
It is generally agreed, however, that this invented name, adopted in
the mid-19th century, was contrived solely to be the longest name of any
town in Britain. The official name of the place is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, commonly abbreviated to Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.
The longest non-contrived place name in the United Kingdom which is a single non-hyphenated word is Cottonshopeburnfoot (19 letters) and the longest which is hyphenated is Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe (29 characters).
From about 1975 to 1985, the recordholder was Adolph Blaine
Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd
Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor
William Xerxes Yancy Zeus
Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffvoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvorandieerscheinenwanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortplanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum,
Senior (746 letters), also known as Wolfe+585, Senior.
After 1985 Guinness briefly awarded the record to a newborn girl with a longer name. The category was removed shortly afterward.
Long birth names are often coined in protest of naming laws or for other personal reasons.
The naming law in Sweden
was challenged by parents Lasse Diding and Elisabeth Hallin, who
proposed the given name "Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116"
for their child (pronounced [ˈǎlːbɪn], 43 characters), which was rejected by a district court in Halmstad, southern Sweden.
Words with certain characteristics of notable length
Strengths is the longest word in the English language containing only one vowel letter.
Euouae, a medieval
musical term, is the longest English word consisting only of vowels,
and the word with the most consecutive vowels. However, the "word"
itself is simply a mnemonic consisting of the vowels to be sung in the phrase "seculorum Amen" at the end of the lesser doxology. (Although u was often used interchangeably with v, and the variant "Evovae" is occasionally used, the v in these cases would still be a vowel.)
The longest word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops, a grass genus. However, this is arguably a proper noun. There are several six-letter English words with their letters in alphabetical order, including abhors, almost, begins, biopsy, chimps and chintz.
There are few 7-letter words, such as "billowy" and "beefily". The
longest words whose letters are in reverse alphabetical order are sponged, wronged and trollied.
The longest words recorded in OED with each vowel only once, and in order, are abstemiously, affectiously, and tragediously (OED). Fracedinously and gravedinously (constructed from adjectives in OED) have thirteen letters; Gadspreciously, constructed from Gadsprecious (in OED), has fourteen letters. Facetiously is among the few other words directly attested in OED with single occurrences of all six vowels (counting y as a vowel).
The longest single palindromic word in English is rotavator, another name for a rotary tiller for breaking and aerating soil.
Typed words
The longest words typable with only the left hand using conventional hand placement on a QWERTY keyboard are tesseradecades, aftercataracts, dereverberated, dereverberates and the more common but sometimes hyphenated sweaterdresses. Using the right hand alone, the longest word that can be typed is johnny-jump-up, or, excluding hyphens, monimolimnion and phyllophyllin.
The longest English word typable using only the top row of letters has 11 letters: rupturewort. The word teetertotter (used in North American English) is longer at 12 letters, although it is usually spelled with a hyphen.
The longest using only the middle row is shakalshas (10 letters). Nine-letter words include flagfalls; eight-letter words include galahads and alfalfas.
Since the bottom row contains no vowels, no standard words can be formed.
The longest word typable by alternating left and right hands is antiskepticism.
On a Dvorak keyboard, the longest "left-handed" words are epopoeia, jipijapa, peekapoo, and quiaquia. Other such long words are papaya, Kikuyu, opaque, and upkeep. Kikuyu
is typed entirely with the index finger, and so the longest
one-fingered word on the Dvorak keyboard. There are no vowels on the
right-hand side, and so the longest "right-handed" word is crwths.
Antidisestablishmentarianism (/ˌæntidɪsɪˌstæblɪʃmənˈtɛəriənɪzəm/ⓘ, US also/ˌæntaɪ-/ⓘ) is a position that advocates that a state church
(the "established church") should continue to receive government
patronage, rather than be disestablished (i.e., be separated from the
state).
In 19th century Britain, it developed as a political movement in opposition to disestablishmentarianism, the Liberal Party's efforts to disestablish or remove the Church of England as the official state church of England, Ireland, and Wales. The Church's status has been maintained in England, but in Ireland, the Anglican Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871. In Wales, four Church of England dioceses were disestablished in 1920 and became the Church in Wales.
In colonial America, the Church of England was disestablished in six
colonies despite its mild popularity in the 1780s; many Anglicans in
America began to refer to themselves Episcopalians.
Antidisestablishmentarianism is also frequently noted as one of the longest non-scientific words in the English language.
British philosopher Phillip Blond,
an advocate of the antidisestablishmentarian position, argues that
England's having a state church has prevented the country from embracing
any sort of ethnic or racial nationalism. Blond has stated that official patronage of the Church of England
has allowed the country to withstand and speak against totalitarian
ideologies of the 20th century that were plaguing other parts of the
world.
He further opined that "Just as we need the church to protect the
political, so we need it to protect the idea of civil society."
Blond concludes that the "church establishment in England creates a
more diverse political and social life, prevents religious extremism and
helps to minimise partisan conflict and secular violence." Giles Coren, a British writer, supports antidisestablishmentarianism because it allows all English people to receive meaningful rites such as marriage.
The word antidisestablishmentarianism, with 28 letters and 12
syllables (an-ti-dis-es-tab-lish-ment-ar-i-an-is-m), is one of the
longest words in the English language. It is estimated to be the 6th
longest word in the Oxford dictionary. However, the word is not recorded in Merriam-Webster's dictionary of American English.
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state (with or without legally explicit church-state separation) and to disestablishment, the changing of an existing, formal relationship between the church and the state.
The concept originated among early Baptists in America. In 1644, Roger
Williams, a puritan minister and founder of the state of Rhode Island
and The First Baptist Church in America, was the first public official
to call for "a wall or hedge of separation" between "the wilderness of
the world" and "the garden of the church."
Although the concept is older, the exact phrase "separation of church
and state" is derived from "wall of separation between Church &
State," a term coined by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to members of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut. The concept was promoted by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke.
In a society, the degree of political separation between the
church and the civil state is determined by the legal structures and
prevalent legal views that define the proper relationship between
organized religion and the state. The arm's length principle
proposes a relationship wherein the two political entities interact as
organizations each independent of the authority of the other. The strict
application of the secular principle of laïcité
is used in France, while secular societies such as Denmark and England
maintain a form of constitutional recognition of an official state religion.
The philosophy of the separation of the church from the civil state parallels the philosophies of secularism, disestablishmentarianism, religious liberty, and religious pluralism. By way of these philosophies, the European states assumed some of the social roles of the church in form of the welfare state, a social shift that produced a culturally secular population and public sphere. In practice, church–state separation varies from total separation, mandated by the country's political constitution, as in India and Singapore, to a state religion, as in the Maldives.
History of the concept and term
The
precise origin of the term itself dates to Jefferson and his
correspondence with religious denominations, however, the entanglement
of religion with government and the state dates back to antiquity when
state and religion were often closely associated with one another.
The entanglement of religion with the state has a long history dating
back at least to the prosecution and conviction to death of Socrates
for impiety in ancient Athens.
An important contributor to the discussion concerning the proper relationship between Church and state was St. Augustine, who in The City of God,
Book XIX, Chapter 17, examined the ideal relationship between the
"earthly city" and the "city of God". In this work, Augustine posited
that major points of overlap were to be found between the "earthly city"
and the "city of God", especially as people need to live together and
get along on earth. Thus, Augustine held, apposite to the separation of
church and state, that it was the work of the "temporal city" to make it
possible for a "heavenly city" to be established on earth.
For centuries, monarchs ruled by the idea of divine right.
Sometimes this began to be used by a monarch to support the notion that
the king ruled both his own kingdom and Church within its boundaries, a
theory known as caesaropapism. On the other side was the Catholic doctrine that the Pope,
as the Vicar of Christ on earth, should have the ultimate authority
over the Church, and indirectly over the state, with the forged Donation of Constantine used to justify and assert the political authority of the papacy. This divine authority was explicitly contested by Kings, in the like of the, 1164, Constitutions of Clarendon,
which asserted the supremacy of Royal courts over Clerical, and with
Clergy subject to prosecution, as any other subject of the English
Crown; or the 1215 Magna Carta that asserted the supremacy of Parliament and juries over the English Crown; both were condemned by the Vatican. Moreover, throughout the Middle Ages, the Pope claimed the right to depose the Catholic kings of Western Europe and tried to exercise it, sometimes successfully, eg. 1066, Harold Godwinson, sometimes not, e.g., in 1305 with Robert the Bruce of Scotland, and later Henry VIII of England and Henry III of Navarre. The Waldensians were a medieval sect that urged separation of church of state.
In the West the issue of the separation of church and state during the medieval period centered on monarchs who ruled in the secular sphere
but encroached on the Church's rule of the spiritual sphere. This
unresolved contradiction in ultimate control of the Church led to power
struggles and crises of leadership, notably in the Investiture Controversy, which was resolved in the Concordat of Worms
in 1122. By this concordat, the Emperor renounced the right to invest
ecclesiastics with ring and crosier, the symbols of their spiritual
power, and guaranteed election by the canons of cathedral or abbey and
free consecration.
Reformation
At the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther articulated a doctrine of the two kingdoms. According to James Madison,
perhaps one of the most important modern proponents of the separation
of church and state, Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms marked the
beginning of the modern conception of separation of church and state.
Antichristus, a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder of the pope using the temporal power to grant authority to a generously contributing ruler
Those of the Radical Reformation (the Anabaptists) took Luther's ideas in new directions, most notably in the writings of Michael Sattler
(1490–1527), who agreed with Luther that there were two kingdoms, but
differed in arguing that these two kingdoms should be separate, and
hence baptized believers should not vote, serve in public office or
participate in any other way with the "kingdom of the world". While
there was a diversity of views in the early days of the Radical
Reformation, in time Sattler's perspective became the normative position
for most Anabaptists in the coming centuries.
Anabaptists came to teach that religion should never be compelled by
state power, approaching the issue of church-state relations primarily
from the position of protecting the church from the state.
In 1534, Henry VIII, angered by the Pope Clement VII's refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, decided to break with the Church and set himself as ruler of the Church of England, unifying the feudal Clerical and Crown hierarchies under a single monarchy.
With periodic intermission, under Mary, Oliver Cromwell, and James II,
the monarchs of Great Britain have retained ecclesiastical authority in
the Church of England, since 1534, having the current title, Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The 1654 settlement, under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth of England, temporarily replaced Bishops and Clerical courts, with a Commission of Triers, and juries of Ejectors, to appoint and punish clergy in the English Commonwealth, later extended to cover Scotland. Penal Laws
requiring ministers, and public officials to swear oaths and follow the
Established faith, were disenfranchised, fined, imprisoned, or
executed, for not conforming.
One of the results of the persecution in England was that some
people fled Great Britain to be able to worship as they wished. After
the American Colonies revolted against George III of the United Kingdom,
the Establishment Clause regarding the concept of the separation of
church and state was developed but was never part of the original US
Constitution.
The concept of separating church and state is often credited to the writings of English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). Roger Williams
was first in his 1636 writing of "Soul Liberty" where he coined the
term "liberty of conscience". Locke would expand on this. According to
his principle of the social contract,
Locke argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of
individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not
cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this
created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he argued
must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These
views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual
conscience, along with his social contract, became particularly
influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution.
In his A Letter Concerning Toleration,
in which Locke also defended religious toleration among different
Christian sects, Locke argued that ecclesiastical authority had to be
distinct from the authority of the state, or "the magistrate". Locke
reasoned that, because a church was a voluntary community of members,
its authority could not extend to matters of state. He writes:
It is not my business to inquire
here into the original of the power or dignity of the clergy. This only I
say, that, whencesoever their authority be sprung, since it is
ecclesiastical, it ought to be confined within the bounds of the Church,
nor can it in any manner be extended to civil affairs, because the
Church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the
commonwealth.
At the same period of the 17th century, Pierre Bayle and some fideists were forerunners of the separation of Church and State, maintaining that faith was independent of reason.
During the 18th century, the ideas of Locke and Bayle, in particular
the separation of Church and State, became more common, promoted by the
philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. Montesquieu already wrote in 1721 about religious tolerance and a degree of separation between religion and government. Voltaire defended some level of separation but ultimately subordinated the Church to the needs of the State while Denis Diderot, for instance, was a partisan of a strict separation of Church and State, saying "the distance between the throne and the altar can never be too great".
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies
solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for
his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government
reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign
reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that
their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a
wall of separation between Church and State.
The metaphor "a wall of separation between Church and State" used
by Jefferson in the above quoted letter became a part of the First
Amendment jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was first used by
Chief Justice Morrison Waite in Reynolds v. United States (1878). American historian George Bancroft was consulted by Waite in the Reynolds
case regarding the views on establishment by the framers of the U.S.
constitution. Bancroft advised Waite to consult Jefferson. Waite then
discovered the above quoted letter in a library after skimming through
the index to Jefferson's collected works according to historian Don
Drakeman.
Countries have varying degrees of separation between government and
religious institutions. Since the 1780s a number of countries have set
up explicit barriers between church and state. The degree of actual
separation between government and religion or religious institutions
varies widely. In some countries the two institutions remain heavily
interconnected. There are new conflicts in the post-Communist world.
Countries with a state religion
The many variations on separation can be seen in some countries with
high degrees of religious freedom and tolerance combined with strongly
secular political cultures which have still maintained state churches or
financial ties with certain religious organizations into the 21st
century. In England, there is a constitutionally established state religion but other faiths are tolerated. The British monarch is the supreme governor of the Church of England, and 26 bishops (Lords Spiritual) sit in the upper house of government, the House of Lords.
In other kingdoms the head of government or head of state
or other high-ranking official figures may be legally required to be a
member of a given faith. Powers to appoint high-ranking members of the
state churches are also often still vested in the worldly governments.
These powers may be slightly anachronistic or superficial, however, and
disguise the true level of religious freedom the nation possesses. In
the case of Andorra there are two heads of state, neither of them native
Andorrans. One is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Seu de Urgell, a town
located in northern Spain. He has the title of Episcopalian Coprince
(the other Coprince being the French Head of State). Coprinces enjoy
political power in terms of law ratification and constitutional court
designation, among others.
H. B. Higgins, proponent of Section 116 in the Australian pre-Federation constitutional conventions
The Constitution of Australia prevents the Commonwealth from establishing any religion or requiring a religious test for any office:
Ch 5 § 116 The Commonwealth shall
not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any
religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any
religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for
any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.
The language is derived from the United States' constitution, but has been altered. Following the usual practice of the High Court,
it has been interpreted far more narrowly than the equivalent US
sections and no law has ever been struck down for contravening the
section. Today, the Commonwealth Government provides broad-based funding
to religious schools. The Commonwealth used to fund religious
chaplains, but the High Court in Williams v Commonwealth
found the funding agreement invalid under Section 61. However, the High
Court found that Section 116 had no relevance, as the chaplains
themselves did not hold office under the Commonwealth.
All Australian parliaments are opened with a Christian prayer, and the
preamble to the Australian Constitution refers to "humbly relying on the
blessing of Almighty God".
Although the Australian monarch is Charles III, also British monarch and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, his Australian title is unrelated to his religious office and he has no special role in the Anglican Church of Australia,
despite being “by the Grace of God King of Australia”. The prohibition
against religious tests has allowed former Anglican Archbishop of
Brisbane Peter Hollingworth to be appointed Governor-General of Australia, the highest domestic constitutional officer; however, this was criticised.
Despite inclusion in the "States" chapter, Section 116 does not
apply to states because of changes during drafting, and they are free to
establish their own religions. Although no state has ever introduced a
state church (New South Wales
restricted religious groups during the early colonial period), the
legal body corresponding to many religious organisations is established
by state legislation.
There have been two referendums to extend Section 116 to states, but
both failed. In each case the changes were grouped with other changes
and voters did not have the opportunity to expressly accept only one
change. Most states permit broad exemptions to religious groups from
anti-discrimination legislation; for example, the New South Wales act
allowing same-sex couples to adopt children permits religious adoption
agencies to refuse them.
The current situation, described as a "principle of state neutrality" rather than "separation of church and state",
has been criticised by both secularists and religious groups. On the
one hand, secularists have argued that government neutrality to
religions leads to a "flawed democrac[y]" or even a "pluralistic theocracy"
as the government cannot be neutral towards the religion of people who
do not have one. On the other hand, religious groups and others have
been concerned that state governments are restricting them from
exercising their religion by preventing them from criticising other groups and forcing them to do unconscionable acts.
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan and its main cities
Islam is the dominant religion in Azerbaijan, with 96% of Azerbaijanis being Muslim,
Shia being in the majority. However, Azerbaijan is officially a secular
state. According to the Constitution of Azerbaijan, the state and
mosque are separate. Article 7 of the Constitution defines the
Azerbaijani state as a democratic, legal, secular, unitary republic.
Therefore, the Constitution provides freedom of religions and beliefs.
The Azerbaijani State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations controls the relations between the state and religions.
Ethnic minorities such as Russians, Georgians, Jews, Lezgis, Avars, Udis and Kurds with different religious beliefs to Islam all live in Azerbaijan.
Several religions are practiced in Azerbaijan. There are many Orthodox
and Catholic churches in different regions of Azerbaijan.
At the same time, the Azerbaijani government has been frequently
accused of desecrating Armenian Christian heritage and appropriating
Armenian churches on its territory.
Brazil
Rui Barbosa had a large influence upon the text adopted as the 1891 Constitution of Brazil.
Brazil was a colony of the Portuguese Empire from 1500 until the nation's independence from Portugal, in 1822, during which time Roman Catholicism was the official state religion. With the rise of the Empire of Brazil,
although Catholicism retained its status as the official creed,
subsidized by the state, other religions were allowed to flourish, as
the 1824 Constitution secured religious freedom.
The fall of the Empire, in 1889, gave way to a Republican regime, and a
Constitution was enacted in 1891, which severed the ties between church
and state; Republican ideologues such as Benjamin Constant and Ruy Barbosa were influenced by laïcité
in France and the United States. The 1891 Constitutional separation of
Church and State has been maintained ever since. The current Constitution of Brazil,
in force since 1988, ensures the right to religious freedom, bans the
establishment of state churches and any relationship of "dependence or
alliance" of officials with religious leaders, except for "collaboration
in the public interest, defined by law".
China, during the era of the Han Dynasty, had established Confucianism as the official state ideology over that of Legalism of the preceding Qin Dynasty over two millennium ago. In post-1949 modern-day China, owing to such historic experiences as the Taiping Rebellion, the Chinese Communist Party had no diplomatic relations with the Vatican for over half a century, and maintained separation of the temples (be it a daoguan, a Buddhist temple, a church or a mosque) from state affairs, and although the Chinese government's methods are disputed by the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the ordination of a bishop who was pre-selected by the government for the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 2007. However, a new ordination of a Catholic bishop in November 2010, according to BBC News, has threatened to "damage ties" between China and the Vatican.
[...] No state organ, public
organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to
believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who
believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. [...] No one may make
use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order,
impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system
of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to
any foreign domination.
Freedom of religion in Croatia is a right defined by the Constitution,
which also defines all religious communities as equal in front of the
law and separated from the state. Principle of separation of church and
state is enshrined in Article 41 which states:
All religious communities shall be equal before the law
and clearly separated from the state. Religious communities shall be
free, in compliance with law, to publicly conduct religious services,
open schools, academies or other institutions, and welfare and
charitable organizations and to manage them, and they shall enjoy the
protection and assistance of the state in their activities.
Public schools allow religious teaching (Croatian: Vjeronauk)
in cooperation with religious communities having agreements with the
state, but attendance is not mandated. Religion classes are organized
widely in public elementary and secondary schools.
The Constitution of Finland declares that the organization and administration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland is regulated in the Church Act, and the organization and administration of the Finnish Orthodox Church
in the Orthodox Church Act. The Lutheran Church and the Orthodox Church
thus have a special status in Finnish legislation compared to other
religious bodies, and are variously referred to as either "national
churches" or "state churches", although officially they do not hold such
positions. The Lutheran Church does not consider itself a state church, and prefers to use the term "national church".
The Finnish Freethinkers Association has criticized the official
endorsement of the two churches by the Finnish state, and has campaigned
for the separation of church and state.
The Signing of the Concordat of 1801 between France and the Holy See, 15 July 1801., which was repealed by the 1905 French law on the Separation of Church and StateMotto of the French republic on the tympanum of a church in Aups,
Var département, which was installed after the 1905 law on the
Separation of the State and the Church. Such inscriptions on a church
are very rare; this one was restored during the 1989 bicentennial of the
French Revolution.
The French version of separation of church and state, called laïcité, is a product of French history and philosophy. It was formalized in a 1905 law providing for the separation of church and state, that is, the separation of religion from political power.
This model of a secularist state protects the religious
institutions from state interference, but with public religious
expression to some extent frowned upon. This aims to protect the public
power from the influences of religious institutions, especially in
public office. Religious views which contain no idea of public
responsibility, or which consider religious opinion irrelevant to
politics, are not impinged upon by this type of secularization of public
discourse.
Former President Nicolas Sarkozy criticised "negative laïcité" and talked about a "positive laïcité"
that recognizes the contribution of faith to French culture, history
and society, allows for faith in the public discourse and for government
subsidies for faith-based groups. He visited the Pope in December 2007 and publicly emphasized France's Catholic roots, while highlighting the importance of freedom of thought, advocating that faith should come back into the public sphere. François Hollande took a very different position during the 2012 presidential election, promising to insert the concept of laïcité into the constitution. In fact, the French constitution only says that the French Republic is "laïque" but no article in the 1905 law or in the constitution defines laïcité.
Nevertheless, there are certain entanglements in France which include:
The most significant example consists in two areas, Alsace and Moselle (see Local law in Alsace-Moselle § Religion for further detail), where the 1802 Concordat between France and the Holy See still prevails because the area was part of Germany when the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State was passed and the attempt of the laicist Cartel des gauches in 1924 failed due to public protests. Catholic priests as well as the clergy of three other religions (the Lutheran EPCAAL, the Calvinist EPRAL, and Jewish consistories) are paid by the state, and schools have religion courses. Moreover, the Catholic bishops of Metz and of Strasbourg
are named (or rather, formally appointed) by the French Head of State
on proposition of the Pope. In the same way, the presidents of the two
official Protestant churches are appointed by the State, after
proposition by their respective Churches. This makes the French
President the only temporal power in the world to formally have retained
the right to appoint Catholic bishops, all other Catholic bishops being
appointed by the Pope.
In French Guiana the Royal Regulation of 1828 makes the French state
pay for the Roman Catholic clergy, but not for the clergy of other
religions.
In the French oversea departments and territories since the 1939 décret Mandel the French State supports the Churches.
The French President is ex officio a co-prince of Andorra, where Roman Catholicism has a status of state religion (the other co-prince being the Roman Catholic Bishop of Seu de Urgell, Spain). Moreover, French heads of states are traditionally offered an honorary title of Canon of the Papal Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, Cathedral of Rome. Once this honour has been awarded to a newly elected president, France pays for a choir vicar,
a priest who occupies the seat in the canonical chapter of the
Cathedral in lieu of the president (all French presidents have been male
and at least formally Roman Catholic, but if one were not, this honour
could most probably not be awarded to him or her). The French President
also holds a seat in a few other canonical chapters in France.
Another example of the complex ties between France and the Catholic Church consists in the Pieux Établissements de la France à Rome et à Lorette: five churches in Rome (Trinità dei Monti,
St. Louis of the French, St. Ivo of the Bretons, St. Claude of the Free
County of Burgundy, and St. Nicholas of the Lorrains) as well as a
chapel in Loreto belong to France, and are administered and paid for by a special foundation linked to the French embassy to the Holy See.
In Wallis and Futuna, a French overseas territory, national education is conceded to the diocese, which gets paid for it by the State.
A further entanglement consists in liturgical honours accorded to
French consular officials under Capitations with the Ottoman Empire
which persist for example in Lebanon and in ownership of the Catholic
cathedral in Smyrna (Izmir) and the extraterritoriality of St. Anne's in
Jerusalem and more generally the diplomatic status of the Holy Places.
Courtroom with Crucifix in Nuremberg, Germany, June 2016
The German constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but there is not a complete separation of church and state in Germany. Officially recognized religious bodies operate as Körperschaften des öffentlichen Rechts (corporations of public law, as opposed to private). For recognized religious communities, some taxes (Kirchensteuer) are collected by the state; this is at the request of the religious community and a fee is charged for the service. Religious instruction is an optional school subject in Germany. The German State understands itself as neutral in matters of religious beliefs,
so no teacher can be forced to teach religion. But on the other hand,
all who do teach religious instruction need an official permission by
their religious community. The treaties with the Holy See are referred to as concordats
whereas the treaties with Protestant Churches and umbrellas of Jewish
congregations are called "state treaties". Both are the legal framework
for cooperation between the religious bodies and the German State at the
federal as well as at the state level.
Greece
In
Greece, there is considerable controversy about the separation between
the State and the Church, causing many debates in the public sphere
regarding if there shall be a more radical change in the Article 3,
which is maintaining the Greek Orthodox Church of Christ as the
prevailing religion of the country. The actual debate concerning the
separation of the Church from the State often becomes a tool for
polarization in the political competition. More specifically, Article 3 of the Greek constitution argues the following:
“The prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Greek Orthodox
Church of Christ. The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord
Jesus Christ as its head, is inseparably united in doctrine with the
Great Church of Christ in Constantinople and with every other Church of
Christ of the same doctrine, observing unwaveringly, as they do the holy
apostolic and synodal canons and sacred traditions. It is autocephalous
and is administered by the Holy Synod of serving Bishops and the
Permanent Holy Synod originating thereof and assembled as specified by
the Statutory Charter of the Church in compliance with the provisions of
the Patriarchal Tome of June 29, 1850 and the Synodal Act of September
4, 1928.
The ecclesiastical regime existing in certain districts of the State
shall not be deemed contrary to the provisions of the preceding
paragraph.
The text of the Holy Scripture shall be maintained unaltered.
Official translation of the text into any other form of language,
without prior sanction by the Autocephalous Church of Greece and the
Great Church of Christ in Constantinople, is prohibited.”
Moreover, the controversial situation about the no separation between
the State and the Church seems to affect the recognition of religious
groups in the country as there seems to be no official mechanism for
this process.
Despite 80% of Indian population are Hindus, under the Constitution of India, India is a secular country and there are no special provisions favouring specific religions in its constitution. Jawaharlal Nehru declared India is a secular state in order to avoid Hindu nationalism and religious conflicts between Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism and other religions. Religious instructions are prohibited in schools wholly owned by the state.
As a result of such government power over religion, politicians are sometimes accused of playing votebank
politics, i.e. of giving political support to issues for the sole
purpose of gaining the votes of members of a particular community,
including religious communities. Both the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been accused of exploiting the people by indulging in vote bank politics. The Shah Bano case,
a divorce lawsuit, generated much controversy when the Congress was
accused of appeasing the Muslim orthodoxy by bringing in a parliamentary
amendment to negate the Supreme Court's decision. After the 2002 Gujarat violence, there were allegations of political parties indulging in vote bank politics.
In Italy the principle of separation of church and state is enshrined in Article 7 of the Constitution, which states:
"The State and the Catholic Church are independent and sovereign, each
within its own sphere. Their relations are regulated by the Lateran
pacts. Amendments to such Pacts which are accepted by both parties shall
not require the procedure of constitutional amendments."
Shinto became the state religion in Japan with the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and suppression of other religions ensued. Under the American military occupation (1945–52) "State Shinto" was considered to have been used as a propaganda tool to propel the Japanese people to war. The Shinto Directive
issued by the occupation government required that all state support for
and involvement in any religious or Shinto institution or doctrine
stop, including funding, coverage in textbooks, and official acts and
ceremonies.
The new constitution adopted in 1947, Articles 20 and 89 of the Japanese Constitution
protect freedom of religion, and prevent the government from compelling
religious observances or using public money to benefit religious
institutions.
Freedom of religion in South Korea is provided for in the South Korean Constitution, which mandates the separation of religion and state, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs. Despite this, religious organizations play a major role and make strong influence in politics.
The issue of the role of the Catholic Church in Mexico
has been highly divisive since the 1820s. Its large land holdings were
especially a point of contention. Mexico was guided toward what was
proclaimed a separation of church and state by Benito Juárez
who, in 1859, attempted to eliminate the role of the Roman Catholic
Church in the nation by appropriating its land and prerogatives.
President Benito Juárez confiscated church property, disbanded religious orders and he also ordered the separation of church and state His Juárez Law, formulated in 1855, restricting the legal rights of the church was later added to the Constitution of Mexico in 1857. In 1859 the Ley Lerdo
was issued – purportedly separating church and state, but actually
involving state intervention in Church matters by abolishing monastic
orders, and nationalizing church property.
In 1926, after several years of the Mexican Revolution and insecurity, President Plutarco Elías Calles, leader of the ruling National Revolutionary Party, enacted the Calles Law,
which eradicated all the personal property of the churches, closed
churches that were not registered with the State, and prohibited clerics
from holding a public office. The law was unpopular; and several
protesters from rural areas, fought against federal troops in what
became known as the Cristero War. After the war's end in 1929, President Emilio Portes Gil upheld a previous truce where the law would remain enacted, but not enforced, in exchange for the hostilities to end.
Norway
An act approved in 2016 created the Church of Norway
as an independent legal entity, effective from 1 January 2017. Before
2017 all clergy were civil servants (employees of the central
government). On 21 May 2012, the Norwegian Parliament passed a constitutional amendment that granted the Church of Norway increased autonomy,
and states that "the Church of Norway, an Evangelical-Lutheran church,
remains Norway's people's church, and is supported by the State as such"
("people's church" or folkekirke is also the name of the Danish state church, Folkekirken),
replacing the earlier expression which stated that "the
Evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State."
The final amendment passed by a vote of 162–3. The three dissenting
votes were all from the Centre Party.
The constitution also says that Norway's values are based on its
Christian and humanist heritage, and according to the Constitution, the King
is required to be Lutheran. The government will still provide funding
for the church as it does with other faith-based institutions, but the
responsibility for appointing bishops and provosts will now rest with
the church instead of the government. Prior to 1997, the appointments of
parish priests and residing chaplains was also the responsibility of
the government, but the church was granted the right to hire such clergy
directly with the new Church Law of 1997. The Church of Norway is
regulated by its own law (kirkeloven)
and all municipalities are required by law to support the activities of
the Church of Norway and municipal authorities are represented in its
local bodies.
In Article II "Declaration of Principles and State Policies", Section 6, the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines
declares, "The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable."
This reasserts, with minor differences in wording and capitalization, a
declaration made in Article XV, Section 15 of the 1973 Constitution.
Similarly, Article III, Section 5 declares, "No law shall be made
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious
profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall
forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise
of civil or political rights."; echoing Article IV, Section 8 of the
1973 Constitution verbatim.
Romania
is a secular state and has no state religion. However, the role of
religion in society is regulated by several articles of the Romanian
Constitution.
Art 29. Freedom of Conscience. (1) Freedom of thought and
opinion, as well as freedom of religion, cannot be limited in any way.
No one shall be coerced to adopt an opinion or adhere to a religious
faith against their will.
(5) Religious cults are autonomous in relation to the state, which
provides support including the facilitation of religious assistance in
the army, hospitals, penitentiaries, retirement homes and orphanages.
Art 32. Right to education (7) The state assures freedom of
religious education, according to the requirements of each specific
cult. In state schools, religious education is organized and guaranteed
by law.
The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Quran and the Sunnah (the traditions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and therefore no separation of mosque and state is present.
Singapore is home to people of many religions and does not have any state religion. The government of Singapore has attempted to avoid giving any specific religions priority over the rest.
In 1972 the Singapore government de-registered and banned the
activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in Singapore. The Singaporean
government claimed that this was justified because members of Jehovah's
Witnesses refuse to perform military service (which is obligatory for
all male citizens), salute the flag, or swear oaths of allegiance to the state. Singapore has also banned all written materials published by the International Bible Students Association and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society,
both publishing arms of the Jehovah's Witnesses. A person who possesses
a prohibited publication can be fined up to $2,000 Singapore dollars
and jailed up to 12 months for a first conviction.
In Spain, commentators have posited that the form of church-state separation enacted in France in 1905 and found in the Spanish Constitution of 1931
are of a "hostile" variety, noting that the hostility of the state
toward the church was a cause of the breakdown of democracy and the
onset of the Spanish Civil War. Following the end of the war, the Catholic Church regained an officially sanctioned, predominant position with General Franco. Religious freedom was guaranteed only in 1966, nine years before the end of the regime.
Since 1978, according to the Spanish Constitution
(section 16.3) "No religion shall have a state character. The public
authorities shall take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish
society and shall consequently maintain appropriate cooperation
relations with the Catholic Church and other confessions."
Sweden
The Church of Sweden was instigated by King Gustav I (1523–60) and within the half century following his death had become established as a Lutheran
state church with significant power in Swedish society, itself under
the control of the state apparatus. A degree of freedom of worship (for
foreign residents only) was achieved under the rule of Gustav III (1771–92), but it was not until the passage of the Dissenter Acts
of 1860 and 1874 that Swedish citizens were allowed to leave the state
church – and then only provided that those wishing to do so first
registered their adhesion to another, officially approved denomination.
Following years of discussions that began in 1995, the Church of Sweden
was finally separated from the state as from 1 January 2000. However,
the separation was not fully completed. Although the status of state
religion came to an end, the Church of Sweden nevertheless remains
Sweden's national church, and as such is still regulated by the
government through the law of the Church of Sweden. Therefore, it would
be more appropriate to refer to a change of relation between state and
church rather than a separation. Furthermore, the Swedish constitution
still maintains that the Sovereign and the members of the royal family
have to confess an evangelical Lutheran faith, which in practice means
they need to be members of the Church of Sweden to remain in the line of
succession. Thusly according to the ideas of cuius regio, eius religio one could argue that the symbolic connection between state and church still remains.
The articles 8 ("Equality before the law") and 15 ("Freedom of religion and conscience") of the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation guarantees individual freedom of beliefs.
It notably states that "No person may be forced to join or belong to a
religious community, to participate in a religious act or to follow
religious teachings".
Turkey, whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim, is also considered to have practiced the laïcité school of secularism since 1928, which the founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's policies and theories became known as Kemalism.
Despite Turkey being an officially secular country, the Preamble
of the Constitution states that "there shall be no interference
whatsoever of the sacred religious feelings in State affairs and
politics." In order to control the way religion is perceived by adherents, the State pays imams' wages (only for Sunni Muslims) and provides religious education (of the Sunni Muslim variety) in public schools. The State has a Directorate of Religious Affairs, directly under the President bureaucratically, responsible for organizing the Sunni Muslim religion – including what will and will not be mentioned in sermons given at mosques,
especially on Fridays. Such an interpretation of secularism, where
religion is under strict control of the State is very different from
that of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,
and is a good example of how secularism can be applied in a variety of
ways in different regions of the world. The exercise of their religion
in Turkey by the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Apostolic communities
is partly regulated by the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. No such official recognition extends to the Syriac communities.
Around a third of state schools in England
have a religious affiliation, with the vast majority being Christian.
At faith schools, the worship must be in accordance with the religion or
religious denomination of the school.
In state run Christian schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
(but not in privately run schools), there is a requirement for a daily
act of worship that is "wholly or mainly of a Christian character",
although in England, up to 76% of Christian affiliated faith schools do
not comply with the law and the requirement is not enforced by Ofsted.
Non-Christian faith schools are exempt (instead having to have their
own form of worship) and sixth-form pupils (in England and Wales) and
parents of younger pupils can opt out. Official reports have recommended
removing the requirement entirely. The High Court of the United Kingdom has ruled in favour of challenges, brought by pupil families supported by the British Humanist Association, to secondary-level religious studies exam syllabuses that excluded non-religious worldviews.
In England, senior Church appointments are Crown appointments;
the Church carries out state functions such as coronations; Anglican
representatives have an automatic role on Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education; and 26 diocesan bishops have seats in the House of Lords, where they are known as the Lords Spiritual as opposed to the layLords Temporal.
The Lords Spiritual have a significant influence when they vote as a
bloc on certain issues, notably moral issues like abortion and euthanasia.
The Anglican Church also has specific legal rights and responsibilities
in solemnised marriages that are different from other faith
organisations. Non-religious couples can have a civil wedding with no religious elements, but non-religious humanist weddings
are not yet legally recognised in their own right. Collective worship
makes prayer and worship of a Christian character mandatory in all
schools, but parents can remove their children from these lessons, and
sixth formers have the right to opt out.
The Church of Scotland (or Kirk) is the largest religious denomination in Scotland; however, unlike the Church of England it is Presbyterian
and (since 1921) not a branch of the state, with the Sovereign holding
no formal role in the Church other than being an ordinary member.
However, though the Kirk is disestablished, Scotland is not a secular
polity. The Kirk remains a national church
to which the state has special obligations; it is conventional that the
monarch, who is head of state, must attend the Church when he visits
Scotland, and they swear in their accession oath to maintain and
preserve the church. The state also gives numerous preferences to the
Church of Scotland and Catholic Church, particularly in education. The blasphemy law has not been abolished in Scotland, though it has fallen into disuse. Non-religious couples can have a civil wedding with no religious elements, and humanist weddings have been legally recognised since 2005 and enshrined in Scottish law since 2017.
The Church in Wales was disestablished in 1920 (although certain border parishes remain part of the Established Church of England). Unlike the UK Government and to some extent the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government has no religious links, though state-funded religious schools are routinely approved in Wales.
The Church of Ireland
was disestablished as early as 1871. Publicly funded Schools in
Northern Ireland are either State or Catholic maintained schools. State
schools can be classed as: Controlled (by the Education Authority),
Voluntary Grammar, Integrated and Special Schools. Irish-Medium Schools
are operated by both the State and the Catholic Church. Despite the
common notion of 'Protestant' and 'Catholic' Schools among many
citizens, all State schools accept all religions without bias, with the
exception of Integrated schools which require a set ratio of 40:40:20
Protestant, Catholic and Other (Mixed or non-Christian Religious).
An identification with the "Protestant" or "Roman Catholic" community
is sought on equal opportunities-monitoring forms regardless of actual
personal religious beliefs; as the primary purpose is to monitor
cultural discrimination by employers. Atheists should select which
community they come from; however, participation is not compulsory.
Religious Education is compulsory for all children up to the age of 16,
with the four major Church denominational bodies (The Catholic Church,
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, The Church of Ireland and the
Methodist Church) agreeing on the content of the syllabus, focussing on
Christianity and Secular Ethics. World Religions have to be introduced
between the ages of 11 and 14.
The First Amendment,
which was ratified in 1791, states that "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof." However, the phrase "separation of church and state" itself
does not appear in the United States Constitution. The states themselves were free to establish an official religion, and twelve out of the thirteen had official religions. The First Great Awakening (c. 1730–1755) had increased religious diversity in the Thirteen Colonies, and this combined with the American Revolution prompted the five southernmost states to disestablish the Church of England between 1776 and 1790. The Second Great Awakening
(starting c. 1790) further increased religious diversity and prompted
another round of disestablishments including New Hampshire (1817),
Connecticut (1818), and Massachusetts (1833).
The phrase of Jefferson (see above) was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. The Supreme Court did not consider the question of how this applied to the states until 1947; when they did, in Everson v. Board of Education, the court incorporated the establishment clause, determining that it applied to the states and that a law enabling reimbursement for busing to all schools (including parochial schools) was constitutional.
Prior to its incorporation, unsuccessful attempts were made to
amend the constitution to explicitly apply the establishment clause to
states in the 1870s and 1890s.
Williams was motivated by historical abuse of governmental power
and believed that government must remove itself from anything that
touched upon human beings' relationship with God, advocating a "hedge or
wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness
of the world" in order to keep religion pure.
Through his work Rhode Island's charter was confirmed by King Charles II of England,
which explicitly stated that no one was to be "molested, punished,
disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion, in
matters of religion".
Williams is credited with helping to shape the church and state debate in England and influencing such men as John Milton
and particularly John Locke, whose work was studied closely by Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, and other framers of the U.S. Constitution.
Williams theologically derived his views mainly from Scripture and his
motive is seen as religious, but Jefferson's advocation of religious
liberty is seen as political and social.
Though no states currently have an established religion, almost all of
the state constitutions invoke God and some originally required
officeholders to believe in the Holy Trinity.
In 1783, the United States signed a treaty with Great Britain that was promulgated "in the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity".
It was dipped in religious language, crediting "'Divine Providence'
with having disposed the two parties to 'forget all past
misunderstandings,' and is dated 'in the year of our Lord' 1783".
As the Government of the United
States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian
religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws,
religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan
nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from
religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony
existing between the two countries.
According to Frank Lambert, Professor of History at Purdue University, the assurances in Article 11 were:
...intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by
insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted
and enforced. President John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers.
Supporters of the separation of church and state argue that this
treaty, which was ratified by the Senate, confirms that the government
of the United States was specifically intended to be religiously
neutral. The treaty was submitted by President Adams and unanimously ratified by the Senate.
In the 1892 case Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, Supreme Court Justice David Brewer
wrote for a unanimous Court that "no purpose of action against religion
can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a
religious people. ... [T]his is a Christian nation."
Brewer, the son of a
Congregationalist missionary to Asia Minor, quoted several colonial
charters, state constitutions, and court decisions that referred to the
importance of Christian belief in the affairs of the American people;
cited the practice of various legislative bodies of beginning their
sessions with prayer, and noted the large number of churches and
Christian charitable organizations that exist in every community in the
country as evidence that this is a Christian nation. In doing so, Brewer
expressed the prevailing nineteenth-century Protestant view that
America is a Christian nation.
Believing with you that religion is
a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes
account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate
powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I
contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American
people which declared that their legislature should "make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church
& State.
Another early user of the term was James Madison, the principal drafter of the United States Bill of Rights. In a 1789 debate in the House of Representatives regarding the draft of the First Amendment, the following was said:
August 15, 1789. Mr. [Peter]
Sylvester [of New York] had some doubts. … He feared it [the First
Amendment] might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion
altogether. … Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry [of Massachusetts] said it would read
better if it was that "no religious doctrine shall be established by
law." … Mr. [James] Madison [of Virginia] said he apprehended the
meaning of the words to be, that "Congress should not establish a
religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law." … [T]he
State[s] … seemed to entertain an opinion that under the clause of the
Constitution. … it enabled them [Congress] to make laws of such a nature
as might … establish a national religion; to prevent these effects he
presumed the amendment was intended. … Mr. Madison thought if the word
"National" was inserted before religion, it would satisfy the minds of
honorable gentlemen. … He thought if the word "national" was introduced,
it would point the amendment directly to the object it was intended to
prevent.
Madison contended "Because if Religion be exempt from the authority
of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the
Legislative Body." Several years later he wrote of "total separation of the church from the state". "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States", Madison wrote,
and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil
Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the
Constitution of the United States." In a letter to Edward Livingston Madison further expanded:
We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do
better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be
doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity,
without than with the aid of Govt.
This attitude is further reflected in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,
originally authored by Jefferson and championed by Madison, and
guaranteeing that no one may be compelled to finance any religion or
denomination:
… no man shall be compelled to
frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry
whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in
his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his
religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess,
and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and
that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil
capacities.
Under the United States Constitution, the treatment of religion by the government is broken into two clauses: the establishment clause and the free exercise clause.
Both are discussed in regard to whether certain state actions would
amount to an impermissible government establishment of religion.
The phrase was also mentioned in an eloquent letter written by President John Tyler on July 10, 1843.
During the 1960 presidential campaign the potential influence of the
Catholic Church on John F. Kennedy's presidency was raised. If elected,
it would be the first time that a Catholic would occupy the highest
office in the United States. John F. Kennedy, in his Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on 12 September 1960, addressed the question directly, saying:
I believe in an America where the
separation of church and state is absolute – where no Catholic prelate
would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no
Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote – where
no church or church school is granted any public funds or political
preference – and where no man is denied public office merely because his
religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people
who might elect him. I believe in an America that is officially neither
Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish – where no public official either
requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the
National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source – where
no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon
the general populace or the public acts of its officials – and where
religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is
treated as an act against all. […] I do not speak for my church on
public matters – and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue
may come before me as President – on birth control, divorce, censorship,
gambling or any other subject – I will make my decision in accordance
with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be
the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures
or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to
decide otherwise. But if the time should ever come – and I do not
concede any conflict to be even remotely possible – when my office would
require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national
interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious
public servant would do the same.
The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of
church and state metaphor more than 25 times, though not always fully
embracing the principle, saying "the metaphor itself is not a wholly
accurate description of the practical aspects of the relationship that
in fact exists between church and state". In Reynolds, the Court denied the free exercise claims of Mormons in the Utah territory who claimed polygamy was an aspect of their religious freedom. The Court used the phrase again by Justice Hugo Black in 1947 in Everson. In a minority opinion in Wallace v. Jaffree,
Justice Rehnquist presented the view that the establishment clause was
intended to protect local establishments of religion from federal
interference. Rehnquist made numerous citations of cases that rebutted
the idea of a total wall of separation between Church and State. A
result of such reasoning was Supreme Court support for government
payments to faith-based community projects. Justice Scalia has criticized the metaphor as a bulldozer removing religion from American public life.
Pledge of Allegiance
Critics of the American Pledge of Allegiance
have argued that the use of the phrase "under God" violates the
separation of church and state. While the pledge was created by Francis Bellamy in 1891, in 1954, the Knights of Columbus,
a Catholic organization, campaigned with other groups to have the words
"under God" added to the pledge. On June 14, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill to make the addition.
Since then, critics have challenged the existence of the phrase in the Pledge. In 2004, Michael Newdow, an ordained atheist minister of the Universal Life Church
challenged a Californian law which required students to recite the
pledge. He said the law violated the First Amendment's Establishment
Clause. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the school system in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow
due to the fact that the father could not claim sufficient custody of
the child over his ex-wife who was the legal guardian and had opposed
the lawsuit.
Uruguay
In Uruguay the principle of separation of church and state is enshrined together with the religious freedom in Article 5 of the Constitution,
which states: "All religious cults are free in Uruguay. The State does
not support any religion. It recognizes the Catholic Church the domain
of all temples that have been totally or partially built with funds from
the National Treasury, excepting only the chapels intended for the
service of asylums, hospitals, prisons or other public establishments.
It also declares temples exempt from all types of taxes dedicated to the
worship of various religions."
The separation between church and state was officially declared in the Constitution of 1918 and preserved in the following ones. The secularization of the country, however, began at the beginning of the 20th century during the first administration of President José Batlle y Ordoñez as part of the reforms that sought the firm positioning of the State in the public sphere.
The measures included the prohibition of religious symbols in public
hospitals and government buildings, as well as the suppression of
religious teaching in public schools.
Religious views
Islam
The
separation of mosque and state happened very early on in Islamic
history. Muslim scholars were endowed and separated from the state,
which they became very critical of. The state needed the scholars
to legitimize their rule while the scholars did not need the state.
Thus, the scholars were generally independent, with some bumps in
history like the mihna being the exception rather than the rule. Richard Bulliet writes that during the colonial and postcolonial
periods of the Muslim world, a main goal of the political tyrants was
to remove the independence of the scholars via removing their economic
and social independence. The result is the doors of tyranny opened up
which is still visible today in many parts of the Muslim world. The Constitution of Medina which, in the words of Dr. Craig Considine,
was one of the earliest forms of secular governance, providing as it
did, equal religious and communal rights to Muslims, Jews and pagans,
while recognising them all as bound together by the identity of the
city-state.
Ahmadiyya
According to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community's understanding of Islam,
Islamic principles state that the politics of government should be
separate from the doctrine of religion. Special preference should not be
given to a Muslim over a non-Muslim.
Historically, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church have deemed a close relationship between church and state desirable wherever possible as per the 2105 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Orthodox churches have historically at times formed a "symphonia"
with the state, whether de jure or de facto. On the other hand, while
some Protestants hold views similar to those above, some Protestants refuse to vote, carry arms, or participate in civil government in any way, often leading to their persecution, as happened to Anabaptists, their descendants including the Amish, Mennonites, and Quakers, in the 20th Century. Anabaptist Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses, in many countries, believing by not participating they are closer to the Kingdom of God, since "Jesus answered (Pilate), 'My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight (to defend him).' " – John 18:36. For them, the term "Christian nation"
cannot be a valid governmental position, leaving only Christian people,
possibly in Christian communities, beyond which are the "things which
are Caesar's" – Matthew 22:21.
Methodism
In its section on National Reform, the Book of Discipline of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection states, with respect to Church and state relations:
It shall be the duty of the
ministers and members of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection to use their
influence in every feasible manner in favor of a more complete
recognition of the authority of Almighty God, in the secular and civil
relations, both of society and of government, and the authority of our
Lord Jesus Christ as King of nations as well as King of saints.
We should regard the successful
attempt to expel all religious instruction and influence from our public
schools as an evil of the first magnitude. Nor do we see how this can
be done without inflicting a deadly wound upon the intellectual and
moral life of the nation…We look upon the state as an ordinance of God,
and not a mere creature of the popular will; and, under its high
responsibility to the Supreme Ruler of the world, we hold it to be both
its right and bound duty to educate its children in those elementary
principles of knowledge and virtue which are essential to its own
security and well-being. The union of church and state is indeed against
our American theory and constitutions of government; but the most
intimate union of the state with the saving and conservative forces of
Christianity is one of the oldest customs of the country, and has always
ranked a vital article of our political faith.
Catholicism
The first full articulation of the Catholic doctrine on the principles of the relationship of the Catholic Church to the state (at the time, the Eastern Roman Empire) is contained in the document Famuli vestrae pietatis, written by Pope Gelasius I
to the Emperor, which states that the Church and the state should work
together in society, that the state should recognize the Church's role
in society, with the Church holding superiority in moral matters and the
state having superiority in temporal matters. Monsignor John A. Ryan
speaks of this Catholic doctrine thusly: "If there is only one true
religion, and if its possession is the most important good in life, for
states as well as individuals, then the public profession, protection,
and promotion of this religion, and the legal prohibition of all direct
assaults upon it, becomes one of the most obvious and fundamental duties
of the state. For it is the business of the state to safeguard and
promote human welfare in all departments of life."
In the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, issued by Pope Pius IX, the idea that "the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church" is condemned.
That the State must be separated from the Church is a
thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on
the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it
is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the
Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves
their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only
a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him.
Gaudium et spes
("Joy and Hope"), the 1965 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World, noted that "... the Church has always had the duty of
scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the
light of the Gospel."
The mission of the Church recognized that the realities of
secularization and pluralism exist despite the traditional teaching on
confessional statehood. Because of this reality of secularisation, it
also recognized and encouraged the role of the laity in the life of the
Church in the secular world, viewing the laity as much-needed agents of
change in order to bring about a transformation of society more in line
with Catholic teaching. "This council exhorts Christians, as citizens of
two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously
and in response to the Gospel spirit.". This was further expanded in Apostolicam Actuositatem, Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, of 18 November 1965.
Apostolicam Actuositatem, the Second Vatican Council's
"Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity", was issued 18 November 1965.
The purpose of this document was to encourage and guide lay people in
their Christian service. "Since the laity, in accordance with their
state of life, live in the midst of the world and its concerns, they are
called by God to exercise their apostolate in the world like leaven,
with the ardor of the Spirit of Christ." Francis Cardinal Arinze
explains that lay persons "...are called by Baptism to witness to
Christ in the secular sphere of life; that is in the family, in work and
leisure, in science and cultural, in politics and government, in trade
and mass media, and in national and international relations".
The Catholic teaching in Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council's
Declaration on Religious Freedom (1986), states that all people are
entitled to a degree of religious freedom as long as public order is not
disturbed and that constitutional law should recognize such freedom.
"If, in view of peculiar circumstances obtaining among peoples, special
civil recognition is given to one religious community in the
constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that
the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom
should be recognized and made effective in practice.
At the same time, the document reiterated that the Church "leaves
untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and
societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ".
The traditional teaching of the duty of society towards the Church is
described in the current edition of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, number 2105.
Pope John Paul II, in his 2005 letter to the Bishops of France
proposed that not only is Separation of State and Church permissible, it
is in fact a part of the Church's Social Doctrine. The Pope writes:
"Correctly understood, the principle of laïcité
(secularity), to which your Country is deeply attached, is also part of
the social teaching of the Church. It recalls the need for a clear
division of powers (cf. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,
nn. 571–572) that echoes Christ's invitation to his disciples: "Render
to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's" (Lk 20: 25). For its part, just as the non-denominational status
of the State implies the civil Authority's abstention from interference
in the life of the Church and of the various religions, in the spiritual
realm it enables all society's members to work together at the service
of all and of the national community. Likewise, as the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council recalled, the management of temporal power is not the
Church's vocation for: "The Church, by reason of her role and
competence, is not identified with any political community nor bound by
ties to any political system" (Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes,
n. 76 2; cf. n. 42). Yet, at the same time, it is important that all
work in the general interest and for the common good. The Council also
stated: "The political community and the Church... each serves the
personal and social vocation of the same human beings. This service will
redound the more effectively to the welfare of all insofar as both
institutions practise better cooperation" (ibid. 3)" LETTER OF POPE JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE
The Catholic Church takes the position that the Church itself has
a proper role in guiding and informing consciences, explaining the natural law, and judging the moral integrity of the state, thereby serving as check to the power of the state. The Church teaches that the right of individuals to religious freedom is an essential dignity.
Catholic philosopher Thomas Storck argues that, once a society
becomes "Catholicised" and adopts the Church as the state religion, it
is further morally bound: "'the just requirements of public order' vary
considerably between a Catholic state and a religiously neutral state.
If a neutral state can prohibit polygamy, even though it is a
restriction on religious freedom, then a Catholic state can likewise
restrict the public activity of non-Catholic groups. "The just
requirements of public order" can be understood only in the context of a
people's traditions and modes of living, and in a Catholic society
would necessarily include that social unity based upon a recognition of
the Catholic Church as the religion of society, and the consequent
exclusion of all other religions from public life. Western secular
democracies, committed to freedom of religion for all sects, find no
contradiction in proscribing polygamy, although some religions permit
it, because its practice is contrary to the traditions and mores of
these nations. A Catholic country can certainly similarly maintain its
own manner of life.", further:
If, under consideration of historical circumstances among
peoples, special civil recognition is given to one religious community
in the constitutional order of a society, it is necessary at the same
time that the right of all citizens and religious communities to
religious freedom should be acknowledged and maintained.
The Church takes stances on current political issues, and tries to
influence legislation on matters it considers relevant. For example, the
Catholic bishops in the United States adopted a plan in the 1970s
calling for efforts aimed at a Constitutional amendment providing "protection for the unborn child to the maximum degree possible".
Benedict XVI regards modern idea of freedom (meaning the Church
should be free from governmental coercion and overtly political
influence from the state) as a legitimate product of the Christian
environment, in a similar way to Jacques Le Goff. However, contrary to the French historian, the Pope rejects the conception of religion as just a private affair.
Friendly and hostile separation
Scholars have distinguished between what can be called "friendly" and "hostile" separations of church and state.
The friendly type limits the interference of the church in matters of
the state but also limits the interference of the state in church
matters.
The hostile variety, by contrast, seeks to confine religion purely to
the home or church and limits religious education, religious rites of
passage and public displays of faith.
The French separation of 1905
and the Spanish separation of 1931 have been characterized as the two
most hostile of the twentieth century, although the current church-state
relations in both countries are considered generally friendly. Nevertheless, France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy at the beginning of his term considered his country's current state of affairs a "negative laïcité" and wanted to develop a "positive laïcité" more open to religion. The concerns of the state toward religion have been seen by some as one cause of the civil war in Spain and Mexico.
The French Catholic philosopher and drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Jacques Maritain, noted the distinction between the models found in France and in the mid-twentieth century United States.
He considered the U.S. model of that time to be more amicable because it
had both "sharp distinction and actual cooperation" between church and
state, what he called a "historical treasure" and admonished the United
States, "Please to God that you keep it carefully, and do not let your
concept of separation veer round to the European one." Alexis de Tocqueville,
another French observer, tended to make the same distinction: "In the
U.S., from the beginning, politics and religion were in accord, and they
have not ceased to be so since."
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